How to make the most of your gym membership?

Rob Callow of HAVIT All Fitness Club in Brighton, Hove considers 5 common mistakes people make as part of their gym workout.

Well you’ve gone and done it! Joined the gym and you gonna get fit, lose weight and tone up. You’ve got bags of enthusiasm and motivation, can’t wait to get in there and start exercising.

The nice people at the gym gave you a tour and promised to provide you with a programme to achieve your goals.

However, if it was that simple then there would be a lot less personal trainers in employment!

So what are the 5 most common mistakes when people join the gym?

1. Not following a programme or recording your workouts - If you don’t have a record or a goal for your weight or cardio programme then how do you know if you are improving? Simple answer – you don’t!

2. Lack of intensity – how hard and how long you work does make a big difference to results and how many calories you burn. Intensity tends to painful so when you are knew to exercise pushing yourself is a skill to be learnt and one that often takes guidance and encouragement to achieve. Classes or 1 to 1 instruction do help here. It much easier to use group motivation and the encouragement of a personal trainer to raise the intensity level.

3. Resting too long and socialising – it’s very easy to give yourself “breaks when exercising”. For this reason leave your mobile phone in the changing room. One of the benefits of exercise is leaving other distractions at the door and concentrating on the exercise. If you have a 5 minute rest in the middle of your workout because work or your loved one called. These types of distractions will significantly detract from the results of your time in the gym.

4. Overestimating your calorie burn – the machines in the gym provide you with an indication of how many calories you could have burnt. This can be woefully inaccurate – they can be up to 50% higher than reality. Only wearing a heart rate monitor will give you an accurate indication of your calorie expenditure.

5. Not combining with improved nutritional choices – muscle gain and weight loss results rely on up to 70% nutritional choice. If the quality and amounts of your food intake are not monitored then your results are likely to be modest. When you start your gym programme, keeping a food diary and asking a personal trainer to advise you will undoubtedly help you achieve better results