You’ve been nailing your macros, doing everything the latest routine tells you to do and have been living like a hermit at the weekends so you don’t sacrifice any gains while getting smashed down your local, but somethings wrong, your progress has stopped, you’re not seeing any improvement, what have you done wrong?

Take a look at these 5 things you need to stop doing in the gym that could be hindering your gains:

Not recording your workouts.

Can you remember how many reps you got on that deadlift last week? can you even remember how much weight you had on the bar? OK maybe you can, but what about those pull ups, how many did you get again?

Humans perform better when competing against something, why not record your workouts and compete against yourself, this way you will start each session with a target to better the previous workout.

This will stop you coasting through sessions where you make no progress on your lifts.

Not switching up your routine.

So you’ve been doing that 5×5 routine for 6 months or that push pull routine since you can remember?

Stop it.

Switch it up, humans get bored easily and when you get bored you don’t put the effort in. Have a look for some new routines you can do, you don’t necessarily have to abandon your other routine completely, just throw something new in to the mix!

Not eating enough.

So you’re trying to bulk and all was going well, then all of a sudden you stopped seeing gains. Did you look at your calorie requirements and adjust them? No, of course you didn’t, you were gaining nicely so why would you?

As your body grows, your requirements to continue growing change. you may have only needed 3000 calories 2 months ago, but you’re bigger now, you need 250 extra calories per day to keep it up.

The opposite can be said for those trying to lose weight. you were restricting your intake to 2000 cals a day so you were below your maintenance level but now your weight loss has stopped? You either need to eat slightly less now that you have slimmed down (and so decreased your maintenance level) or you need to workout harder to burn off more calories!

Using too many machines.

Machines have their place in the gym, but your place should be in the free weights section, why? because they recruit more muscle and require more effort than a machine.

Instead of hitting the leg press the next time you hit the gym, go for the squat rack instead, your body will gain so much more from a big compound exercise than it will from sitting on a machine. Your routine should consist of mainly free weight exercises to maximise gains.

Resting for too long.

So you’ve just finished your second set and you reach for your mobile to check your messages, 4 minutes goes by and you’re still sitting on the bench scrolling through Instagram. Put the phone down!

You’re heart rate starts to lower during long rest periods, this stops the body refuelling your muscles and mentally you’re not concentrating on your next set.

Rest periods should be appropriate to the type of training you’re doing so you can. Leave the phone in your bag if you cant keep away from it and keep your mind on the next set. You’ll hopefully find that you’re stronger both physically and mentally by keeping your mind on your gym session instead of your news feed.

Give these a try during your next visit to the gym and let us know how they worked for you!