10 Ways to Cheat at the Gym

Everyone has setbacks and insecurities at the gym, whether its the way you dress or the amount that you do no one likes to be judged. For this reason a lot of people are skeptical about going to the gym and working out to look and feel their best. The biggest reason however, is knowledge. You want to go to the gym when you know what to do and what will maximize your output. Everyone does! Here are a few tips to help you out:

1. Don't do ab workouts everyday! When you workout you want to maximize the results you get out of your training and when you do that you actually tear muscles, not tear as in you need medical attention but small tears that are built back up after you workout (you know that Superman feeling you have after you lift a few weights). To give yourself great abs, don't work them out everyday. Try 2-3 times per week.

2. Only work out for an hour or less with weights. After an hour your body creates stress hormone cortisol which blocks the growth of muscles. You can use weights every workout but limit the time in which you use them. Try doing yoga or Pilates too, stretching before and after a workout will keep you limber and ready for the next time you hit the weights hard!

3. Always remember dumbbells, barbells, machines. When you workout you with free weights you concentrate on smaller muscles and it needs more help, so you should always start your workout with the things that will give you the most trouble and move on to the machines, which offer more help.

4. Count your repetitions backwards. It sounds silly but it really does help. When you do your reps and you count up you just keep thinking about how much you've done and people have the tendency to give up and say that's enough. If you set your reps at a high number from the beginning you trick yourself into thinking you have to do all those reps. Count down, not up!

5. Record what you do! Not enough people actually write down what they do at the gym, and it's a habit that needs to change. When you write down what you did and keep your stats over time you'll gain more confidence, be more aware of how much you can do, track your improvements, see where you need to work, and can progress instead of staying stagnant.

6. Breathe harder! When people are doing crunches at the gym what do you normally see them doing? Holding their breath more than likely. If you exhale deeper when you reach the top of your crunch, your abs work harder and you'll see better results. Don't believe me? Try it.

7. Pause on your last crunch. Another helpful idea when doing crunches is to pause for a few seconds at the end of your crunch set. Try and hold that last crunch at a 45 degree angle for say 30 seconds. The burning you feel near the end will be well worth it a month down the road.

8. Don't go slow. When moving from exercise to exercise don't waste your time walking around and chatting it up, get to work. The faster you go the harder your muscles will work the better shape you'll be in. Plus, you only have one hour on weight training so you better do as much as you can as quick as you can.

9. Squats and dead lifts for...abs. Research shows that your abs do a tremendous amount of work when doing these two core exercise. You want that toned middle, do these two exercise 2-3 times per week.

10. Flex your muscles every rep. The more you flex during a workout and at the bottom of each rep the stronger that muscle will get. Don't take it easy either.