Edit: The 12 Days of ChristMASS competition is over. Thanks for reading and be on the lookout for any future competitions.
The best mistakes are the ones you don't have to make. That's one reason I became a trainer. I want to help people avoid some of the silly mistakes I made when I was new to weight-training. If you do any of the things I'm about to mention, don't take it as an insult. Remember, I'm listing the mistakes I've made.
Form Matters. Check your ego at the door.
This should probably go without saying, but if you're lifting a lot of weight with bad form, you're going to eventually hurt yourself. You may get away with it for a while but it will eventually catch up to you. Just ask my shoulder and back.
Supplements aren't magical.
Supplements alone will not help you. They are made to supplement your diet. As obvious as that sounds, it took me a couple of years to figure out. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I spent hundreds of hours researching the best supplements. If I had spent that time researching proper nutrition and training methods instead, I would be further along today.
High reps do not "tone" your muscles.
The only way to bring out your muscle tone is to be in a Caloric deficit and lose body fat. The myth of "toning" likely comes from the increased Calorie burn. As an added note, high reps (over 15) are also sub-optimal for muscle growth. Higher reps are geared towards muscular endurance.
Spot reduction is a myth.
This is a piggy back off of the last point. Many people will do very high reps on a particular muscle in an attempt to lose fat in that area. The most common example of this doing crunches to lose belly fat. Unfortunately, this does not work. Our bodies are genetically programmed to gain and lose fat in certain areas in a specific order and everyone's order is different. Again, the only way to lose fat is to be in a Caloric deficit and lose overall body fat.
Carbs aren't evil.
The first time I ever dieted or "cut", I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. The first thing I did was cut out nearly all carbs from my diet. I didn't understand the concept of macro counting at that time so I don't know exactly how many carbs I was consuming per day but I would venture to say it was probably less than 50. I did lose a lot of weight; however, most of it was muscle. At that point in time, I didn't have much fat to lose in the first place.
So there it is. I did the hard work for you. I made the mistakes and learned the hard way. I'll be making more blog posts about this topic so that hopefully none of you have to waste as much time as I did learning the best and easiest ways to transform your body.
Thanks for reading! At the end of the 12 days of ChristMASS, I am giving away a $100 Amazon gift card! There are multiple ways to enter. The following things will give you one entry each:
- Like the Treadaway Training Faceboook page.
- Share the Treadaway Training Facebook post containing any 12 days of ChristMASS article.
- Like any 12 days of ChristMASS post on Facebook.
- Tag 3 people on any 12 days of ChristMASS Facebook post.
- Repost any 12 days of ChristMASS intagram post (and tag me so I can see it).
This gives you 5 possible entries each day with 1 additional entry for liking the Facebook Page. God Bless and I'll see you tomorrow for the 12 Days of ChristMASS Day 5!
