Good morning! We’re in the second week of the new year, and hopefully lots of your butts are in the gym more than they were last month! 

I read yesterday that walking five flights of stairs a day is associated with a 20% decrease in the risk of heart attack and stroke. I also recently heard from Dr. Andy Galpin that daily “exercise snacks” of just 20 seconds of high intensity effort—such as running up the stairs—can drastically improve health and increase VO2 max.

Climb, babies, climb! 🪜 

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🙅🏼 Top 11 Gym Mistakes to Avoid

There is no shame in being a gym newbie. Everyone was at some point! It can be extremely intimidating to start, especially if you didn’t have a history of training during school. Don’t let that stop you from taking the leap, though. Your health far outweighs any fear or shame you may have about being a noob among the lunk heads.

Whether you’re new to pumping iron or a seasoned vet, you may still find yourself making some mistakes that are hindering your training or just straight up unproductive. 

Some major caveats before we dive in: To quote Andy Galpin who’s quoting someone else, “The methods are many, but the concepts are few.” Allllmost anything in the gym could be justified by some person for some reason. There could theoretically be a time and a place for just about anything a person could do in the gym. Hey, the fact that you’re there and moving in the first place is fantastic. 

That being said, there are some semi-common things I see people doing in gyms that are very likely not intentional or moving them toward their goals. I’m slow to judge, and you should be, too. Just consider the following list as some guardrails to help you evaluate whether your training is driving you toward your goals or simply not helping. Sometimes we do things out of ignorance—to no fault of our own—and can change our behaviors for the better once we learn better. That’s life, that’s growth! ✨ 

You get to decide whether to follow the forthcoming advice or not. I tried to pick common mistakes that are truly “mistakes” 99% of the time for most people. But again, that doesn’t mean there could never be a reason to do some of these.

Lord, I need a podcast. Disclaimers are so much more annoying over text! Without further ado, let’s dive in.

Holding onto the treadmill while walking, especially on an incline.

This one’s a tale as old as time. It is perhaps best illustrated by an image, so take this cute little Canva graphic I made, below. Woohoo! Move to Improve’s first original artwork! 

In the image above, the first guy is walking on a flat treadmill, not holding on. No problem. Like normal flat ground walking. Number 2 is walking on a 10 degree incline but not holding onto the treadmill. So it’s truly like he’s walking up a hill. His legs and hips have to drive his body upward with each step in addition to still propelling himself forward. It’s harder and expends more energy. Guy #3 is walking on the same incline, except he’s holding onto the treadmill. This allows him to lean his whole body backwards at the same 10 degree incline as the treadmill. This effectively means that he’s no longer walking an incline. His arms are supporting some weight, and since he’s leaning back, his feet and legs strike the treadmill at a 0 degree angle, just the same as if the treadmill were flat.

Don’t fall into this trap. Don’t think you’re doing more work by walking on an incline but holding onto the sides. You’re not. It makes it easier because it is easier!

Shoulder external rotation against no force.

This is one the bros who stand right in front of the dumbbell rack the entire time love to do. As part of their “warmup” (or worse, thinking it’s an actual exercise), they grab some light dumbbells, pin their upper arms against their side, bend their elbows to 90 degrees, and rotate their entire arms outwards (external rotation). Here are some pics.

This image is what I’m talking about. This is doing ~almost nothing~. Gravity is pulling the dumbbells down in a vertical plane; that’s where the resistance is. But the lifter is rotating in a horizontal plane. She’s contracting her shoulder external rotator muscles, sure, but barely, and the added resistance is doing nothing. If the person was pulling against cables that were horizontally in front of her, then she’d be externally rotating against resistance.

The second and third pictures are actually utilizing external rotation against the force of gravity and whatever resistance is added. External rotation is the most common planar mistake I see, but always consider the plane of motion in which you’re moving, and if that’s actually utilizing the weight you added and targeting the muscles you intended. 

Using momentum and bouncing.

(The rest of these are shorter. I almost promise.)

Unless you are an experienced lifter and have a very good reason, you should rarely ever use momentum or bouncing of weights. I see this especially with inexperienced lifters just trying to move weight as fast as possible. This very easily can cause your form to break down and significantly increase your risk of injury.

Slow it down, drop the weight if you have to, and lift in a full range of motion, reaching a good stretch at one end and a great squeezing contraction at the other end of your lift. 

Not warming up. 

I know, your time is limited. I know you’re eager to jump right into it. I know warmups are boring. But having been lifting for 15+ years and studying this for half that time, I can tell you that a proper warmup is always worth it. 

Many of us spend most of our days sedentary, then want to jump to full throttle as soon as we hit the gym. I get it, but you wouldn’t let your car sit in the freezing cold for two weeks, then immediately hop in and pedal to the metal down the highway. Things are creaky and stiff and cold. Same with your body. You have to warm up.

It takes a little time to rev up your nervous system to an active sympathetic state. Getting your heart rate up and moving your joints—particularly the ones you’re targeting in today’s workout—with no/light weights through their range of motion brings in fluid and mobility that you need for your workout.

Anything is better than nothing for a warmup. Three minutes is better than zero, but 10 minutes is probably better than three. Do what you can. Elevate your heart rate, get to breathing harder, and utilize some dynamic stretching and light movements mimicking your upcoming exercises. You’ll perform better and decrease your chance of injury.

Not cooling down.

