25 Common Workout Mistakes Women Make With A Fix
25 Common Workout Mistakes Women Make With A Fix
Do you find yourself thinking about why, despite doing everything ‘right’, you still end up with less than satisfactory results?
If you are tired of not seeing the results you want with your transformation, make sure you aren’t falling for the trap of making one or more of the following 25 workout mistakes as a woman.
Fixing these mistakes can speed up your transformation journey and help you achieve your goals in the most effective and efficient way possible.
Let’s begin!
1. Endurance Training Before Strength Training.
Simply put, the typical “cardio first, then weights” approach isn’t the way to go as it reduces the effectiveness of the muscle weight training by making you perform it in a fatigued state.
The Fix:
Space out your cardio and resistance training on separate days.
If that doesn’t suit your schedule, perform the cardio after the resistance training, not before.
2. Not Resting Long Enough In Between Sets.
While getting through your workout taking only 30 seconds of rest between sets will definitely elevate your heart rate, it will be limiting you from achieving the best results.
The Fix:
Take 60-90 seconds of rest between sets on smaller exercises and go up to 120-180 seconds of rest on the big compound movements.
3. Not Lifting Heavy Enough.
This had to make the list of one of the most common mistakes women make.
Lifting heavy will not turn you into a bodybuilder and should not be avoided.
The Fix:
Instead of randomly picking up a pair of dumbbells, use a weight that allows you to reach close to failure in the 5-15 rep range when performing the big compound exercises like squats, rows and presses.
4. Not Following A Well-Designed Program.
Following a random program that trains one muscle group on a day with a variety of exercises isn’t always the most effective way to get the transformation results you want.
Similarly, running around the gym performing circuits and giant sets isn’t always the way to better results.
The Fix:
Follow a program that trains muscle groups more frequently and allows you to effectively progress on the exercises you’re performing in a quantifiable manner.
5. Not Choosing The Right Training Approach For Your Specific Goals.
This links to the previous point.
There can be multiple ways to set up a well-designed program.
One of the most common mistakes you can make is assuming that, just because a program is well-designed, it will be optimal for your goals.
The Fix:
Have a clear idea of what your goals are.
Whether it’s strength, performance or simply how you look.
While there is a lot of crossover between training modalities for each of these goals, optimizing for any one variable will always be more effective.
6. Not Setting Performance-Based Goals.
This mistake is very common amongst those who just want to look great.
Just setting goals based on what you see in the mirror isn’t a good idea.
The Fix:
Set performance-based goals for the exercises you perform.
For example, “perform 5 pull-ups” or “squat 50kgs”.
These goals will help you gauge progress and will reward you by improving your body composition and how you look.
7. Not Tracking Workouts.
Performance-based goals can only be useful if you track your workouts.
Without tracking, you are aimlessly going to the gym and performing exercises based on how you feel.
The Fix:
Track the reps, sets and weight you use for the exercises you perform.
You can go old school and carry a diary to the gym, or you can use the notes app or a workout tracker app (plenty of free ones available online).
8. Going Too Hardcore.
“No rest days”, in most cases, doesn’t end well.
While you will have to push beyond your comfort zone while training, it is very important to know your limits.
The Fix:
Take rest days and know how much your body can adapt to.
9. Relying Solely On Machines.
Performing only machine-based movements like the leg press and lat pulldowns is not a good idea.
While these are great movements, you are leaving a lot on the table.
The Fix:
Incorporate at least one free-weight movement for every major muscle group.
10. Overemphasizing “Isolation” Exercises.
Don’t be the person who’s weight training regimen only consists of bicep curls, tricep kickbacks and shoulder raises.
The Fix:
Build the majority of your workout routine around big compound exercises.
Once you are done with those, the isolation exercises will be the icing on the cake.
11. Not Doing A Thorough Warm-Up Before Lifting Weights.
Just hopping onto the treadmill or elliptical for 5-10 minutes before your workout isn’t going to cut it.
Neither is just stretching.
The Fix:
Utilize warm-up sets before getting into your actual work sets.
