High Intensity Training: Common Newbie Mistakes

When I look back at my first few months of HIT (high intensity strength training) I can spot a few mistakes I made- well more than a few, but I think you get the point =).

I’m also frequently working with friends and family and get to see the errors made both during and after the work out. I’ve compiled a short list of the more common beginner mistakes below and detailed each one.

These are not in any particular order, although if one is especially important I will mention so.

1. Fixating on “soreness” and feeling “pumped”

(Coincidentally?) this is one of the most important mistakes to become aware of and came to my mind first when thinking of this list.

Time and time again, I hear people I train with focusing on the soreness resulting from intense exercise. And that’s only what I’m hearing. I’m sure people are even more fixated on this random effect mentally than they are voicing.

I know because I was once suffered from this line of almost obsessive thinking (and when people continually mention this concept it’s a dead give a way).

The fact is no one really understands muscle soreness to a great degree. It seems like a simple concept the “scientists” would figure out, but as far as I know, no one has yet (completely).

The reality is, being sore after a workout- immediately or days afterward- is not mandatory. In fact, from my experience, it is a random effect. It does NOT directly correlate to growth, so using it as a way to measure a “good workout” is an absolutely terrible idea.

For clarification purposes, DO NOT DO THIS, and stop doing it if you currently are. While proper exercise mandates a meaningful intensity, it does not require you to repeatedly tear slow twitch fibers in an attempt to “feel like you had a good workout”.

Exercise is a logical choice (more in a moment), not an emotional/romantic impulse to feed into.

I believe this is (one of) the ultimate fallacies of “cardio”, group exercise classes, “bootcamps”, and anything related. The idea that you have to leave a workout feeling like you moved a continent, instead of a mountain .

2.  Getting emotional during work outs

Exercise needs to be a logical choice, and performed with the most intense focus you can muster. It does NOT need to be emotional, in any sense. Meaning you do not have to get…

• mad
• angry
• frustrated

Or feel any other emotion for that matter, to have a productive workout. In fact it’s my opinion that the exact opposite is true for the best long- and even short- term results.

“The world is a tragedy for those that feel, and a comedy for those that think”-??

Using your emotions to exercise (a logical choice) will result in getting “burnt out” before you can make certain connections in your mind concerning training, and results.

It takes time to unravel years of misinformation regarding exercise, and doing what “feels right” instead of what produces measurable results will almost certainly prevent those positive mental connections.

For the short term, take a look at this video.

This is a friend I trained with not long ago. He’s an actor and a very emotional person. Even more so in the workout following the one filmed.

The result? Grimacing, valsalva (breath holding), and literally less intensity overall. How is that so when emotions come into the equation? (It seems the opposite would be true).

Focus.

Mental focus builds in time as you perform your workouts, week by week, workout by workout. Getting angry and emotional during a workout short circuits this adaptation as you (should) begin to understand that reaching “utter failure” is a major key to building muscle (and requires every ounce of effort you can put forth).

It short circuits it by a temporary spike in intensity, followed by an even lower drop in intensity for the following exercises.

Basically you can have that ferocious intensity for the entire workout if you remain mentally calm and extremely focused on the task at hand, or you can have that intensity for one- maybe two- exercises and then be burnt out on the rest. It’s your choice, but I highly recommend the former for best results, and your own mental health.

3. Not breathing (and ignoring the importance of rapid breathing)

There isn’t a whole lot to be said on this subject- your muscles need oxygen to work. The more you give before failure, the deeper the inroad. Breathe deeply the first few reps, and more rapidly as the need arises. Think “breathing makes it go” as you perform any exercise.

So it’s known, holding your breath helps you move a weight- it’s called valsalva. You should not be exercising to lug weights around though- which is a sport, not proper exercise- you should be exercising to inroad your muscles and induce them to grow.

That’s (primarily) it.

4. Grimacing

Grimacing takes focus away from the intended muscle group (and promotes breath holding). Not grimacing comes when you remove your emotions from exercise- or perhaps it helps in that regard…

Either way, don’t do it. At the very least it’s horrible to stretch the skin on your face like that. No one cares how cool you look in a gym- in fact it’s often times those who don’t grimace who are experiencing the most pain (a result of increased focus and intensity in the exercise).

