Top Five Mistakes Most Men and Women Make In Designing Workout Routines – Part Five

By Lee A. Mancini, MD, CSCS, CSN

This is the final installment of my five part series, and hopefully by now many of you have listened to my advice and have put it into practice.

Tip Number Five For Men:Not training for speed. Most men don’t train for speed, and I don’t mean forgetting to do sprints on the track. Male athletes constantly pile more and more weight on the bar to try and increase their strength. While progressive loading is an effective way to gain strength, athletes don’t need slow strength they need explosive strength. In sports it is the power that an athlete can deliver that matters. If one football lineman can bench press 400 pounds, but it takes him 5 seconds to generate the 400 lbs. of force (400/5 = 80 lbs/second), and another lineman can bench 300 lbs. in only 2 seconds (150lbs/sec), the lineman with the 300 lb. bench press generates more power and thereby would drive the other lineman backwards. So include some explosive exercises, using light weights, such as jump squats, speed bench presses, and others in your workouts.

Tip Number Five For Women: Not keeping track of their workouts. This may not seem like a big deal with regards to program design or exercise routine, but it is an important piece of the puzzle. If you are not keeping track of your workouts, how do you know if your program is working? You are simply staying stuck in an endless rut, performing the same routine again and again. Writing down one’s strength routine or one’s cardiovascular workout is vital for anyone looking to make strength gains, lose bodyfat, or get faster. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive or fancy. Your workout logbook might be a simple spiral notebook or a spreadsheet off your computer. By writing down how far you walked on the treadmill in 30 minutes, how much weight you used on the dumbbell squat exercise, or how many reps you did of push-ups, you can watch and evaluate your progress. This will allow you to set goals for yourself – and setting, reaching, and exceeding your goals is a powerful motivational tool!

That’s it for now on training program pitfalls.

Note:  Lee A. Mancini graduated from Harvard as a two-sport athlete with honors in biology. Board certified in sports medicine and family practice, he works at the Family Health Center and UMass Sports Medicine Center in Worcester . He trains select clients as a certified strength and conditioning specialist and sports nutritionist. If you are interested in hiring him to design an individualized program, click here for our paid consultation services.