I have an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from Acadia. Acadia is #blessed, because we actually learned how to train multiple different ways/people and actually had real life experiences. I am now a clinical exercise physiologist where I consult with physicians and am currently doing my masters in exercise oncology. What I’m trying to say is, I know my stuff.
Although, just because I know my stuff on paper and have had success with my own training and programming for others, doesn’t mean I haven’t made some mistakes along the way.
Here are 5 mistakes I’ve made with my own training:
1. Pretending like I knew it all
You post a couple Instagram videos with a lengthy caption and cite a few articles and people think everything you say is gospel. They continue to ask you questions, invite you to be part of panels and seek your advice on a lot.
I think people just assumed I knew everything, so sometimes I would lean into it. People would ask me for advice, they’d want to pick my brain and honestly, I couldn’t have cared less. I would say literally what I thought they wanted to hear and go about my day.
I guess I wasn’t really pretending like I knew everything, they had already made that assumption about me, so I gave them what they wanted to hear. I would give my opinion and pretend like there isn’t always two sides. If I am being REALLY honest, the stuff I do is so basic it’s laughable, but it works. So, when people are looking for a more intense or deep answer – I make a shorter answer longer by throwing in big words…
2. Chasing an aesthetic
I’ve written about this before, but when my time as a varsity athlete ended, I fell into the trap of working out to look a certain way. I did the body part split, hours of boring cardio and only ate salads. I was miserable as that type of life was not sustainable.
Once you realize that training and working out is a life long journey, chasing an aesthetic gets boring. You never truly feel accomplished when you a hit goal attached to looks, in my mind at least.
3. Judging body builders
When I found the light again and crawled out of that chasing an aesthetic hole, I became a hypocrite and judged people who did train like that. I underestimated the hard work it took to truly stand out in that realm of fitness and under appreciated some of the isolation work they do. It’s obviously not for everyone, but it did teach me the difference between perfecting a movement and perfecting muscle activation.
4. Not focusing on mobility
For years I skipped my warm-ups, cool-downs and recovery sessions… and I can say it’s catching up to me today. I have since found value in improving my range of motion in all movements and to prioritize time to prime my body before any training session. By doing this, my sessions and results have improved substantially.
5. Not maintaining an aerobic base/ improving my aerobic capacity
Long duration cardio always made me anxious. I’m 99.99% type 2 fibers through and through, so elevating my heart rate for a long period of time was never easy. I knew I sucked at it but never tried to be better at it. Knowing the benefits of a high aerobic threshold, I knew I shouldn’t be neglecting it. By implementing 1-2 days of long runs or bike rides each week, has really changed the way I recover between heavy sets and how I feel overall.
I’ve made many more mistakes over the years with my training, but these are the ones I think you may relate to the most!
If you’ve made it this far, here is a workout to try! If you try it out let me know or tag me in your IG stories :)
Part 1
3 rounds:
15 deadlifts
20 box jumps
50 Doubles Unders ( or100 single skips)
Rest 5 minutes
Part 2
3 rounds:
20 KB swings
40 calories on assault bike/rower