To make the most of your time in the clubs try avoiding these big mistakes and you will see yourself progressing much more effectively, faster and quicker.

1- Going on very low calorie diets

If you are on the right programme and training regularly you need to fuel your body with the right amount of food. Starving yourself is never the answer. If you feed yourself according to your training regimen you will see your body changing more effectively as you will be toning muscles and losing body fat.

2- Avoiding free weights

Still way to many women are afraid of lifting weights as they think will make them grow bulky. The reality is that you need to use resistance training to change your body composition, lose body fat and tone your muscles. If you lose weight without resistance training your lean muscle tissue will decrease along with body fat and you will neither be healthier nor look any better.

3- Relying their whole training on classes

As fun and varied as they can be, relying purely on classes will see yourself hitting a plateau fairly quickly. Classes can play their part in your fitness journey but understand that in a room full of different individuals (high, strength, body composition, fitness levels..) with different goals, all following the same programme, someone is not going to get what they came for. You are unique and if you want specific results you will have to follow a specific training.

4- Listening to their boyfriend’s fitness advice

We all love our partners and want to spend as much of our free time with them but listening to their advices and training with them is not a great thing to do. Again, we are talking about 2 different individuals with 2 different training and nutrition needs. He probably wants to grow bigger in the upper body and when it comes to exercises like squats and deadlift He might be trying to grow stronger. As you can see unlikely to be the results you are looking for. Best advice train at the same time, but separately. 

5- Trying to fix what is not broken

I see it all the time on the gym floor, women working on balance and stability exercises (often with a Bosu balls) as if the reason they joined the gym is cause they can’t stand properly and keep falling all the time. The Bosu ball is a really good tool for rehab,  after an injury\operation patient have to retrain their muscles and tendon to sustain pressure in a controlled manner. If you do not fall into this category, you better use your time doing something else more related to your goals.

6- Thinking that an exercise will tone a muscle regardless of how they execute it

We all make this mistake. No exercise will hit a specific muscle group unless you first have full control on that given muscle and understand what is the purpose of the muscle you are trying to train. There are more than 600 skeletal muscles in the human body, your body can find countless ways to move weights in the same plane of movement.

Example: Gluteus, everybody will tell you to do Gluteus bridges and squats if you want to hit it. but unless you can fully squeeze that muscle in its full range of motion without load, putting load on it with bar and weights is going to be a waist of time. Do not expect the weight or exercise to do the job for you, They won’t do it!

7- Overtraining their abs

Many women still think that hitting their midsection regularly will get them a flat stomach. The truth is that if the body fat covering your abdominal muscles stays the same, you might end up strengthening your core and your waistline will look bigger. Crunches will not burn the fat from your stomach.

8- Having runway models and cover models as criteria

First, every fashion magazine picture you see is being retouch and modified by professionals. Second, you have to understand the difference between an untrained and malnourish body and a trained\athletic one.