Are your weight-room errors hindering your results?

Lifting weights can help you drop pounds, lower your blood pressure, and improve bone density.  There is however, way more to lifting than just lugging around whichever weight is available at the gym. You’ve got to think about the perfect number of pounds, the best workouts, and the right number of reps and it can get overwhelming.

• Don’t Forget About Your Core

When you lift weights, you’re probably focusing on your arms, unknowingly neglecting your center. If your core isn’t on your radar, you could end up injuring yourself and this is due to your back having to compensate. In order to make sure you’re using the right technique, pay attention to your ribs: If they’re sticking out, your core is probably not engaged. To assume the right position, think about bringing your ribs together and bracing your core.

• Using Too-Light Weights

If you want to see true fat loss, you have to stick to heavy weights. You’ll build lean muscle, the kind that helps burn body fat faster, and save time in the long run. Go for a weight with which you can only get six to eight reps at most. Start light with good form and only add weight as you get stronger and can maintain form.

• You Don’t Have a Weight-Lifting Routine

You’re probably all aware that if you repeat the same exercises with the same weights for the same number of reps every time you lift weights, your body will plateau. If you keep changing up your routine, you never get a chance to progress and master anything to really push your body beyond what it is used to. You’ll be better off if you settle in with a three-day-per-week program over the course of about four to six weeks, and then,only once you’ve mastered it move on to another one.

• Give Free Weights A Chance

Sometimes the most effective equipment in what I like to call ‘the big boy gym’ is free weights. Lots of women skip the free-weight area because they are too intimidated. Using free weights is more effective than just sticking to the seated machines because you use your body in a more natural movement than being on a fixed machine, and it allows all of your stabilizer muscles to work, a lot more muscles working means more calories are being burned. Once you’ve mastered the basic movements, grab a dumbbell or two. For example, once you can perform six to eight bodyweight squats, try them holding a pair of dumbbells.

Lean legs and a tight tush are just a few tweaks away.

Squats are one of the best exercises for a stronger and fitter body, however, only if you do them right. So before you crank out another rep, make sure your squats aren’t falling victim to these all-too-common mistakes.

The correct position to squat

1. Letting Your Knees Fall In
   A combination of wide hips and weak inner and outer thighs makes this mistake pretty much ubiquitous among women. Unfortunately, when your knees move in toward each other during a squat, it can put undue pressure on your knee ligaments, resulting in injury. But correcting this mistake isn’t as simple as willing your knees into place. You need to strengthen your inner and outer thighs.
2. Not Lowering to 90 Degrees
   If you don’t complete the exercise through its full range of motion, therefore all the way down until your thighbone is parallel with the floor, you technically won’t fully engage your glutes and the upper part of your hamstrings. To train your body to complete the entire move, try practicing some squats in front of a knee-high box or step. Lower your body until your butt just barely touches the box, and then push back up.
3. Arching Your Back
   If you don’t have enough lower back strength, it’s easy to add some extra arch while squatting. The problem here is that dumps the weight into your lower back and means you risk injury to your body. To shore up your lower-back strength, try performing this dumbbell straight-leg deadlift.
4. Squat Over and Over Again
   If you aren’t regularly switching up your foot positions, you aren’t taking advantage of what a versatile exercise the squat really is. For instance, if you stand with your feet closer than shoulder-width apart, you’ll target your glutes. Take a wide stance, and you’ll work those hard-to-tone inner thighs. Move one leg forward a bit, and your booty will burn.
5. Lifting Too Little
   If you complete your squats with lighter-weight dumbbells in-hand, you might want to consider reaching for something heavier. “Women tend to think that because we want to slim our legs, we should do a lot of reps with a low weight,” says Montenegro. “But if you don’t lift more weight, you aren’t going to tone anything.” Plus, when you lift heavier, you burn more calories.
6. Going to Too-Great Pains to Keep Your Knees Behind Your Toes
   For so many years, it has been ingrained in our brains that the knees should never go past the toes when squatting. While letting your knees move past your toes increases the stress placed on them by 28 percent, trying to restrict any forward movement of the knees ups the stress placed on your hips by a whopping 1,000 percent. So instead of dwelling on your knees and toes, focus on starting the squat by pushing your hips back before lowering your body toward the floor.

If you’re looking to lose weight or get in your best shape in Dubai, Sharjah, RAK or any other area in the UAE, you should consider getting help from experts at Trainer.ae. A free consultation is minutes away, just fill in the form below and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

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Friends That Workout Together, Stay Together.

Let’s face it, losing weight or gaining muscle has never been easier when you have a friend to share the experience with. You both motivate each other out of bed or help them stop the temptations of unwanted junk foods.

Make your joint effort a breeze with these helpful tips:

When it comes to working out and losing weight, the whole process is hands-down easier when you have your friends and family standing behind you.  It is said that those who recruited three friends or family members to assist them in their quest to lose weight had better weight loss results than those who had no buddy system to fall back on.

While getting your friends to join you in your weight-slashing aspirations may seem daunting at first, it’s very important for both individuals. Understandably though,  there’s not always someone at our disposal willing to be our support system and undergo intense training with us when it comes to the long journey that is weight loss.

Check out these 3 suggestions for losing weight with friends:

1. Make it cheap

Sometimes the idea of a $50 a month gym membership may frighten your potential gym partner, everyone functions by a budget for the month to make their lives manageable. If you wish to bring together a group of friends to exercise regularly with, it’s super important to be mindful of the costs. Generally speaking, the less expensive you make it, the more people can join you and the more likely it is that people will stick with the program. Take part in activities like walking around your neighborhood or a park tracks that are obviously free.

The odds are that at least one person from your group will have some gym equipment (gym balls, dumbbells) at home, so why not  start a strength training group where members could meet at each other’s homes twice a week. You can all work out to an exercise video or do a workout you found in a book or magazine, with the motivational music of your choosing playing in the background. Many strength-training routines rely on just your body weight. Therefore, think squats, lunges, pushups, and crunches. But for a minor investment ($9 to $12), you each could purchase an exercise band. These multipurpose rubber bands offer all of the workout possibilities of a set of dumbbells.

And if you want to apply the same sort of economic thinking to healthy eating habits too. Then a possibility is to replace one of your regular outings to a calorie-heavy dinner on the town with an evening in with your friends, preparing your own food together. Not only does this satisfy the penny-pincher in all of us, but it also gives us far more control over what we are eating.

2. Make it easy (and convenient)

If we magically lived in a world where the word ‘tiredness’ didn’t exist, then you could agree to get up and meet your friends at 5:00 a.m. for a casual 10 mile run four days a week. But let’s be realistic, that fairytale ain’t happening anytime soon unless say your best friend is a gym obsessed fanatic. Same really applies for unrealistic and overly restrictive expectations for food choices. It’s better to start with an activity or a healthy eating option that involves a convenient time and location and does not seem like a task you’re going out your way to achieve. Make it easy for your friends to join you, and chances are your new routine will stick successfully.

3. Make it fun

The best part of the experience of training together, is to make it fun! You might even want to take advantage of preexisting routines. For example, if you have a weekly movie/sports night, then take this opportunity to serve healthy snacks instead of unhealthy ones. Here’s some ideas: