By now you have probably heard or read about over one thousand things to do during your workout, but did you know there are things that you absolutely should not do after a workout as well? These little tips could indeed help you move forward with your workout plans and help save you from making a costly mistake to both your health and body. So if you are starting to get into your workout groove or even if you have been working out for some time, make sure you take the time read this list of things not to do after a workout just to be sure that you are absolutely safe.

Forgetting to do your cool down – After a great workout, you really need to do a cool down stretch or something. This will make sure that your muscles can relax a little and heal up. Don’t skip the cool down phase, make sure to always, always include it in your plans for the well-being of your health and body.

Pigging out on junk food beats the purpose of your workout and good health habits

Over doing the cardio – Cardio is great but if you overdo it, even that can turn bad for you. While again a lot of people tend to mix working out and doing cardio altogether, again it is fine but if you over exhaust yourself you open up the door to a lot of injuries. So once more it is safer to just split your cardio and workout if you can because your body too, has its own limits.

Skipping a proper meal – Of the things not to do after a workout, this could be one for the books. A lot of people want to lose weight, and while that is a great idea in general, skipping meals and denying your body the nutrients it sorely needs is a bad idea for your health and body. Make sure to eat a proper meal as your body needs nutrients badly after being worked out. Don’t skip meals, plan it out and eat something healthy.

Over eating – On the opposite side of the spectrum if you can skip a meal you can over eat as well. The thought comes up: “I just worked out, I deserve to pig out.” Well alright once in a while this is fine I suppose but doing it on a regular basis is a bad idea, especially if you are eating a lot of unhealthy fats. Doing this is not only one of the things not to do after a workout, but it is very detrimental to both your health and body if you over consume these bad fats. It is true your body needs nutrients but it needs the proper nutrients and not any old junk that is lying around, the ideal set up is a balanced meal after a good workout.

Skipping sleep – Please do not do this, as I have stressed before and continue to stress some more, sleep is super important to your body. Among the things not to do after a workout, I think this should be the easiest to avoid, assuming you can plan your day out properly or assuming that your health and body is important to you, which it should be. Get a full night’s rest before and after a good workout to make sure your body can heal properly, maximize the results of your workout and diet, otherwise you could really be negating all the hard work you are going through.

Neglecting water intake – While food is indeed important, don’t forget that you had a really good sweat going and need to replenish the liquids in your body. There is nothing more cooling than a tall glass of water or in this case, water bottle. Among things not to do after a workout, ignoring your thirst is one of them and quite frankly, it seems silly to not drink more liquids after doesn’t it? For your health and body, you really need to replenish what you used up and for me the best thing is a glass of water, if it has some fruits infused into it all the better, any which way, make sure to drink a lot of fluids. Make sure however to avoid sports drinks if you can, unless you’ve thoroughly done some research. Those are usually full of sugars that you really don’t need or want in your body after working out so hard.

Neglecting proper hygiene – After a trip to the gym, where sweat, blood and tears have been spilt, it is best to get really squeaky clean after for the safety of your health and body. Make sure you avoid touching your face or other sensitive parts before you shower as you can spread the bacteria and among the things not to do after a workout, this is the easiest one to do, as we tend to wipe our brows or rub our eyes after working out. Make sure you get a good shower in before doing all of that or at the very least wash your hands before you can hit the shower.

Keep a proper hygiene not only after working out but all the time.

Forgetting to record your progress – Keep a diary of your accomplishments, this will really help you push forward for slumps and there is always a way to really share with yourself the success of a great a workout. Within things not to do after a workout, forgetting to input everything in your journal is a major no-no. You really want to keep track of all your progress and forgetting to journal it is a big shame, you worked that hard and only to not jot it down, don’t do it!

Going out in gym clothes – This is super unhygienic and should not be done at all. It can really spread the bacteria all over your body and even to others, you don’t want to do that or be that person would you? For both health and body, this is one of the things not to do after a workout, it’s simple, makes sense and shouldn’t be too difficult to avoid altogether, all you need to do is shower and change clothes.

As you can see these are some simple tips on what not to do after a workout, they support pretty much your health and body plus promote a healthy outlook. You’ve come this far and worked so hard, why let yourself slip up from working out by doing anything on this list? I know I wouldn’t and quite frankly, you shouldn’t as well. Take the time and read this list after working out, so you can be absolutely sure that you are not doing any of them at all.  Stay healthy!

Pretty much everyone wants a healthy body but if you are just getting into running or starting with the gym what you really want and need are healthy knees. Your knees allow you to move properly and just like with most people it is rather prone to injury, this is especially true if you don’t take care of it during workout or even during regular days. I’d like to share with you some tips on how to take care and continue to have healthy knees, after all, nothing ruins a good workout schedule like a busted knee.

