We’re well into summer break now, but it’s not too late to streamline your exercise routine and reach those fitness goals. It takes more than mindlessly going through the motions of your usual workout. In fact, there’s actually a science behind working out.

Fitness experts have discovered the most effective ways to burn calories – as well as the most ineffective ways. And because I like you, I’m going to share a few of them with you now. Take a look below for five fitness mistakes to avoid in order to see the best results for your effort.

Exercise Mistake #1: Focusing on Cardio First

This one may come as a shock to you. Although cardio is crucial to losing weight and lowering your body fat percentage, it’s even more effective when preceded by strength training. This is because your body uses stored fat as fuel for exercise, but before it can do that, it must first burn off your glycogen stores. Strength training causes your body to use these glycogen stores, meaning your cardio work will only have fat as fuel. The result? More calories burned and a more effective workout.

Exercise Mistake #2: Neglecting Your Lower Body

Your lower half holds the largest muscles in your body. When you work these muscles, your body creates more muscle tears that it must then repair – which burns calories. So it only makes sense that spending time on your lower body leads to more calories burned per sweat session. Don’t worry (as much) about targeted upper-body work, since exercising your lower body will likely result in an overall reduction of your total percentage of body fat, decreasing that excess flab on your arms.

Exercise Mistake #3: Lifting Lighter Weights

Are you in the habit of using lighter weights in order to complete more reps? If so, stop. Recent studies have shown that completing fewer reps with heavier weights actually burns more calories than doing the opposite. In order to gain muscle mass, you need to seriously challenge your muscles. Why is this important? Because strong muscles help you burn more calories, which improves the results of any workout you choose to do.

Exercise Mistake #4: Skipping Meals

It’s tempting to cut way back on calories in order to lose weight. After all, if you’re eating fewer calories, you’ll need to burn fewer. Right? While that logic makes sense at first glance, there’s one problem: food is fuel. Your body needs food to produce the energy required to exercise. So by consuming a healthy amount of calories through quality foods, you give your workout a significant boost.

Exercise Mistake #5: Maintaining One Intensity Level

Interval training is all the rage among fitness gurus today, and for good reason. Turns out, you don’t have to log hours and hours on the treadmill each week to see results. Research shows that incorporating bursts of high-intensity work into your exercise session (interval training) actually burns more calories than performing steady-state exercise (such as jogging). The good news? It’s not difficult to add interval training into your regimen. Simply amp up the speed to your max effort level for short periods of time during your workout.

Chiropractic Keeps You Going

I hope you’ve found these tips useful. Remember, getting regular adjustments is especially important when you’re physically active. It keeps your body running like a well-oiled machine so you can do what you do. Give us a shout now to learn more about the health benefits of chiropractic.

Do you have some exercise advice you’ve learned through trial and error? Why not share it in the comments below?