This can be as simple as using a pyramiding structure where you use 50% of your working weight for 6 reps, 70% for 4 reps and 90% for 2 reps before you get into your actual work sets.
Use these warm-up sets as a way to activate the target muscles better and to make any form tweaks that can help you perform better in your work sets.
12. Not Watching Form Tutorials.
Most women I’ve spoken to fall for this mistake.
Your form can never be 100% perfect and you’ll have to work on it continuously.
Focusing on fixing small details like having a hip tilt when you squat or an elbow flare when you bench can have a huge payoff in the long run.
The Fix:
Watch multiple YouTube tutorials for the exercises involved in your workout routine.
It costs absolutely nothing and you should be doing this even if you have a coach at your gym.
13. Trying To Spot Reduce.
Doing countless crunches and planks are going to melt off belly fat and I hope you know this by now.
Despite this, you’ll find a lot of people aimlessly spending time doing ab workouts to get a toned stomach.
The Fix:
Focus on losing weight at a sustainable pace without worrying about trying to reduce fat off a specific area.
Avoid excessive ab work in the hopes of getting a flat tummy.
14. Chasing Variety.
The point of training is to create adaptations.
Sadly, the myth of trying to “shock the muscles” has been very deeply engrained in our brains.
If your workout routine has you change exercises frequently, you are asking for slow results.
The Fix:
Don’t switch up your routine very frequently and focus on progressing on the exercises you perform.
As a general guideline, as a beginner/intermediate, run the same exercises for 6-8 weeks before you modify the exercise selection.
15. Correlating The Amount Of Sweat With Workout Effectiveness.
More sweat = More fat burned = Better workout?
Not really.
If sweating was the way to burn off excess fat, running outside on a summer afternoon would yield much better results than working out in an air-conditioned gym.
In reality, the amount you sweat has nothing to do with whether or not you have a good workout.
The Fix:
Instead of focusing on how much you sweat, analyze your workout using quantitative measures which can help you cause your progress.
16. Overestimating The Calories Burned.
The majority of people who try to eat back the calories they burn often overestimate the number of calories they burn working out.
If you let your cardio machines or fitness trackers do the counting for you, let me remind you that they are far from accurate.
Relying on such numbers is one of the main reasons why people fail to lose weight despite them thinking that they are in a calorie deficit.
The Fix:
Track your performance using variables other than the number of calories burned.
17. Thinking Training Can Make Up For Nutrition.
It’s very simple to tell who will and who won’t have a successful transformation once you observe a few key behavioral patterns.
If you come across someone who believes that they can eat whatever they want as long as they hit the gym the next day, more often than not, this is the kind of individual who is setting herself up for failure.
It’s not that burning calories is impossible.
It’s the fact that having distorted eating behaviors speaks a lot about your relationship with food which, whether you like it or not, ends up affecting your success rate.
The Fix:
Focus on hitting the numbers on your nutrition plan no matter how hard your train.
18. Not Training A Muscle Group Frequently Enough.
As a natural, the typical “bro-split” where you train one muscle group a day is an ineffective way to train, irrespective of gender.
While the bodybuilding industry and fitness magazines have done a great job of spreading the myth of destroying a single muscle once a week, there is a ton of scientific evidence that states otherwise.
The Fix:
Train every major muscle group, or at least the ones you want to grow the fastest, at least 2 times a week for best results.
19. Excessive Volume Per Session.
If you are someone who is making the previous mistake, there’s a pretty good chance of you making this one too.
While volume is defined differently by experts, we’ll just stick to volume as the number of hard sets performed.
For example, if you perform 5 exercises with 3 hard sets (not your warm-ups) for your legs once a week, your lower body volume is 15 sets per week.
While doing more volume can help with better results, doing excessive volume in a single session will not necessarily lead to more growth.
The Fix:
Split out your volume in multiple sessions a week.
For example, instead of trying to do 15 sets once a week, split it as 3 sets of 3 exercises on a Monday and 3 sets of 2 exercises on a Wednesday.