5. Caring what other people think

This has to do with both of the above mistakes. Make no mistake about it, in a crowded gym, people will look at you funny when you breathe rapidly- or more often, become uncomfortable around you (almost timid, it’s weird).

Remember you are in the gym exercising (primarily) for a specific purpose- muscular hypertrophy. You are not there to impress anyone. Do not care what anyone else in the gym thinks or has (negative) to say about your training.

“Ignore what doesn’t help you”

And make no mistake about it, when people see you exercising in a high intensity fashion, they will want to tell you every little thing you are doing “wrong”. Politely excuse yourself, or just flat out ignore them if they continue to bother you.

And yes, this includes 99% of personal trainers in large commercial gyms. In fact given any breathing room they are probably worse than your average BodyBuilding.com t-shirt fanatic.

6. Being Overconfident in your recovery ability

Fast twitch fibers take anywhere from 4-10 days (or even longer) to fully recover. No matter how well you eat, sleep, or stare at the sky, this will not (naturally) change. In fact, it’s only when eating and sleeping right that it takes this little time to recover from an intense work out.

Do not become arrogant with your recovery ability, or ignore it in the first place and try to get in some “extra work” or god forbid “cardio”.

If you do some type of activity that even makes you question your recovery from your previous workout, take an extra day off. Remember that your muscles not only need to recover from the damage (yes, damage) done during the previous workout, but they need to grow.

Interrupting this process is downright counter productive, point blank period.

7. Taking less recovery days instead of more when the choice arises

This goes with the previous mistake, taking less days off instead of more when the choice arises (initially at least, you should be trying an array of recovery intervals in the long run).

Again, if you do some type of activity that makes you question your recovery, take an extra day off. This would include playing a game of football, moving into a new apartment/house, or even a long day on the boat fishing/tubing and what not.

Also, if you can not work out on the day you scheduled due to some unforeseen circumstance, do not work out the day before. The day after would be a much better option (more often than not). Although again, be willing to try a shorter interval, at the very least you will see a drop in strength first hand (because of course, you are recording everything religiously), which will help eliminate any remaining training angst.

8. Trying to convince all your friends to do it

This goes for any field or subject you find that goes against the conventional wisdom. Do not expect your friends and family to follow suit no matter how persuasive you are.

Focus on what YOU are doing and let them ask questions later after you’ve allowed your own results to happen- and I assure you, they will ask questions.

Furthermore, for people to be helped, they have to want help. Much like you are reading this very blog to increase your knowledge. Some people just haven’t cultivated this desire (which is for the most part, something you have no influence over).

9. Not working with a qualified trainer (if possible)

Even with the latest book on high intensity training, Body by Science, it’s no easy feat to get the ball rolling.

I highly recommend finding a qualified trainer in your area to start out or at least make sure you are doing everything correctly. At the very least, film one of your workouts and post it online for someone to critique what you are doing.

Also, check out Patrick Diver’s recent comment on the HIT: On Duration post regarding professional training.

10. Beating yourself up mentally after a set and considering re-doing it

Ha, I was the worst with this. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you reading this fall into the same mental trap- having ridiculously high standards.

You get done working out and your TUL (time under load) is 3 seconds- self timed- shorter for a given exercise.

DANG IT (insert profanity)!!!!

When in reality it was probably almost the exact same time- or something to that effect.

Or perhaps you get done, have a good workout (improved), but don’t “feel” pumped, or sore (as we already discussed).

Maybe I chickened out on some of the exercises, maybe I could have done more, maybe I should workout again tomorrow to “make sure” I have a good workout.

Yeah, you definitely shouldn’t.

You get one shot, one workout at a time. Make it count, and learn to let go of the training angst that’s (probably) held you back for so long. If you really did mess up, so what, be sure to give it your all next time, NOT prematurely.

______________________

And that’s it. I’m usually not a fan of “top 10″ lists, but hey ten is what I produced. Obviously the list could go on and on, but these are the ones that really stood out in my mind.

Have any questions about starting out on a BBS style workout? Feel free to ask here, or of course right on their blog.

Happy Monday

-Dream