Have you tried again and again to experience tangible results from your workouts but results never show up? If you are tired of working out without doing any real progress, perhaps you are doing any of the following mistakes without realising it, that actually sabotage your efforts.
Here are the most common ones:
You exercise in an empty stomach. The majority of fitness experts nowadays recommend pre-workout snacking to fuel the system and give it the energy that it needs to endure an intense workout. Failing to so will make you faint and the body won't have the energy to replenish itself following the workout. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you should be eating a whole burger before you hit the gym, but small healthy snacks e.g carrot sticks, a banana or dark chocolate will give your body the boost that it needs pre-workout and you won’t crash after a few minutes of exercising.
You consume sugary energy drinks pre-workout. Another mistake that many people do, for the sake of “fuelling” themselves before a workout is drinking energy drinks that are high on sugar, fructose or artificial sweeteners like aspartame. While most of these do contain helpful vitamins and agents to help energize your system, the high sugar content will lead to sudden spikes of energy and sudden crashes afterwards. If you workout for more than 1 hour, this side-effect will even get worse. Therefore, the best way to hydrate and energize yourself is to drink water, a green smoothie or a light herbal tea.
You are doing exercises the wrong way. If you exercise at home, kudos to you but you should be twice careful as the exercises that you may be doing, even if you have watched them from a famous fitness expert on Youtube, may not be appropriate for you or you will simply fail to do them the right way. If you don’t have any qualified fitness expert to check the way you are doing your exercises, you risk doing them in the wrong form--which is something that leads to many problems such as mild injuries, muscle atrophy and of course lack of results.
You are not getting enough sleep. Whether you perform mild or intense workouts, you still need good amounts of sleep to replenish and recover your sore muscles after exercise. If you're sleeping too little e.g 5 hours a day, your muscles will feel even sorer the day after and you won’t have the necessary energy and stamina to continue working out. Sleep is actually imperative for the success of your workouts.
You are overdoing it with cardio exercises. Of course, every workout routine has to include some cardio exercises as these are key exercises for maintaining a lean figure. However, too much cardio exercises frequently are really not doing your system any favor. Your muscles will suffer and your precious energy will simply go to waste. And in case you are wondering how and when you should stop, experts recommend the “15-45 rule” which is 15 minutes of cardio and 45 minutes of strength and toning exercises. Anything more than that is excessive and can be damaging to your system.