In this way, not only are you performing the same volume, but you are also;
i. Training the muscle group more frequently to spike muscle protein synthesis (basically helps you build muscle).
ii. Performing better quality of volume (performing 15 sets together will, in most cases, lead to lower quality of the sets performed towards the end of the workout when compared to splitting up the volume.)
20. Not Focusing On Proximity To Failure.
If you find yourself going to the gym and randomly repping out a weight till you feel a burn, you’re leaving out gains on the table.
Proximity to failure simply means how far you are from the point where you cannot do one more rep with good form.
To get the most out of your training, you need to find the range that works best.
Stay too far from failure consistently and your muscles won’t get the stimulus they need to grow.
Go to and beyond failure consistently and your muscles won’t be able to recover and adapt to the stimulus.
The Fix:
Instead of stopping a set simply when you feel a burn, try to gauge your proximity to failure.
As a general guideline, beginner and intermediate trainees can aim to leave 1-3 Reps In Reserve on bigger exercises and 0-2 Reps In Reserve on smaller exercises.
For example, 2 Reps In Reserve means you could do more clean reps (without cheating or breaking form) before you hit failure.
21. Trying To Find The Perfect Rep Range For Muscle Gain Or Fat Loss.
High reps burn fat and low reps build muscle?
Not really.
This old-school method of using the rep range to lose fat is very ineffective based on the current information.
While higher reps might give your endurance a little boost, there is no reason to believe that high reps and light weights are the secrets to getting toned.
The Fix:
Follow a routine that makes you train through a variety of rep ranges irrespective of you having the goal of fat loss or not.
The amount of volume dedicated to each rep range can be based on your goals.
22. Ignoring Recovery.
What you do in the gym is a very small piece of the puzzle.
If you don’t give your body time to recover, you are making a mistake.
This might not seem like a mistake at first, but training consistently in an under-recovered state will take you out of the game, either physically or mentally.
The Fix:
Make sure you provide your body with sufficient rest and nutrition to recover.
Maintain a proper sleep schedule getting 8-9 hours of sleep a day and make sure you aren’t in a massive calorie deficit (even if you are trying to lose weight).
23. Expecting “Soreness” To Always Lead To Muscle Growth.
Being sore does not mean your muscles will grow.
Even after years of training, you will still find people who fall for this.
While soreness can indicate that you have trained that specific muscle, it does not guarantee growth.
For example, you can walk for a few hours and your legs will be the sore the next day but this does not mean that your legs will grow in size.
The Fix:
Don’t depend on soreness and instead focus on progressing in the gym.
Progressing with the weights will be the best indicator of growth in the long run.
24. Having Unreasonable Expectations.
You can still be unsatisfied with your results despite doing everything right.
If this is the case, you are facing the very common problem of having unreasonable expectations.
In a world where quick transformations by the genetically elite are glorified, it is very common for individuals to feel that they aren’t making the progress they should be.
The Fix:
Know that your results will take time and are highly dependent on the genetic cards you have been dealt with.
Don’t try to overcomplicate the process with hopes of drastic changes in the outcome.
25. Skipping workouts.
Last but not the least, the mistake every single one of us needs to be avoiding is skipping workouts.
In the end, everything you do comes down to consistency.
If you are not consistent with your training, you will never see the results you want.
The Fix:
Be realistic and select a plan that you can be consistent with.
Once selected, try to stick to it to the best of your abilities.
Be flexible and make sure you get in your workouts, whether it’s in the gym or at home.
Conclusion
Now that you have made it to the bottom of this list, how many of these workout mistakes are you making?
Once you fix the things most women often overlook with their training, you’ll be seeing better results in no time.
If you find this overwhelming and are interested in transforming your body, check out the The Truth About Getting ‘Toned’ As A Woman.
Of course, in the end, it all comes down to consistency.
Someone who is consistent with their workouts, despite making a few mistakes, will always see better results than someone who skips workouts frequently in the long run.
To help you with the consistency part, check out the FREE Weight Loss Tracker Set linked below!
Grab the FREE Printable Weight Loss Tracker Set that can help you be consistent and achieve your physique goals here.
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