Mistakes you have made

[vinylgroover]

In an effort to learn from each other and also offer guidance to those who may be starting out, what are some of the crucial mistakes or experiences that you have learnt from during your training career. It can be diet, steroids, supplements, training, mental etc.

Here are mine:

1. Not including deadlifts in my first routines.
2. Training with more volume rather than more intensity.
3. Working out with a training partner who had different goals.
4. Not 'testing' my strength enough by not continually overloading on exercises.
5. Working through injuries rather than resting and healing completely.
6. Not eating enough.

What are some of yours.

 

[skaman607]

not discovering elitefitness right away

 

[Lord_Suston]

trying to do pro's routines
Not eating enough
trying to increase weight too drastically
not enough rest
too much volume
not taking any time off

 

[Tarheel]

Doing sets to 10 for weeks instead of increasing the weight and struggling to get 8 with a goal of 10.

Not enough food.

I started out doing a lot of isolation work, but now its almost all compound.

 

[DrBones]

1. In my earlier years, doing chest 3x a week and back 0.
2. Not letting my injuries heal properly
3. Undereating
4. Not doing deads or squats for the first 4 years
5. Doing legs very seldomly over a period of 5 years.
6. Trying to cut and grow simultaneously

I'm sure there are a million other fuck ups... but those are the most significant I'd say.

 

[gonelifting]

Neglecting injuries
Not Eating enough FOR YEARS
Going to faIlure EVERY SINGLE SET + forced reps
Too many to list...

 

[gettinlarger]

scared to lift heavy, loooooong ago
didnt eat
too much volume
neglected squats and deads

 

[Rivaldo]

In no particular order...

- Too lazy to work my legs
- No squats/deadlifts
- Limited use of compound movements (bench press aside)
- Three intense chest workouts a week (flat, incline and dips)
- Limited pulling movements, excessive pushing
- High carb, extremely low fat diet without enough calories in years when I could've really blown-up (age 15-18)
- Extreme yo-yo dieting (led to some binging)
- Using worthless supplements (countless $s wasted)
- Training for show and ego

Plenty more, but those are the most obvious ones I can recall quickly!

 

[Thaibox]

For the first few years of lifting I made lots of mistakes. LOTS

overtraining
overtraining
overtraining
UNDER-EATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
not squatting
not deadlifting
Too much cardio
Too much partying
Too many isolation lifts and not enough compounds

Powerlifting? What's that?

Lifting for 3 hours straight because the more the better right?

Wasting my money on a ton of worthless weight gainers, HMB, Anabolic packs, andro, etc, etc

I probably wasted the first 4 or 5 years of my training thanks to these mistakes.

 

[PolishHammer1977]

V,
Here are some of mine:

(1) Rest; In high school, I never took a day off. Maybe that explains why I was 195.
(2) Workout time; I used to work out until my body had enough.

Can you say overtraining?

Those are my infamous two. It all balanced out though in the long run. If I researched a little more before I began, I would have been better off.

 

[zackdarnell]

Here are mine:
-Not eating correctly.
-Training too long
-Not deadlifting
-overtraining

 

[Exodus]

thinking that i could gain muscle by keeping my abs at the same time.
thinking that a pump means your growing.
listening to my coach
thinking that deadlifting more than 150lbs was bad for my back

X

 

[SAGAT]

In an effort to learn from each other and also offer guidance to those who may be starting out, what are some of the crucial mistakes or experiences that you have learnt from during your training career. It can be diet, steroids, supplements, training, mental etc.

Here are mine:

1. Not including deadlifts in my first routines.
2. Training with more volume rather than more intensity.
3. Working out with a training partner who had different goals.
4. Not 'testing' my strength enough by not continually overloading on exercises.
5. Working through injuries rather than resting and healing completely.
6. Not eating enough.

What are some of yours.

dude, mine are exactly the same as yours! freaky

 

[Thaibox]

thinking that deadlifting more than 150lbs was bad for my back

This is what kept me from doing deads until a few years ago. I've had a back injury since 1995, and have been told this deadlifting myth by all the doctors, nurses, and therapists. I had to question their knowledge and try it, only to find out deads were the best thing I could do.

Ignorance

They would shit themselves to see me doing DLs, SLDLs off a block, goodmornings, cleans and squats.

 

[DanielBishop]

I've had a few.

The first thing I did, was train from a book called "The Matrix Principle" which was all about light weight and high-reps.... half-reps, 1/3 reps, short rests between sets etc etc.... the book made a lot of sense to someone ignorant like myself, but I didn't gain much from it.

As well as that, I didn't eat enough and tried to avoid all fat (to try and get lean while gaining muscle) but eating all the carbs I wanted.

I didn't squat for a long time because of a knee injury, and didn't deadlift for a long time.

Probably did too many isolation movements and not enough compound also....

I still do a lot of things which I know hinder my potential, but I have my reasons....

 

[Karma]

Good thread-

I changed routines too much (still abit guilty of that)
Not working hard enough
Missing workouts
Being scared of getting fat, therefore not eating enough

 

[RusPA81]

I think my biggest mistake especially in my early years of college besides the ones you guys already mentioned is that I thought I could be a serious lifter and an extreme party animal. Unfortunately the two don't mix together rather well.

 

[louden_swain]

Here were my mistakes:

This applies to the first two years of training:

Starting out with bench presses instead of inclines
not resting enough
neglecting squats and barbell rows

 

[grlpwrd]

Mine's:

* Overtraining - by doing too much or too soon
* Not watching my diet - just because I train doesn't mean I can drink chocolate milk every day or eat fatty foods when I want
* Not taking advice from people who know what they are doing - an educated opinion can take you to the next level
* Not planning - if you expect to get anywhere, you need a map, right? That's why I keep a journal.