Keep your weight healthy – It is no secret that your knees take a lot of beatings due to your weight, so if you want healthy knees make sure you keep your weight in check. A lot of heavy set people experience pains and injuries in their knees due to the unwanted extra weight it needs to bear, quite frankly it even takes a beating during a workout so it’s almost like a high wire act in maintaining healthy knees but it is something everyone will want to figure out.

Make sure to know your body’s limits and not overdo exercises that could cause injuries.

Take the right path – When you see a sidewalk or the grass, as tempting as it sounds to walk on soft cut grass, go on the concrete street. It promotes healthy knees by having a flat and leveled walking area that really removes the unwanted stress from your knees. This is true for your workout as well, when the option presents itself, always go for a level field if you want healthy knees.

90 degrees is enough – There are times it is tempting to overdo lunges and squats, after all a lot of people think that this will give you healthy knees but over bending it more than 90 degrees is a big no-no. This will give your knees some serious strain during the workout and can leave you prone to injuries, so as much as you want to go extreme on your workout,you should always be mindful about your body’s limits.

Inner thighs to the rescue – You want to reduce as much stress from healthy knees as possible and to do that, you’ll need some strong inner thighs. They can really reduce the stress the knees experience in a workout or even from walking, so keeping them nice, fit and strong really equips you with a great shock absorber and a firm supporter of healthy knees.

Be weary of your seat – Going cycling or attending a spin class is a great cardio workout and is really wonderful at losing weight, however it can really do a number on your knees. To avoid injury and to keep your healthy knees, don’t keep the seat too low otherwise it could increase the strain. Find a comfortable height for you during your workout, test and retest again the ideal seating position and remember for future sessions.

Swim for cardio – People sing the praises of swimming quite a bit and if there is a pool near you this can be great for healthy knees. The water helps reduce the impact of exercise on the knees and there is just something so refreshing about having a workout in water don’t you think? Additionally it has been found that for existing knee injuries swimming really helps rehabilitate the injury through exercise in the water while keeping the stress to a minimum. 

Knee sleeves are pretty awesome – Well it doesn’t hurt to have protection when you are up against something as dangerous as a knee injury so it is advisable if you workout quite a bit or run some distance, get a pair of knee sleeve to protect and keep knees healthy, pretty simple if you think about it.

When it hurts, stop! – Our body is pretty intuitive, we just have to know when to listen. During a workout, when your knees are burning and start hurting it’s about time to stop and take a break. Either you worked on it too long and hard or your knees have an injury, either way it is best to stop whatever you are doing and take a rest, you can test it again after a bit but if the pain persists, it might be time to go to an expert. Remember healthy knees promote a healthy you, so make sure to take care of them.

Learn to lift properly – Quite a bit of knee injuries come from gym related accidents or exercises, which is why during your workout make sure that you have the proper form and know how to lift properly. In fact, for healthy knees, this goes beyond just the gym, you need to know how to lift whatever item properly.

Do not skip a good warm up or stretching. This lessens the chances of you busting your knee.

A healthy diet always helps – Now this tip is not solely for the purpose of healthy knees, but other joints as well. A proper diet can be a game changer for anyone and quite frankly it can be the key to you having healthy knees. By eating an anti-inflammatory diet you can assist your joints, not just the knees, proper nutrition while not putting too much strain on them. Additionally a good diet will make sure the rest of your body is functioning properly bringing less strain to other parts, which will lead to a healthier you. 

Stretch before working out – Before the workout a lot of people forget to stretch but I think that really helps when you want to keep your healthy knees. Make sure to do some proper stretching before engaging in a heavy workout or you could shock the knees into an injury.

Practice knee strengthening exercises – There are a ton of exercises out there that focuses on various body parts, why should the knees be any different? Well they aren’t so take the time to get a few of them into your workout routine, after all you’ll need healthy knees to keep doing the rest of the exercises as well, so learn them, live them and add them to the workout for a happy pair of healthy knees.

These are just some of the most useful tips out there to keep healthy knees during and outside of your workout. Make sure you take the time to read through them and plan out which ones you’ll use but if at all possible, use all the tips above for some really healthy knees on a daily basis for both workout and regular days. Stay healthy!

Let me start off by saying it’s great that you are getting into fitness and you are beginning your own road of getting to a better you, we should applaud that and celebrate your new found need to get into shape. However as someone who hasn’t been working out or is perhaps completely new to the health scene, there are what you can call fitness mistakes that you may not even know you are doing during your workout routine. Don’t be ashamed of thes mistakes, it shows that you are trying and these errors can be small, but let me give you the top 10 fitness mistakes that beginners usually make so that you can avoid it, correct it and know of it.

