Now, on the surface there is absolutely nothing wrong in this, but you see if the goal of any fitness enthusiast is to build muscle, then they may be making muscle-building mistakes that will limit their ability to grow muscle in the long-run and the key mistake here is the frequent alternation of exercises in the gym rather than sticking with a handful and progressively getting better at executing the selected few.
You may be surprised by this as many online fitness influencers often preach the need to diversify your workout routines in order to keep your sessions interesting and prevent plateaus. While there’s arguably some truth to this, the issue with randomly switching your workouts during an ongoing session lies in the seeming obsession for finding that new workout hack that could arise from this at the detriment of focusing on what really matters. And what really matters is perfecting form on the handful of exercises you do engage in and advancing in them through progressive overload.
Why Constantly Switching Exercises is Detrimental to Building Muscle Mass
It is worth noting that building muscle mass involves putting your muscles through stress during training. Your muscles then suffer from microtears that will heal up during your rest days and in the process of repair, your muscle adapts in response to the stress it was subjected to in training by adding extra mass. So, in order to keep your muscles in a seemingly perpetual state of adaptation, you need to challenge it by adopting the principle of progressive overload during training with improved training technique, better performance, added sets, repetitions, and resistance.
Now, whenever you are frequently changing exercises during your sessions, you make it quite difficult to properly track your progress. So, rather than working on boosting your overall performance on certain tried and tested movements, you end up constantly starting from scratch all over again from one week to the next.
It’s like attempting to learn a brand new foreign language for one week and then dropping that language for another one at the start of a new week. The consequence of frequently switching exercises from session to session is a slow progress on your goal of building muscle mass as there is no workout consistency which is what you need if you want to perfect the techniques for the exercises you do regularly and gain mass through the implementation of progressive overloads on those exercises.
How the Social Media Promote Muscle-building Mistakes
Muscle-building mistakes are not helped by social media fitness content influencers who saturate the social media space with endless strength training tips and new workout routines that seemingly promise quick mass building results, but in truth the reality often falls short of expectation. But undiscerning individuals could be easily influenced by these fitness content creators and as a result they end up frequently switching from one exercise trend to another without even realising that they are doing more harm to their bulking phase than they realise. While you get to try out different workout routines that you would not have tried without the help of social media influencers, you only build up your range of motion, but at the expense of your progress in actually building muscle mass.
How to Avoid Gym Training Mistakes
The first thing to do in order to avoid gym training mistakes is to align yourself with an experienced gym buddy willing to act as your mentor. The truth is, most advanced lifters and gym goers know that in order to build muscle you need to be consistent with your workout routines and not go chasing new exercise trends regardless of the promises that they may offer. If you stay focused on performing a handful of proven exercises, you will gain mastery of these exercises and you will see positive results, especially when you implement progressive overloads over time.
You may decide to incorporate popular exercises like Romanian deadlifts, Rows, Squats, Pull-downs and Presses to your workout regimen for training your upper and lower body for an extended length of time running into months rather than for a short period lasting for days or weeks.
When you consistently train with the same exercises for a long time, you can properly track your progress with added sets, repetitions, weights, and better technique which ultimately leads to muscle growth.
Strength Training Tips and New Exercise Trends are Not Bad, but Timing is Everything
It is important to note that there is nothing wrong with trying new exercise trends or strength training tips. In fact, running the same exercises for months can become a bit monotonous and boring after a while. But if you want to introduce a new exercise to your routine, it is better to do so strategically and not just for the sake of it.
The new exercise(s) should add value to your sessions. For example, they may help address a recognised weakness in your training or they may help reduce repetitive stress and as mentioned already – end boredom in your training regimen.
You can introduce a new exercise if it improves on your range of motion and on the stress on the muscle or muscle groups. So, the new exercise should serve as an upgrade to what you are already doing to train the muscle or muscle group in question. Before you introduce a new exercise to your routine to replace an exercise you have been doing for a while you need to ask yourself a few questions, as follows:
- Am I progressing on the exercise I am currently running?
- Will the new exercise provide a better range of motion and stress on my muscles?
- Is my technique better with my current exercise and will the new exercise greatly improve my technique?
- Am I doing more sets, reps, and/or weights on my current exercise and can I increase my sets, reps, and/or weight for better progress? Or do I need to try a new exercise that offers better progress indicators?
By asking these questions, you will be able to decide on whether to switch exercises or maintain your current exercise structure. This way, you are acting strategically in deciding on what exercises work for you rather than acting on impulse which would be a big mistake.