Yeah, I know this one sucks too and you just want to leave when you’re finished. But going from 100 to 0 (i.e. slamming on the brakes) is also not a great way to transition into the rest of your day. Take advantage of your warmed up muscles to stretch into some end ranges of motion. Shift your body back from a sympathetic to parasympathetic state before you return to life. You can accomplish this with any number of relaxing breathing techniques (box method; 4, 7, 8 method; etc.) in just a few minutes. It will improve your resilience and ability to quickly recover from stress in your life!

Starting with isolation movements and doing compound movements last.

It’s best to start your workouts with the higher-weight, higher-speed, compound lifts. Think staple multi-joint exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench press, pull-ups. These should come before single-joint exercises like curls, leg extensions, etc. to optimize gains. You want the most energy, strength, and power for your first big lifts (after your warm-up!).

Intense cardio prior to lifting.

Cardio doesn’t kill gains. Those who do both cardio and resistance training are better off. However, just like doing exhaustive single-joint exercises prior to big lifts can compromise your performance, so can heavy cardiovascular exercise.

A modest warmup is great, but it’s typically best to save any cardio for after the resistance training portion of your workout. Even better (but not necessary), you can do them as different workouts in a day or on different days altogether.

Hyper-focusing on only one type of training.

Rarely should anyone only be doing one type of training. Even marathoners need strength training. Even bodybuilders need cardio. 99.9% of my readers will benefit from undergoing multiple modes of exercise on a regular basis.

Practically, this means not only doing cardio and not only doing resistance training. Not only doing low intensity and not only doing high intensity. If you want to be in the best health and maximize the benefits of exercise, you need to engage in more than one type of training. 

Dr. Peter Attia—one of the world’s leading longevity doctors—and his team recently came to a very evidence-based conclusion of the best way to exercise if you only have three hours a week. They couldn’t simply pick one type of exercise; it has to be varied. They’d recommend one hour of low-intensity cardiovascular exercise, one hour of strength/resistance training, and one hour of higher-intensity cardio-type training. Runners can benefit tremendously from lifting. Lifters can benefit tremendously from cardio. Do it all, and you’ll maximize health and resilience.

Not lifting heavy.

Those pink 5lb. dumbbells can only get you so far. They’re not going to do much at all for building your top end strength or growing your muscles unless you’re moving to near-absolute-failure.

I get that many people are scared of heavy weight. But if you’re newer, machines are an incredibly safe way to push your strength. Except for when you just start exercising, you won’t continue to get stronger by lifting weights that are light for you. You can build muscle with lighter weights, but you still have to lift close to failure in your sets, which most people aren’t doing with light weights. 

Lift heavier. Get a coach or trainer or well-educated pal or even good Youtube tutorials (Functional Bodybuilding has great ones) to increase your confidence in exercise form so you can lift heavier and actually build strength!

Going too heavy before proper technique.

This is a sort of caveat to the prior point. For every person afraid to ever lift more than 5 pounds, there’s a moron who thinks they can lift far more than they should and uses God-awful form to do so. Proper movement mechanics and technique are essential before lifting heavy. If you can’t lift it with great technique, don’t lift it at all. Period. Lower the weight until your technique is in check.

This is more true for free weight (barbells, dumbbells, etc.) exercises than on machines, which are generally much more stable and sort of force you into a safer form. But it stands true. And for running, too. Build your fitness house on rock, not on sand. If you do the latter, it will crumble under heavy weight and you’ll hurt yourself.

Training for the wrong thing.

This sort of ties together all the previous mistakes. Get clear on your goals. Then get clear on the specifics that will lead you toward those goals. There are training principles too numerous to outline in this already-long newsletter, but one of the first to nail down is specificity.

The SAID principle—specific adaptations to imposed demands—illustrates how our body will respond to exercise. If you practice tennis, you won’t magically get better at basketball. Swimming probably won’t increase your deadlift. Lifting light won’t increase your strength.

• Some exercises will have more carryover than others. Biking will likely improve your running a bit because they’re both cardio exercises.

• While all movement/exercise falls somewhere on a spectrum, and there is overlap, not all activities lead to positive adaptations in all aspects of fitness.

Get clear on what exercise plan will move you toward your goals. If you need help, get a coach (Hi! It’s me!) to help you out!

I hope you enjoyed this edition. Did you learn anything? Have you found yourself making any of the above mistakes? What’s something I left off this list? Did I get something wrong in your opinion? Reply to this email; I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

Remember: reserve your judgment. The deadlift sergeant could see someone intentionally performing Jefferson curls and call it heresy. It all depends on your needs and training goals. But above all, don’t live in ignorance. 

Be open to growth and learning in all aspects of life! Do better, and you and the world around you will be better because of it!

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Did you identify with any of the mistakes listed above? That’s totally okay if so! Now you know how to improve.

Level 2: Take some time to audit your own training program. Identify any other mistakes you may be making. Are you doing anything that doesn’t make sense?

Level 3: Wanna pick a fight? Do you have any reasons for doing any of the above “mistakes” because they’re actually propelling you toward your goals? Let me know, I’d love to hear why!

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

Interested in becoming a sponsor? Know someone else who might be? I’d love to get to know you and/or your business and see how we can partner together. Reply to this email!

✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Read: Why salmon is so good for you. It’s seriously one of the healthiest foods available to us. And it’s really not that expensive, especially if you buy it frozen or find one that’s expiring soon for half off (my recent strategy)! As little as 6 to 8 ounces a week can have tremendous benefits.

  • I love to air fry my salmon. It works great!

Peace out, pals. If you made it to the end of this one, kudos to you! It was a long one. Go run some stairs!

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).