1.Always going for more – When you hit the gym a lot of the times people want to do more, more, more! More reps, more weight, more cardio and so forth, but this is one of the most dangerous fitness mistakes you can make as a beginner. While true more is usually better, this is not the case for beginners. You need to know your limits and when to say enough is enough, otherwise you could injure yourself during a workout routine. Find an expert or an instructor to help you out at the start and build from there, there’s no shame in getting help.

Don’t give up easily. Don’t give up at all!

2.Giving up before you feel the change – Everyone wants immediate results and when you start going to the gym for the first time, this notion is not exempted from that idea. I know that sometimes it can be frustrating to not see some immediate results from a rigorous workout routine, true but you can’t go giving up just because it hasn’t shown any change in your body just yet. Give it time, and maybe tweak your workout routine a bit. Don’t make this as your last of many fitness mistakes, it can end a fitness streak just like that trust me, I’ve seen it happen so many times.

3.Weight, weight, weight – While a lot of people start working out to lose weight and get into better shape, do not obsess over your weight too much, this is one of the most well known fitness mistakes out there. Your weight will vary considering fat weighs less than muscle, your weight can decrease and then get heavier, that is because your fats could be turning into muscles. This dissuades some people and this kills their workout routine, best to be safe and beat this mistake before it starts.

4.Weights on that barbell – There are people who are deadest on carrying something too heavy and this is one of the major fitness mistakes for beginners. You can really hurt yourself during your workout routine if you overdo it from the get-go and nobody wants that.

5.Immediate diet change – Do not just suddenly dive into a new fad diet you heard about, test the waters, do it gradually in fact and slowly dip your feet into the diet pool, don’t go diving in head first.

6.How do you use this? – Beginners are afraid to be made out as beginners, as fitness mistakes goes it is a little silly actually as there are a lot of nice people out there and when you see someone using a machine wrong, it kind of gives it away. Feel free to ask an expert perhaps the local instructor for some pointers or such during your workout routine, I am sure she or he would be happy to impart some knowledge. You don’t want some fitness mistake to end up hurting you in the long run would you?

7.Going too advanced – There are a ton of awesome routines out there that can really work for you, however that is in the near future. You can’t exactly wake up and say: “gosh I feel like running a full marathon today.” Nope, it does not work that way and the same goes with your workout routine. You can’t expect yourself to be able to suddenly follow advanced routines without going through the basics first, as fitness mistakes goes, this is pretty easy to know but hard to follow. A lot of beginners come in and want to just jump the gun, work for it and eventually get to harder routines, but don’t just assume you can start off with it just like that.

8.Keeping your eyes on the end goal – While beginners love to target their total weight loss or complete body overhaul, it is one of the known fitness mistakes to only focus on that said goal. Make reachable small goals each month, week or even every day, it will really allow you to feel as though you achieved something and will keep motivating you to keep at your workout routine. I understand that you want to reach your end goal but if you only focus on that, you lose sight of the road and can eventually find yourself astray, don’t make that mistake.

Seek help from a personal trainer. They will add so much to your knowledge and help you keep and stay on track.

9.Forgetting to track your data – There is some satisfaction to monitoring your own progress through notes. Cold hard facts do not lie and among the fitness mistakes that beginners make, this could be the most often made. When you begin working out, it feels as though things are going a little slow, especially since you haven’t gotten the groove on your workout routine just yet. However if you start writing down your notes and the information of your reps, weight and so forth, you will see that each day you are improving ever so slowly, but as they say every step forward will help complete a mile, so keep going.

10Training until you pass out – This is rare even among fitness mistakes or is it? Some beginners get everything down and do reps or sets until they cannot lift it another inch, but this is definitely one of the much less known fitness mistakes. You shouldn’t workout when you can barely move, that means you overdid it. You need to do an acceptable amount of reps and sets then let your body rest properly. You need to know your limits and when to push, but don’t go overboard otherwise you could be prone to injuries during your workout routine, and if that happens, well it makes it all the more difficult to get back on the horse after you just got on it after all.

Keep these fitness mistakes in mind next time you hit the gym or plan to go on a workout spree, since you are only beginning or just starting all over again, you don’t want to knock yourself down. It’s awesome that you want to improve yourself and get healthier, that is a step in the right direction, but don’t overdo it and go at it alone, research, ask, be curious, prepare yourself for what you can really do when you put your mind to it and go on that perfect workout routine made especially for you. Stay healthy!