From Nick Nilsson
Author and Publisher of BetterU News
http://www.fitness-ebooks.com

It is very important to learn from your mistakes but why even
make the mistakes yourself if you can learn from mine?

I've been training for more than 20 years and I've made mistakes.
I want to help you avoid making those same mistakes in your
training. It could save you years of frustration!


1. Training Too Long

When I first started training, I wanted to get the fastest
results possible so I figured more would be better. My wake-up
call came when one day I did a 2 1/2 hour session and then lost a
considerable amount of strength in my next session and felt like
garbage..

Lesson: keep your training sessions from approximately 45 minutes
to 1 hour MAX! Any longer and you are either just breaking your
body down or not working hard enough to get results.


2. Not Eating Enough Protein

After training for about a year and gaining a whole lot of weight
(not all of it muscle!), I went on a very low-fat diet. The
problem with this was I hardly ate any protein because meat had
fat in it! I couldn't figure out what the problem was until one
day, when I had had enough of low-fat eating, I cooked up four
chicken breasts (with skin) and ate them all in one sitting. My
strength jumped up immediately!

Lesson: protein is critical for muscle-building (and dieting).
Don't get enough and you will compromise your results.


3. Not Enough Cardiovascular Training

When I first began training, I went from a 145-pound
cross-country runner to a 217-pound weight lifter in 8 months.
During that entire time I didn't do any cardio training. Not only
was a lot of that weight gain fat, I felt really unhealthy and
unbalanced.

Lesson: even if you're trying to gain weight, keep at least some
cardio training in your program, even if it's just walking a
couple of times per week. Your heart (and muscles) will thank you
for it.


4. Too Much Cardiovascular Training

After the previous extreme, there was a time when I was trying to
lose fat and went to the other extreme: too much cardio. I
remember one session where I did 20 minutes at the highest
setting on the Stair Master, then skipped rope for 10 minutes,
then did the stationary bike for 20 minutes, then the Stair
Master for another 20 on high, then 10 more minutes of skipping.

I was in great cardio shape but my strength and muscle mass
plummeted and, to be honest, I could have achieved better
fat-loss results with 15 minutes of high-intensity interval
training.

Lesson: too much cardio can be counterproductive. Certainly, it
will burn a lot of calories but your muscles will burn more
during the day just sitting there. Short, intense sessions will
spare your muscle mass and boost your metabolism more
effectively.


5. Using a Weightlifting Belt

When I started training, I used a weightlifting belt for every
exercise. I would basically keep the belt on for my entire
workout. It was a big mistake and here's why:

A belt is very effective for stabilizing the abdominal core area.
However, it is so effective that your core muscles aren't
challenged and don't develop effectively. This can leave them
weak and your core unstable, fostering a reliance on the belt.

A belt should really only be used for near-maximal lifting with
very heavy weights. If you need a belt to do bench presses or
barbell curls, you should re-examine your form and honestly
evaluate your core strength. You may be setting yourself up for a
back injury.

Lesson: ease yourself off the belt if you currently use one. You
will need to slowly work back up to your current weights to
ensure you don't hurt yourself. When you go to do a lift, suck in
your gut and tighten your abs. You will develop far better core
strength and stability, not to mention tighter, flatter abs.


6. Lifting Too Heavy

My goal has always been to develop muscle mass and strength.
There have been times when I used a weight that either caused me
to compromise my form or didn't allow me to get enough reps to
hit the range I was shooting for. Always using heavier and
heavier weight is not always possible.

Lesson: Always push yourself to use more weight but not so much
that you compromise your form or results.


7. Working Too Hard

I can clearly remember one dieting cycle I did where I was so
enthusiastic to lose fat that I severely overtrained myself
within the first two weeks. In my enthusiasm, I buried my
recovery ability with extreme training volume and intensity
techniques. Coupled with a reduced-calorie diet, this overly-hard
work spelled disaster.

Lesson: train hard but don't overwhelm yourself. Your body needs
time and nutrients to recover and rebuild. This is especially
important when dieting for fat loss.


8. Not Eating Enough

This applies not only to muscle-building but to fat loss as well.
Not eating enough can really limit your results. But, as we all
know, life gets busy and it's hard to eat and prepare frequent,
healthy meals. When you want to gain mass, you have to eat a
lot...when you want to lose fat, you also don't want to reduce
intake so much that you slow your metabolism over a long term..

Lesson: Do your best with the time and food you've got and be
aware that the more regularly and better quality you can eat, the
better. And if you want to gain a lot of muscle, you are going to
have to eat even when you don't feel like you necessarily need to
or even want to.


Conclusion:

Everybody makes mistakes. There is no doubt about that. I
sincerely hope that the information I've shared with you here
will help you to avoid making the same mistakes I have.


ONE LAST THING TO THINK ABOUT...

Yesterday, I mentioned a free personal training giveaway - 2
weeks with your own online trainer...this is a GREAT deal, even
if you just stay on for the 2 weeks then cancel.

THIS is truly the best way to avoid making mistakes in your
training and eating...having somebody there with you every step
of the way to guide you and help you achieve the goals you set
for yourself!

Check it out here:


=> http://www.fitstep.com/goto/1/fast-track.htm


Nick

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