Why Your Workouts Aren't Working

This article from Shape gives a list of ten reasons why your workout isn't working anymore. Let's briefly go through them:

1. You're doing the same routine over and over again and your body has adapted. Change it up every 6-8 weeks (although, there's some studies that show that you don't even need to change exercises, just change the rep range and the amount of weight you're using for each exercise and that should be enough to get past a plateau).

2. You're performing the repetitions to quickly (the article states to take 6 seconds for each rep and I think that's a little slow. If you take a controlled movement going down, pause a second, and then come up in a controlled manner, you'll be fine).

3. Get your rest between hard workout sessions. Your body repairs the muscle and breaks down the fat after the workout so give time for that to happen so you don't overreach.

4. Mix some intervals into your workout (it doesn't take a genius to see where I stand on this).

5. Lifting the wrong amount of weight. This is absolutely on the money. Go progressive. Don't just lift the cute little pink weights, challenge yourself but do it progressively so that you don't overtax your muscles too soon.

6. Squats and don't let your knees go past your toes. Absolutely disagree with this. I won't get long winded as I've already written about this.

7. Bend Over Lat Row. It's a good description of the correct form for these. The important piece of it is to make sure you're pushing your butt back to support your body and not just lowering your back down with your legs straight.

8. Tricep Kickback. These are just stupid in most cases. As a friend of mine Lou Schuler once said in an article, these are like Chinese water torture. You're doing a lot of them but not getting any real benefit because they're an isolated exercise and only working a very small muscle. Do pushups and their variations instead.

9. Crunch. I'm actually falling away from doing these as I've found other ab exercises to do that I think are much more effective, such as planks, side planks, bird dogs, mountain climbers, elevated pushups, just to name a few. But, a weighted crunch on a stability ball isn't so bad.

10. Dumbbell Bench Fly. I don't like this for the same reason I don't like the tricep kickback. So see number 8 above.

Clear as mud?

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