10 Gym Exercises (YOU'RE DOING WRONG!)
Avoiding these common training mistakes will keep you injury free and on
the road !
1. Lunges
Lunges are an excellent resistance exercise that strengthen your lower
body, including your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. But you
can make several mistakes while doing this seemingly simple
exercise.
Mistakes:
● Although lunges help improve your body’s balance, they are not
balancing exercises. While doing them people often try to put one foot
right in front of the other in a straight line, as if walking on a tight
rope, and that’s wrong. You should place your feet a little less than
hip-width apart for every lunge.
● Another mistake people often make is that they take small steps
while lunging. If your feet are too close together, they will form a
triangle-like shape between your legs and this is not what you want.
Ideally, the space between the legs when you are in a lunge position
should form a rectangle.
● Every time you lunge, your knee should not touch the ground. It’s
perfectly fine if it sometimes does, but if this is how you do it every
time, then you have to change your ways. This practice can not only harm
your knees, but it also takes the tension off of your legs.
2. Dumbbell and barbell chest presses
Chest press exercises are great for strength building and are very
effective when developing chest muscles. But if they’re done wrong, they
can cause injury.
Mistakes:
● Keeping the elbows very close to each other is something that many
gym enthusiasts make the mistake of doing. By doing this, you are shifting
the tension away from your chest and toward your triceps and the front of
your shoulder.
● Another mistake is to flare your elbows out too far. When your
elbows are flared out too far you’ll be putting a lot of unnecessary
pressure on your shoulders and rotator cuffs.
● While doing these presses, you should also not curve your back too
much. You just need to bring your shoulder blades back and maintain a
natural lumbar curve in your spine — no more, no less.
● Also, remember that the weight should never end up directly above
or below your shoulders. At the end of the movement, the weight should
always be in line with your shoulders.
3. Cable flys
Cable flys are used to strengthen the pushing muscles of the body,
including the chest, triceps, and shoulders. If you are looking to beef up
your chest muscle mass then your exercising regime has to include this
exercise.
Mistakes:
● People often tend to bring their arms too far back and therefore
increase the risk of hyperextending and injuring the shoulder. When
lowering the weight, you should stop in line with your chest.
● A very common beginner’s mistake is to perform the exercise with
the elbows locked. This puts a lot of stress on the elbows and also
decreases the amount of tension that should be placed on the chest.
4. Bent over barbell row
Bent over barbell rows are an excellent weight training exercise that
target a variety of back muscles depending on which of its many forms you
chose to perform. This exercise is effective for both increasing strength
and increasing size.
Mistakes:
● A very common mistake while doing this exercise is to bend the
spine outward. Instead, you should push your shoulder blades back and fold
your spine down to maintain the natural lumbar curve.
● Another common mistake that people commit is pulling the barbell
up using your hands, when instead you should be using your elbows to pull
the weight up.
5. Cable tricep extensions
The cable tricep extension exercise works the tricep muscles by extending
your arms in front of you. This exercise is excellent if you want to have
sculpted triceps. But doing it wrongly can waste a lot of your effort and
can also cause injury.
Mistakes:
● Often while performing this exercise people do not lock their
elbows in place, because of this they end up engaging their lats, which
makes this exercise a lot less effective for the triceps.
● Another mistake we often see is when people keep their body
upright during this exercise. Instead, you should bend slightly forward to
get the full range of motion so that your triceps get properly worked
out.
6-Dips on parallel bars
If you want to work your biceps, arms, chest, shoulders, and abs, then
dips on parallel bars should be on your exercise menu. But doing them
incorrectly can ruin all the hard work you put in.
Mistakes:
● People often do partial reps because they don’t have enough strength
in their triceps to go down completely and then come back up. This
should never be done. If you lack tricep strength, do exercises to
increase it before attempting to do dips on a parallel bar.
● Some people also go too low while doing this exercise, that is also
not recommended. If you go lower than parallel with the floor, you’ll be
putting too much stress on your shoulders.
● A lot of people also try to keep their upper body vertical while doing
these dips. Even if you’re trying to concentrate on your triceps you’ll
be a lot better by off leaning at least slightly forward with your chest
in front of your hips during this exercise.
7-Cable tricep extensions
cable tricep extension exercise works the tricep muscles by extending
your arms in front of you. This exercise is excellent if you want to
have sculpted triceps. But doing it wrongly can waste a lot of your
effort and can also cause injury.
Mistakes:
● Often while performing this exercise people do not lock their elbows
in place, because of this they end up engaging their lats, which makes
this exercise a lot less effective for the triceps.
● Another mistake we often see is when people keep their body upright
during this exercise. Instead, you should bend slightly forward to get
the full range of motion so that your triceps get properly worked out.
7. Lat pulldown
lateral pulldown, or lat pulldown as it is popularly known, is a
compound exercise that works the muscles of the back. However, it is
absolutely necessary to perform it correctly if you want to reap its
full benefits.
Mistakes:
● Excessive swinging backward while pulling the bar toward the chest
is the most common mistake committed while performing this exercise.
This swinging is risky because it can cause back injury. Instead,
stand right under the bar to avoid this swinging.
● Also, avoid pulling the bar down too low. The best way to do this
exercise is to bring the bar right under your chin or until it touches
your upper chest.
● And remember to not keep your elbows too close together. You should
act as if you are trying to bring your elbows behind your back, but
stop when the bar reaches your chin or upper chest level.
8. Skull crushers
Skull crushers are a strength training exercise that stimulates the
entire tricep muscle group in the upper arm.
Mistakes:
● Many people flare their elbows out — don’t be that person. You
should keep your elbows close while doing this exercise. Because by
keeping your elbows far apart, you are not targeting your triceps
properly.
● Keep in mind that you should not curve your back too much while
doing this exercise. You need to bring your shoulder blades back and
maintain the natural lumbar curve, but that’s as much curve as you
require, not any more.
● Another common mistake is bringing the bar back and above the head
while bringing the weight down. Ideally the weight should come down
over your forehead.
9-Cable triceps extension workout
We have the option here to train for hypertrophy or strength here. If
you’re looking to build size and strength, follow a hypertrophy
workout. If you’re only interested in low rep, explosive power and
don’t want to increase triceps size, go for the strength workout.
For hypertrophy, aim for 10 – 12 reps, for 3 – 4 sets with a 1 – 2
minute rest time.
For strength, aim for 1 – 5 reps, for 3 – 4 sets with a 2 – 5 minute
rest time.
10. Raising your legs without any support
Trying to exercise without support is very counter-productive. In this
exercise, which focuses on your lower abs, it is a common
misconception to just raise your legs. There are much more effective
machines to do this at the gym. These will support your lower back and
workout the correct areas. So stop lying around on the gym floor and
get up on those fancy contraptions to do your curl-ups!
