I can’t tell you how many times I see people walking on the treadmill chatting on the phone, or lifting weights rapidly with clearly little effort.  Yes, it’s great that you are in the gym.  That is often a rationale; “Well, at least I’m here.”   If you have been really inactive and/or are very overweight, yes, then any movement is going to be good.  But if you are fairly active and/or don’t have that much to lose, you need to put in more.  And even if some movement worked for a while, eventually, it just won’t cut it.

Focus.

Focus on your muscles as you work them.  Visualize your quads flexing, micro-tears in the muscles, growth, when you do squats.  Visualize your abs contracting when you crunch.  Visualize that definition that you hope to achieve.  Avoid rapid movement.  Slow, controlled movements with slow controlled breathing.

Breathe.

Exhale on exertion.  Easy alliterative phrase to remember. I like to try to use my core in every exercise I do, even running, by doing “isometric breathing” – deep breathes while contracting my abdomen.  Not only does this strengthen your core, and help sufficiently oxygenate your body, increase circulation and stabilizing your heart rate, but it also aids in creating that focus mentioned above.

Challenge Yourself.

 When you are lifting, lift to fatigue!  Don’t lift 5 lbs weights at 30 reps.  Instead, lift 25 lbs (or whatever you can) for 2 sets of 12 reps.  You should really struggle by the last couple of reps and have to fight to get that last one done.  That is working to fatigue. And work on increasing this.  Keeping a journal really is the best way to catalogue your progress.  Personally, I don’t do that anymore.  It’s just to cumbersome for me, personally.  I’ve gotten pretty good at remembering my weight levels and I kick it up as needed – as I feel strong enough.  Maybe I’ve been doing 40lbs on the barbell shoulder press and I may go for that 65lbs and realize I can only do 2.  I’ll stop, remove some weights, and try 50 instead. I’ll hit 65 soon enough!

Mix it up.

The body gets oh so bored, oh so fast.  And it adapts!  Mix up your cardio and weight routines to keep things intersting for you mentally, and challenge you muscles.

Don’t Slam the Weights! 

This is such a pet peeve of mine!  It’s SOOO annoying when people do this in the gym.  It’s loud, it damages the equipment, and they are not getting the proper workout.

 As I said before, slow and controlled movements.  If, for example, you are bench pressing on a gym machine, using stacked weights.  Yes, you are working hard and not half-assing it.  It is heavy!!! Excellent!  But do not slam the weight down at the end of every rep!  It’s loud and annoying, it damages the equipment, and this is not a slow and controlled movement.  Resistance is critical.  You are not working against resistance (isometric movement) when you let the weight slam down.  You are basically giving up at the end of every set.   Drop the weight down to just before it hits the stack below and pick it up again.  For a while you may slam a little, may need to check it visually, but eventually, you will know right where to stop without looking.  Your arms, legs, chest, back, shoulders, butt, etc. will thank you for it! (as will fellow gym patrons!)