If you’re making mistakes with your training, you’re not alone.  We’ve all done it, even the pros.  It’s just part of living and learning but wouldn’t it be nice if you had someone who could tell you what NOT to do before you waste your time doing it?  This is not even taking into account the fact that you could avoid injuries.

One of my favorite Weight Training Guru’s is Nick Nilsson.  Check out this picture and you’ll see why:

After my “slip”	After 2 Rounds of Metabolic Surge

I follow Nick’s lead on a lot of things – especially some of his workouts because you get results and you get ‘em fast.  That’s what keeps me going.  It’s kind of addictive.

Anyway, Nick wrote a new article I want to share with you on the 7 training mistakes he personally made.  Learn from it.  He’s the man.  I only posted part of the article but click on the link at the end of it and you can read the whole thing.

The 7 Worst Training Mistakes I’ve Ever Made…

By Nick Nilsson

In my 21+ years of training, I’ve seen and done a LOT of different muscle-building and fat-loss programs. I’ve performed (and created) more exercises than I can even remember and I’ve tried a plethora nutritional programs…some good, some bad.

And right now, I want to give you the rundown on some of the very worst mistakes I ever made while doing all these things.

I’m hoping by doing this, I can help you avoid making those same mistakes, saving you from frustration and potential injury.

Here we go…and these are in no particular order of severity or stupidity… …

 

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1. Too Much Barbell Curling

In my first year of training, I was constantly at the barbell curl…I curled so much that I ended up having near constant pain in both wrists. So what did I do? I bought some neoprene wrist wraps and kept barbell curling. Stupid.

Of course, keeping on with the curling just made things worst until I read one important fact about barbell curls…because your hands are locked onto the bar and because your arms are attached to your shoulders, the stress of the exercise ends up in the most vulnerable part of the arm…your wrist. The over-reliance on barbell curls lead to the wrist pain.

The solution: dumbell curls. Very simple. By allowing free rotation of the wrist, it takes all that torque off the joint. The problem cleared up within a few weeks.

The Lesson:

Don’t be overreliant on barbells for your training. This kind of strain can happen not only on curls but on just about any barbell exercise.

 

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2. I Didn’t Eat Egg Yolks

This is actually one of the funniest stories about my first year of training (when I didn’t really know what I was doing but thought I did)…for 8 months, I refused to eat egg yolks.

I thought (correctly) that that was where all the fat in the egg was.

What I didn’t realize is that it’s also where the vast majority of the beneficial nutrients of the eggs were. Yolks are also necessary to make egg protein complete (egg whites on their own are not complete in terms of amino acid profile – they’re good, but not perfect, like a whole egg).

The funny part is, I was eating fried cafeteria eggs at the time (6 every day)…fried on a griddle covered unidentifiable grease that I’m VERY sure contained at least 3 times the fat of those yolks I would cut out of my fried eggs (like an idiot). And by not eating the yolks, I wasn’t eating the lecithin found inside the yolks that would emulsify and help protect me from the effects of that terrible fried grease I was eating my eggs with.

Live and learn.

The Lesson:

Eat whole eggs unless you absolutely have to avoid fat. The cholesterol found in whole eggs is not going to raise your blood cholesterol…it doesn’t work that way. It’s the stuff your body makes itself that causes the problems, not the cholesterol you eat, which is why for those who have cholesterol issues, sometimes diet doesn’t help all that much.

To put that in perspective, in my 21 years of training, I would estimate I’ve eaten about 44,000 whole eggs. My cholesterol is just fine.

The protein and other nutrients found in the yolks is going to do you WAY more good than eating just plain egg whites.

 

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3. I Did a Hard Rotational Stretch as a Warm-Up

This was one of the most painful things I’ve ever done in the gym, and not in a good way. I was warming up on the incline barbell bench press and decided I need to loosen up my lower back and core.

While sitting on the seat (lower body basically anchored in place), I turned my upper body, gripped the bench and pulled my torso around…until I heard a loud “POP” and my lower back spasmed. I had just blown out a section of my quadratus lumborum, which is a small muscle that is just to one side of the spinal column.

It was like getting stabbed in the back with a hot fireplace poker. I could hardly move…and I still had to walk home from the gym! Instead of 10 minutes, it took me almost an hour, and I had to wear a weight belt cinched up in order to not collapse from the pain (I had to wear it to sleep that night, too).

To this very day, when I get lean enough, you can still see three little round “buttons” where the muscle detached from the bone and bunched up. I’m VERY lucky in that it didn’t completely destroy my ability to train my lower back…they were just small pops, but man, did they hurt.

The Lesson:

Don’t do hard stretching as a warm-up. Use general movements to get the muscles warm and the blood flowing, progressing to more specific movements that target the exercise you’re going to be working with first. You can also include some mobility work in your warm-up. Just don’t do hard stretching when your muscles aren’t warm or you might just pay the price!

 

 

4. Not Eating Enough Fat or Protein

After my first year of training, I gained 75 pounds of bodyweight…and I say bodyweight because it was NOT all muscle. So I decided to go on a fat-loss diet…and I did it completely wrong.

In an effort to reduce calories, I eliminated just about ALL fat from my diet. That’s mistake #1. I also decreased my intake of animal protein (in that same effort to reduce fat intake), which was mistake #2. I lost some fat but I lost a lot of muscle and strength doing this. It literally took me MONTHS to realize what my mistake was (I read an article about it), correct it and start regaining my muscle and strength.

I corrected it by eating whole eggs and not taking the skin off my chicken (…mmm chicken skin…)…and I suddenly begain growing like a weed, gaining strength and dropping fat. I felt so much better and realized exactly how I had messed myself up.

The Lesson:

Don’t be afraid of fat…it’s not your enemy even when you’re on a diet. Your body NEEDS fat in order to function, especially from a hormonal perspective (testosterone is derived from saturated fat). You need to watch your calories, sure, and there are nutrient-intake techniques that do require elimination of fat from the diet in a strategic manner. In general, though, don’t eliminate fat from your diet and DEFINITELY don’t let your protein intake suffer as a side effect of trying to reduce fat.

Read the rest of the article here:  Click Here

I hope this article gave you some ideas about things you can do to improve your training so you get faster results and less injuries.  If you didn’t click the link to read the whole article, here it is again:  Click Here.  Check out his other articles on that site as well.  He has written about everything under the sun when it comes to bodybuilding and has very interesting takes on the use of supplements.