5-Mistakes To Avoid While You're Still Young In Bodybuilding

Use these smart training tips to get you bigger and stronger, even in your later years.

MISTAKE 1 POOR WARM-UP

I used to think warming up too much would leave me gassed and weak for my epic one-rep-max bench press—which I tested every single week, by the way.

For years, I warmed up for a chest workout with, well, a chest workout on the flat bench! I threw up 135 pounds for 15 reps, felt good about it, arrogantly slapped on two plates to each side, and got pinned like a rookie.

Today, I'm much wiser: I avoid pushing out excess junk "warm-up" reps till I'm stapled to the bench. Instead I start each workout with a 7-10 minute general warm-up, focusing on hip, shoulder, and thoracic mobility. Then I do a gradual, low-rep warm-up using my first exercise of the day as a way of "rehearsing" for the upcoming movement. Some people get antsy and jump right into heavy lifting, but a proper warm-up increases blood flow to the muscles and improves joint viscosity.

Rest only as long as the time it takes to add weight between sets.

A low-rep warm-up like this ensures your body is properly revved up for a heavy movement without jeopardizing your joints and body, which could impact you later in life.

MISTAKE 2 TRAINING TOO HEAVY

Loading more and more weight onto the bar is one of the most effective ways to build size and strength, but it's also playing with fire—at least from a long-term health perspective. I don't know a single lifter who went heavy all the time in his 20s that doesn't now have some type of chronic injury in his late 30s.

For me, it's shoulders, lower back, and neck—my unholy trinity. I actually got off easy, because these are things I can work around. Other people aren't so lucky. Many a lifter has hung up his weight belt by age 40 because of joint issues.

This isn't to say that heavy training is forever out of the question. Your body will not progress or recover in a linear fashion as you continue to add training years to your resume, so constantly pushing yourself to the edge in pursuit of strength gains without intelligent training and programming will spell disaster.

You should still train heavy, but you shouldn't always train heavy if you want to train for life. Program periods of lower-intensity, higher-volume training after your high-intensity training cycles.

MISTAKE 3 TOO MUCH JUNK VOLUME

According to trainer Brad Schoenfeld, author of "The M.A.X. Muscle Plan," the optimal number of sets for growth varies from person to person and depends on genetics, training experience, and nutritional status. Some lifters—like yours truly—respond better to lots of sets and moderate reps, which is known as high-volume training. This is a generally "safer" way to train than lifting heavy all the time, and it doesn't hurt that this type of training helps build muscle.

Junk volume, however, is too many reps and sets; that can impose significant wear on joints and tendons, especially if excellent form isn't followed or the exact same movement pattern gets repeated too often, even with different implements. Not to mention that there's a point of diminishing returns on training stimulus.

Schoenfeld says optimal results are achieved by taking a periodized approach, in which the number of sets is adjusted over the course of a training cycle. For example, for the first month, perform 8-10 sets per muscle group per week. Then, for the second month, perform 12-15; finally for the third month, push the envelope and perform 18-20 sets per week.

While actual overtraining—a term that gets thrown around a lot in circles where high-volume training is the norm—is a bit of a boogeyman because few recreational lifters ever truly reach it, you can certainly get close by training far too much for too long. This can weaken the immune system and negatively affect hormone levels, which sucks.

MISTAKE 4 NOT ENOUGH VARIETY

Everyone intrinsically understands that lifting heavier and heavier, or with higher volume for the same weight, is a proven way to get bigger. It's the principle of progressive overload. However, there's one other method that rarely gets the credit it deserves: exercise variety.

Let me be clear: Variety in strength training versus hypertrophy (muscle growth) training can elicit different results. In strength training, variety can be counterproductive, since you want to constantly prime your body to rock at a few key lifts. With hypertrophy training, the exercises are just stimuli for the muscles to grow because the body adapts to an exercise relatively quickly, especially as you get more advanced.

It's on you to keep your body guessing with just slight variations of the same movement patterns, such as switching from standard dumbbell curls to hammer curls.

MISTAKE 5 TOO MUCH CONSISTENCY

Earlier, I noted that hard work performed consistently will get results. However, there's a point at which you can be too consistent—not just with your exercise selection, but with your training frequency.

For years, I trained each body part once a week but didn't get very far. I guess I thought that if I stuck to it long enough, it would eventually work. (Stupid.). I learned, however, that I simply needed to stay ahead of my body's ability to adapt. Beyond hard work and proper intensity, that means consistency—and change as needed.

Nowadays, I change my training frequency at least every three months. I hit each muscle twice a week, to every five days, to three times a week, or even to four times a week with frequent, low-volume workouts.

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