How to Avoid 8 Mistakes That Every Guy Makes at the Gym

It’s time you feel the burn — for all the right reasons.

Sean Abrams

Nov 13, 2015

It’s doesn’t matter how expensive your fitness apparel is, or how loud you grunt when lifting those weights four times your size; a workout is meaningless if you don’t actually know what you’re doing. While everyone starts out as a novice, even the most equipped of bros still make rookie mistakes that ultimately sabotage their chance of become swole. In order to get the most out of your routine, and that overly priced gym membership, you need to focus all your energy on exercising, as well as the way that you’re doing those exercises.

Fitness expert and personal trainer Don Saladino of Drive495 (the guy who trains Ryan Reynolds and Sebastian Stan, among others) shared his expert tips on how to avoid the workout mistakes that just about every guy makes (yes, even you). By following his guidelines and expertise, you’ll boost your results and be a lean, mean, fighting-machine in no time.

And don’t forget to wipe your sweat off the equipment.

1. Know When to Stretch: “I always see guys starting with an incorrect warm-up of stretching. I’m not saying stretching is bad, but static stretching before a workout is not ideal in my opinion. I prefer dynamic stretching or movement stretching. Static stretching has been proven to actually hinder performance in some before the task. Save your static stretching for in between your sets or after a workout.”

2. Don’t Waste Time: “Begin with speed and power early on in the workout. Why save this for the end when you’re too fatigued?”

3. Do What You Want: “Avoid too much frivolous programming. Most of the time people, are just throwing in meaningless exercises into a routine. There is no rhyme or reason for why they are there.”

4. You Get What You Give: “A lot of times guys try and quantify how good a workout is from how tired they are or how much they are sweating. More emphasis needs to be put into the task at hand and less into running around from exercise to exercise as fast as they can.”

5. Keep Up the Pace: “Avoid too much long distance running. Keep your running to short sprints, intervals, 1 mile bursts or 3 miles. Once you get beyond that, your body is taking a pounding.”

6. Iron is Important: “Weight training burns more fat than cardio. Not the other way around.”

7. Pay Attention to Your Assets: “When traveling to different gyms I rarely see guys squatting properly. I cringe. It’s a hip dominant movement, not knee dominant.”

8. Don’t Be Afraid to Deadlift: “Deadlift more. Pulling weight off the floor with proper form is a beautiful thing. Don’t neglect it as this will target so many areas of the body and turn one into a superhero.”

Photos by Corey Jenkins / Cultura RM / Getty Images