12 Gym Exercises (YOU’RE DOING WRONG!)

Did you know that there are 12 gym exercises that you might be doing wrong? In this video, I am going to show you 6 gym exercises and 6 home exercises, the common mistakes that are made, and how to avoid them so you never do these wrong again or make any exercise mistakes when trying to build muscle.

12 Gym Exercises – http://athleanx.com/x/common-exercise-mistakes
Subscribe to this channel here – http://bit.ly/2b0coMW

It is important to note why these specific exercises are often performed wrong it comes down to two simple reasons. First, we may have learned to do the exercise the wrong way in the first place and just never learned how to do it the right way. Second, it’s something we might revert to as we become fatigued during the workout and allow our bodies to create compensations that result in exercise mistakes.

The first home exercise mistake comes with the glute bridge. When trying to reach fill hip extension, it’s easy to see that most people are putting themselves into anterior pelvic tilt throughout the movement. This shifts the load of the exercise from the glutes to the low back, which can create problems if done consistently. To avoid this common exercise mistake, make sure your pelvis is in a posterior tilt when performing the glute bridge.

A big gym exercise mistake that people make when performing the barbell squat is not allowing the pelvis and the chest to move through space at the same time. When squatting heavy weight or in a fatigued state, it is easy to allow the hips to rise before the chest, turning the squat into something that looks like a good morning. To avoid this gym mistake, make sure that the chest and pelvis are moving together through the entire exercise.

The bench dip is one of the most commonly performed home exercises that I see get screwed up the most. As I’ve shown on Live With Kelly & Ryan, hand placement is everything. Avoid internal rotation of the shoulder and potential injury by simply turning your hands out.

The 1-arm row is a gym exercise that I see done wrong quite often and there are two fixes for that. The first exercise fix is to get your knee off the bench and have both feet planted on the ground to avoid inguinal hernia risk. The next form fix for this exercise is to stop hammer curling the dumbbell. Make sure to row the elbow back behind the body to get the most activation out of the lats.

The pullup has a subtle workout mistake built in and that’s not plugging the energy leaks. Stop crossing your legs behind you and get them out in front and keep them rigid throughout the exercise. This will help to keep stability in the body and will allow you to actually perform more pull-ups if done correctly and help you to build more muscle in the process.

One of the more common exercise mistakes, especially when it comes to building big triceps, is performing the wrong exercise entirely. Instead of doing the traditional skull crusher, I instead want you to do a lying triceps extension to increase the stretch on the long head of the triceps.

The kettlebell swing has a workout mistake that is easily fixed but you have to know what that mistake is first. Often, you forget that you are not lifting the kettlebell, but simply letting it go along for the ride. Your focus should be on hinging at the hips and powering through extension to move the weight to avoid the front delts doing the work.

Are you bouncing on your calf raises? Stop. This gym exercise mistake is fixed by slowing down your tempo and focusing on increasing the time under tension in both the stretched and contracted positions. Hold these positions for 4 seconds each and see your calves grow with new potential that you didn’t know you had.

The pushup is a home exercise that has a mistake that’s built in to help the body compensate for a lack of strength. Flaring the elbows out to 90º will decrease the range of motion of the exercise, but this mistake will cost you both potential muscle growth as well the possibility of shoulder injury / discomfort. With this excessive internal rotation, you are setting yourself up for failure.

The dumbbell curl’s mistake is pretty obvious, but still common. The lack of supination is the problem here. With one of the primary functions of the biceps being to supinate the forearm, forgetting to turn those palms up and out is a big exercise mistake.

Find this video helpful? Remember to subscribe to our channel via the link above! For a complete workout program that avoids mistakes, head to athleanx.com above and get your step by step training system.

Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS served as both the head physical therapist and assistant strength coach for the New York Mets. Jeff earned his Masters of Physical Therapy and Bachelor’s of Physioneurobiology from the College of Health Sciences University of Connecticut Storrs. He is a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).