If you are working your way through a strength training program you will need to also take care of your body. Strength training just like any exercise program requires that you be healthy when you exercise. That means if you have the flu or a bad cold don’t go to the gym and exercise. You would not want someone next to you hacking and coughing away as you work out and no one else wants that either. If you are not feeling well you will not have the strength to exercise. Your body needs your strength to heal itself.

Whenever you exercise you will need to warm up the body muscles so make sure to include a warm up program with your strength training program. When you are actually working with the weights whether free weights or weight machines, lift the weights slowly, don’t jerk the weights up or down as you can hurt those muscles that you are trying to build up. Also use the muscles that you are working on to actually lift and lower the weights. Don’t bend to get the weights easier. This is counterproductive. You are using the weights as a resistance to the muscles so the muscles work harder. If you don’t let the muscles work you are not getting the full benefit of the work out.

Another thing is don’t use your momentum to lift that weight. If you are using your built up momentum to get the weight up you are probably using too heavy of a weight. When sitting on a weight machine say doing leg lifts it is easy to go up then down and as you return up use that swinging motion to get up. That is momentum and you want the muscles to work, and not the energy from the previous lift.