Home Workout Mistakes to Avoid

In the last year, the global situation has forced many people away from their gym. Millions of people have had to start working out from home because of lockdowns, and other measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.

As much as that has caused severe disruption to the fitness industry, you can also perform excellent workouts from your living room. 

Nonetheless, you must perform home exercises in the best possible manner. You can still hammer your body and get into tremendous shape without gym equipment. But, there are many mistakes to avoid. 

This article will help you avoid common mistakes that will hamper your home workouts!

You are not pushing yourself till failure. 

When you’re not in the gym and not with your trainer – it is easy to avoid pushing yourself to the maximum. You should always make sure you are squeezing those last few reps and pushing those last few squats, sit-ups, and burpees out in an effective manner.

Moreover, you must increase your volume if you don’t have weights. To build more muscle, you have to create an overload. And you can achieve overload by adding more reps and more intensity. 

Failure is when you can’t perform the movement anymore, but you must complete the exercise with the correct technique and mindset. It is easy to go easy on yourself when you’re at home, but you must stay disciplined. 

Performing too much HIIT and not enough strength exercises 

In 2021, HIIT is incredibly popular for getting into shape and burning body fat. Many people fall into the trap of doing too much HIIT and losing focus on strength exercises. 

Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of believing “if it’s not hurting, it’s not working.” Therefore, people will fill their home workouts with high-intensity efforts to sweat a lot and raise the heart rate. 

However, these exercises tend to be inadequate for strength building. Although HIIT workouts are fantastic for fitness and can get your body into tremendous shape, you should look to implement some strength exercises instead of performing running on the spot and burpees for an entire workout. 

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Focusing too much on isolation movements 

If you focus too much on isolation movements, you can neglect a lot of muscle growth. When you’re working out at home, it can be easy to perform many isolation movements. However, the fitness rule is the more muscles you use – the more muscle that you gain. 

When working out at home, you shouldn’t forget to perform compound movements. These include squats, deadlifts, and pulls ups. Compound movements will always build more muscle than performing bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, and lateral raises. 

Moreover, many people use resistance bands to perform home workouts. Although these are fantastic tools for effective workouts, these should come after you have done some compound movements and pre-exhausted your entire body. 

It is unlikely that your home workout will consist of vast amounts of exercises, so the ones that you perform should be the highest-quality. 

You are not correctly warming up. 

It is always crucial to warm-up before you exercise because you will prevent injury, increase flexibility, and perform better. However, when you’re in the comfort of your home, it can be easy to skip the 5-minute warm-up and go straight into a workout. 

However, you can make your warm-ups fun. If you perform simple star jumps before a workout; you can reap enormous benefits and decrease injury risks. The best way to warm-up is by slightly raising your heart-rate, moving your joints, and mimicking the same types of movements you are about to perform. 

Thankfully, there are many excellent warm-up routines on YouTube, and they don’t have to be boring. 

Not stretching after workouts  

After your workout, it is so easy to take a shower and forget about stretching. However, if you fail to stretch after a workout, you will increase your chances of injury. Moreover, failing to stretch after a workout can lead to poor posture. 

Flexibility is something that many people decide to ignore during workouts, but the more flexible you are, the better you will perform exercises, and the safer your technique will be. 

For example, increasing flexibility in your hips and ankles will lead to better squats. Many people perform squats with poor flexibility and stiffness in the legs, leading to injury or bad performance. 

Final thoughts 

As you have seen throughout this article, there are quite a lot of mistakes you can make when working from home.

But, if you avoid them, you should be able to have effective home workouts. 

With that being said, just make sure to enjoy it!