Long days are already here and many of us are trying our best to fully recover from our winter slumber and our long winter feasts to get ready for the summer heat.

That often entails hitting the gym harder than ever, looking into ways to fix our eating patterns, and replenishing our energy with plenty of sleep.

However, we still want to speed up the process and start enjoying our hard-earned results. While there’s no such thing as a magic bullet for getting fit, there are many ways in which you can speed up the process and make your workouts infinitely more effective.

Let’s take a closer look at what you can do every day and within your routine to make a difference in your results. From smarter training regimes, plenty of hydration, all the way to what you pack in your gym bag, a little can go a long way in getting you back on the right fitness track!

Amp up your warm-ups

We know that working a training session into your schedule can be a nightmare. Still, there’s no excuse to walk into a gym and immediately kickstart your training routine without devoting some time to properly warming your body up. Mobility work, active stretching, and warm-up sets have several distinct purposes.

They serve to get your muscles firing well so that you can be ready for those heavy sets and endurance work properly. They serve to prevent injury and they ensure that your range of motion is optimal for best results, while your mind-muscle connection is activated.

Pre-workout nutrition

To give your best at the gym, you need energy. How do you get enough energy? By consuming enough calories, and by organizing your meals to suit your daily routine and to maximize your performance. Some people thrive on training on an empty stomach with nothing but water available, while others need sustenance – it all depends on the difficulty level of your training routine and your metabolism.

However, pre-workout nutrition is vital in getting your body ready to put your muscles to work. You need healthy carbs to replenish your glycogen stores well before you enter the gym. You also need healthy protein, and you should time your meal so that you don’t overburden your stomach.

Don’t forget your gear

One of the most commonly overlooked factors that impact your performance is your gear. But take a look at any professional athlete out there, and you’ll notice that they don’t train without all of their wearables and protective gear at the ready.

The purpose of sport-specific gear such as high-quality bodybuilding clothing goes beyond aesthetics and into providing you with ample support, breathability, and mobility. That is why a pair of sweatpants can never replace supportive, durable leggings when you’re prepping for your heavy deadlifts.

You need stable sneakers for squatting properly, and plenty of ankle support when running. If you’re using straps and wrist wraps, you know that they can be true life-savers when you need to push yourself to lift more. Not to mention the confidence you get from wearing workout gear, and the mindset it puts you in when you’re about to perform a PR on the military press.

Plan your workouts

You may feel that you know yourself well enough to simply hit the gym any time and you’ll figure your workout in a minute. However, there’s a reason why competitive athletes and professionals have entire workout programs thought out together with systematic plans on how to introduce progressive overload for optimal performance and results.

Simply put, no, you’re not above training plans. You need one in order to avoid wasting time contemplating what your next exercise should be, which muscle groups you’ve hit the hardest this week, and what you need to adapt. Take your time and plan out every day of your weekly split, and you can always introduce changes when you notice a particular move isn’t going very well for you.

Keep track of your progress

This one step can make or break all of your efforts to transform your workouts. Why? Because in order to understand where you’re making mistakes or how you can make your training better, you need to inspect it on a regular basis. The best way to do just that is to implement a tracking system that will allow you to note down changes and results.

Keep track of your weight changes every week, of what you eat and how much you move outside of your workouts, and of course, measure yourself to see if your exercises are as effective as they should be. Whether you’re building muscle, losing weight, or gaining endurance, you need to set your own goals and milestones to make sense of your workout progress.

Parting words

Ultimately, we often make mistakes in training that we’re not even aware of, but noticing them in time and correcting our behavior can make a true difference in achieving our fitness goals. Make sure to use these tips to get the most out of your workout and enjoy your fitness journey all the more for it!

Stock Photo via fizkes / Shutterstock