These mistakes have cost me weeks, months, and years of progress in my training career. I can’t let you make these same mistakes!
The four biggest mistakes I’ve made that nobody should ever do are lifting too often, not focusing on strengthening my stabilizer muscles, advancing too quickly after getting injured, and not prioritizing the training of muscles around my scapula.
Lifting Too Often
When I first began lifting weights in high school, I lifted weights Monday-Saturday training my entire body every session and rested on Sunday by only playing basketball for 3 hours every week.
Needless to say, I was constantly sore, injured, and in pain. I made little to no progress in terms of muscle growth and strength.
Even though I was constantly sore, I was proud of my ability to work out when I was tired because I felt that made me mentally tougher.
Anyone else have this mindset?
Anyway, this mindset made me continuously weaker and weaker until either I got sick (a sure sign of overtraining) or I got hurt.
In comparison, I lift weights 2-3 days a week now. I still train my full body every session, but my mindset has shifted, leading me to believe in only lifting weights when my body feels strong.
Additionally, I take deload weeks every 1-2 months to make sure that I don’t overtrain. This has led to me steadily increasing in strength and size.
As a personal trainer, I’ve encountered countless clients who believe that they need to train multiple times in between our sessions.
This often leads to them underperforming in our sessions because they are so tired.
I have actually found that the clients who come in with the right mindset for training are senior citizens!
They always make a point to tell me that they can only workout effectively when their body feels good and that they only want to workout 2-3 days a week.
I always give them a big smile because this is exactly what I want to hear!
Everyone should adopt a senior’s mindset for training!
Focus on working out intensely when you feel great and avoid working out when you feel poor because it will naturally reduce your intensity, reduce your risk for injury, and lower your motivation.
Stabilizer Muscles
Most athletes don’t understand how important their stabilizer muscles are until they’re injured.
They show up at a physical therapy clinic to rehab and they realize that their injury was caused by the small muscles they neglected, rather than the big muscles they focused on.
To explain the topic of stabilizer muscles properly, we need to clarify what they are first.
Most muscles can act as stabilizer muscles depending on the plane that the movement is being done.
Like most traditional lifters, I complete most of my movements in the sagittal plane, which involves movements that go from in front of the body to behind the body or vice versa.
“Anatomical Sagittal Plane” by Edoarado is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Exercises like squats, deadlifts, bicep curls, and bench press are all done mainly in the sagittal plane.
This work, “Exercises done in the sagittal plane” is a derivative of “Romanian-deadlift-2” by Everkinetic used under CC BY-SA 3.0, “Squats by Everkinetic used under CC BY-SA 3.0, “Bench-press-1” by Everkinetic used under CC BY-SA 3.0, and “Alternate-bicep-curl-2” by Everkinetic used under CC BY-SA 3.0.
The common stabilizers for movements like these are the muscles found along the sides of the hips such as the gluteus medius and minimus,
“Gluteus Medius Muscle” by Anatomography is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.1 JP
surrounding the shoulder joint such as the rotator cuff,
“Anterior Rotator Cuff” by Powellle is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
“Posterior Rotator Cuff” by Powellle is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
and running along the sides of the back such as the quadratus lumborum.
“Quadratus Lumborum” by Thieme – General Anatomy and Musculoskeletal System is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
This is because the job of the stabilizer muscles is to resist motion while the main muscles for the movement do their job.
During my workouts,my main focused used to be my main movements like pullups and rows.
In addition, my secondary focus were accessory movements that built muscle in visible areas like bicep curls.
This led to many injuries because I could no longer progress with my heavy movements due to the weakness of the stabilizer muscles used by these movements.
Charles Poliquin, the late GOAT of strength coaches, told a story of how he raised an athletes bench press by over 50 pounds in 2 months without training the bench press.
To do this, he used an exercise that focused on building up the strength of the stabilizer muscles.
(Check out this guide to the exercise, the Cuban Press, below!)
That’s why it is so important to train these muscles!
To focus more on building my stabilizer muscles, my training has become much more varied.
I regularly train movements in multiple planes such as lateral lunges for the frontal plane and med ball throws for the transverse plane.
This work, “Lunges in Multiple Planes” is a derivative of “Walking lunges 4” by Everkinetic used under CC BY-SA 3.0 and “Lateral lunge with bicep curl with dumbbell 2” by Everkinetic used under CC BY-SA 3.0.
My accessory work focuses on building muscle in my weak points, using exercises like the cuban press.
Additionally, I use single leg exercise variations throughout my training.
Single leg exercises like, reverse lunges or bulgarian split squats, allow me to lift challenging weights while challenging my stabilizer muscles.
This is due to the increased balance demands from balancing on foot compared to using two feet.
Scapular Movement is a Major Key to Upper Body Strength
“Shoulder joint bf” by Jmarchn is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
As you can see from this picture, the shoulder is a complicated part of the body.
This is due in part to the fact that for healthy shoulder movements to occur, both the glenohumeral and the acromioclavicular joints need to be moving in conjunction with each other.
To do this, the scapula needs to be able to move in many directions.
The problem is that some exercises, like the bench press, fix the scapula in one position and do not allow it to move freely.
This can lead to muscular imbalances if you use this form of training for long periods of time without trying different upper body pushing variations that allow the scapula to move such as pushups.
Today, my training largely avoids fixed scapula exercises like the bench press and instead, it focuses exercises like pushups and wide rows that encourage scapular movement.
This has been a major key to increasing the health of my shoulders!
Rushing Back from Injuries
Due to the mistakes above, I’ve suffered a variety of various small injuries during my lifting career.
From sprained ankles to herniated discs in my back to shoulder impingements, I’ve had injuries in every major joint of my body.
What I’ve learned from my injury experiences is that:
- Rehabbing from injuries normally takes more time than you think
- Don’t expect to return to your previous strength level after injury
- Focus on building both strength and mobility in full range of motion
During rehabilitation periods, exercises that focus on building your stabilizer muscle groups become even more important because in many situations you have to reteach your body how to move properly.
Keep in mind that the best thing you can do when you get injured is to find a physical therapist so that you can get the help you need. Recovery from an injury is a complex situation and only they are qualified to help you recover.
I would love to hear about some of your own biggest training mistakes, so make sure to leave a comment about them down below!
Peace!
