5 Unexpected Ways You Could Wasting Your Time At The Gym

You're paying for your gym time, so you want to use it wisely. Or do you? When we look around at the gym, it sometimes seems that our fellow lifters are happy to waste time.

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Here are a few ways to waste time and make no progress at the gym:

Stretch All Over to Waste Time at the Gym
To perform your lifts well, you need mobility, not flexibility. The truth is, a full Range of Motion (ROM) barbell exercise is sufficient to prepare for your workout. Extra stretching won't prevent or alleviate soreness or improve your strength, it can actually serve to be counter productive for your lifts.

Massage, Active Release Therapy, "foam rolling," and other techniques applied to the muscle themselves are actuually much more effective for increasing a tight ROM than stretching.

Cardio Warm-ups are a Great Way to Waste Time
If it's summer and you're already warm, then perfect, you're ready to get under the bar! It's only when there are cold temperatures that you'll need 2 or 3 minutes of jogging or rowing to warm your muscles before your workout. Even a quick jog around the building for a few minutes should do the trick.

Warm up with light versions of the exercises you'll be doing in the weight room (ROM eh heem ).

To warm up, start with the empty bar, do a few sets, gradually add weight, doing fewer reps as you the weight gets heavier. Take as much time as you need between sets to rest from the previous set. By now, you have effectively prepared the movement pattern aw well as the muscles - they are now "warmer" - as well as the nervous system that controls the muscles, for the movement you are about to execute.

More warm-up than that is a waste of your workout time.

Strength training and conditioning are two completely separate activities, and they must be kept separate if either is to improve effectively.

Don't Set Up a Workout Plan
To waste your time most effectively, wander into the gym without a plan, strolling from one machine to the next, making the rounds of your friends.

For efficient use of your time, you'll want a workout plan. A note of your exercises, reps, sets, and weights means you'll spend less time wandering and more time working out.

Forget About Supersets to Waste More Time
Maximize rest periods after sets: Fill them with conversation and your phone to waste the most time.

Or you could cut your down time in half by super-setting upper and lower body work. Save time by pairing exercises back-to-back, resting one set of muscles while you work another. Try squats, then pull-ups, for example.

Don't Bother to Prioritize Your Lifts
To waste time at the gym, perform half a dozen exercises for each muscle group. Don't focus on the main lifts.

Why? In the most efficient workout, the hardest work comes first. If you have time, other exercise can be added in afterward. Hey, it's your time!

See Related: Weight Machines Vs. Free Weights

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