8 Mistakes Costing You Muscle Tone

The goal of training hard is to build more muscle, which will ultimately help you to burn more fat and lose more weight. However, you may be training as hard as you can but not seeing the results you are hoping for. If this is the case, you could be making one of the mistakes below. These errors will not only slow your progress, but they can cause you to actually LOSE muscle tone!

Too Much Cardio
If you're doing a lot of cardio, you may expect good results in the weight loss department. However, you could end up costing yourself muscle tone, especially if you do cardio for too long, too often or without eating first. If you burn too many calories during your cardio session, you deprive your body of the nutrients it needs to build muscle. If you don't have fuel in your body, it forces your metabolism to catabolize muscle for energy.

Cutting Calories
When eating to lose weight, no doubt your go-to option is to cut calories drastically. However, if you do this, you end up depriving your body of the energy it needs when it's working hard. There's only one other source of easily-accessible energy, and that's muscle.

Training Specific Body Parts
If you've got your routine broken down into too many days -- each day focusing on a specific muscle -- you'll cause your muscle growth to stagnate and possibly even stop. You want your large muscle groups to work together, as that's how you gain muscle fast.

Overtraining
We've all pushed our bodies beyond our limits and then paid the price. Doing too many sets and reps is NOT the key to muscle gain, but it will give you swollen muscles (thanks to the "pump") that are more likely to be injured. You're not going to see proper growth, so it's better to stick with fewer sets of fewer reps with A LOT more weight.

Training Only Vanity Muscles
Your arms, shoulders, and chest may be the muscles you want to LOOK good, but you can't only train those bad boys. Did you know that up to 70 percent of your body's total musculature is in your back and legs? Don't neglect these two important muscle groups!

Not Stretching
This may sound silly, but it's the truth. Stretching not only prevents injuries, but it increases your muscle's range of motion and speeds up recovery. Stretching makes space for the muscle fibers you are working to expand, allowing your body to increase muscle mass and tone.

Not Resting Enough
Your body repairs your muscle fibers during the night, so rest is a key to muscle mass growth. If you don't sleep enough, you reduce the gains your muscles can make. Not only that, but your body is unable to produce enough of the mass-building hormones that would be the key to serious gains.

Doing the Same Workout
If you follow the same routine for weeks and months at a time, your body gets accustomed to the movements. Those who fail to add more weight, do more reps, or switch up the movements will never see serious muscle growth, and may even end up suffering from burnout.

Don't make these mistakes! Train like a pro and pack on those muscles the safe, effective way.

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TOPFIT Daily Activities --- Jacksonville Forest Park Hike and Chinups
I got my day's activities started with a fairly relaxing 2 hour hike on the J-Ville Forest Park trails.  Afterward I spent about 30 mins in my gym doing weighted chinups, working my way from 25 lbs up to 80 lbs in 5 and 10 lb increments.

~Feelin' Alive!~