5 Workout Mistakes That Keep You Spinning Your Wheels

 

If you’ve been working out consistently but feel like your progress has stalled, this episode is for you. I break down five subtle workout mistakes that can keep you spinning your wheels, even when you’re putting in the effort. These are the habits that feel productive in the moment but quietly slow your long-term results.

Here is what you will learn:

• Why training to failure on every set can limit recovery and strength gains
• How treating every workout like a PR day creates burnout
• Why deload weeks are essential for continued progress
• How under-recovering between sessions impacts muscle growth
• Why tempo and time under tension matter more than you think

If this episode opened your eyes to something in your own training, don’t stop here. 

Go listen to Episode 413: The Importance of a Rest Day and 7 Reasons You’ve Stopped Seeing Results After Years of Training to keep building on what we talked about today. They’ll give you even more clarity on recovery, plateaus, and how to keep progressing long term.

Want the structure done for you? Head to movementwithjulie.com to get started inside the Movement With Julie app.

If you want more from me, be sure to check out… 

Transcript

(0:00) Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, (0:05) a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I give you a dose of real (0:11) talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally (0:16) loving your authentic self.

Stay tuned if you're ready to Embrace Your Real. Let's get it. Let's go.

(0:29) Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Embrace Your Real podcast. All right, (0:34) real talk for a second. Have you ever had one of those weeks where you walked out of the gym or your (0:38) workout and you're feeling like, why am I even doing this? Like I'm showing up, I'm doing the (0:43) work, I'm lifting the weights, but when you're looking in the mirror or thinking about your (0:46) progress, it just feels like nothing is changing.

Like maybe you felt stronger a few months ago, (0:51) maybe you were seeing changes in your body, and now you feel like you just hit a wall. And the (0:54) worst part is you can't figure out what shifted because from where you're standing, you're doing (0:59) everything right. Here's the thing.

Sometimes the mistakes that hold us back aren't the obvious ones. (1:05) They're not skipping workouts or eating terribly or never lifting heavier. Those are easier to spot (1:10) and fix.

The mistakes I'm talking about today are like the subtle ones, like the counterintuitive (1:14) ones, the ones that don't feel like mistakes in the moment. They actually feel like you're (1:19) working hard, you're doing everything right, but these are mistakes that keep your wheels spinning, (1:25) working hard without actually moving forward. So today I'm going to be breaking down five workout (1:30) mistakes that even consistent lifters make, and I'm going to give you a fix for each one so that (1:35) you can finally start seeing progress that you've been working so hard for.

Before we dive in, (1:40) though, I want to share this review. She gave a five-star review and said so powerful. I found (1:45) Julie on Instagram.

At first, I was drawn to her dumbbell-only workouts. They're amazing. I do her (1:50) workouts weekly.

I then found out about her podcast. My reaction is mind-blown. She helped (1:56) me change my mindset.

I love how she makes complicated topics simplified. Whenever I'm (2:00) struggling, I listen to an episode. I'm always able to learn from Julie in some way.

Keep (2:05) empowering and educating women. That is so, so, so amazing. Thank you so much for taking (2:11) time out of your day.

That is exactly what my hope and prayer every single time I turn this (2:15) microphone on to record. As I say, Lord, let me just either empower, educate, or encourage (2:21) someone today. So thank you for sharing this review and sending that out.

It really does mean (2:26) the world to me and our team. Just kind of know how the podcast is helping you. Maybe (2:30) it's a specific episode or just in general, we would love to hear it.

All right. Let's get (2:34) right into it. Mistake number one is training too close to failure on every set.

So let me start (2:39) with this one because it is very counterintuitive. We've been taught that if you want to build (2:43) muscle, you need to push yourself. You need to work hard.

You need to feel the burn, go (2:47) to failure, leave it all out on the gym floor, the workout floor, wherever you're working out. (2:51) And while there's some truth to that, yes, you do need to challenge yourself. There's (2:55) also a huge difference between pushing yourself in workouts and pushing to absolute failure on (3:00) every single set.

Going to true failure means that you literally cannot complete another rep (3:04) with good form. Your muscles are completely maxed out. Like you're done, you're toast, (3:08) you are gassed.

And doing that on every single set, every single workout week after week, (3:14) that's a recipe for burnout, not progress. Here's why. When you go to failure on every (3:19) single set, you're not just fatiguing your muscles, you're fatiguing your entire nervous (3:23) system.

Your body has to work incredibly hard to recover from that level of intensity. (3:28) And when you're doing it consistently, recovery cannot keep up with the damage that you're (3:32) creating. Plus, training to failure does increase your injury risk because when your muscles are (3:37) that fatigued, your form is going to start to break down, compensation patterns kick in, (3:41) and that's when tweaks, strains, or overuse injuries start to actually happen.

So what (3:46) should you be doing instead? I want you to leave one to two reps in the tank on most of your (3:51) sets. This is what we call RIR, reps in reserve. So if you're doing a set of 10 reps, (3:57) you should feel like you could do 11 or 12 if you absolutely had to, (4:01) but you're choosing to stop at 10 because that's what the program calls for.

(4:05) This approach still challenges your muscles. You're still putting in effort, (4:09) but you're not completely torching your nervous system in the process, (4:12) which means that you can show up to your workouts more frequently, recover better, (4:16) and actually build strength over time instead of constantly trying to dig yourself out of a (4:20) fatigue hole. Now, this doesn't mean that you never push close to failure.

There's (4:24) absolutely a time and place for that. Maybe on the last set of a compound movement or the (4:29) move the month or during a certain training phase where just intensity is the focus, (4:33) but it shouldn't be your default approach at every single set because long-term progress (4:38) comes from being able to show up consistently to your workouts, not from destroying yourself (4:42) every time that you lift. Mistake number two is treating every workout like a PR day.

(4:48) So this one is closely related to the first workout, but it's a little bit different and (4:52) I see it all the time, especially with women who are super motivated and driven. (4:56) You're very type A, like you walk into the gym or you walk into your workout and you just (5:00) want to beat what you did last week. Like you want to add weight, you want to hit more reps, (5:03) you want to see progress today, today, today.

And listen, I love that energy. I love that (5:07) you're showing up with intention, but here's the problem. If you're trying to set a personal record (5:12) every single workout, you're literally setting yourself up for frustration and for burnout and (5:18) progress in the gym doesn't happen in a straight line.

Some weeks you're going to feel very (5:22) strong and you're going to crush your lifts. Other weeks you're going to feel off. Maybe (5:25) you didn't sleep well.

Maybe your stress is high. Maybe you're dealing with hormone shifts. (5:29) Your performance is going to reflect that.

And that's normal. That's a part of being (5:33) human. But when you treat every workout like a PR day, you're not allowing for that natural (5:39) fluctuation, right? You're putting enormous pressure on yourself to perform at your peak (5:43) every single time.

And when you inevitably have a day where you don't hit a new record, (5:47) you feel like you failed. And that mindset, that's exhausting. And over time, (5:51) it's going to lead to burnout.

So what's the fix? I want you to focus on one progressive lift (5:56) per workout. Not all the time. Pick one movement.

Maybe that's your squat, your deadlift, (6:00) your bench, and put focus there. That's the lift where you're going to be tracking progress, (6:05) aiming to add weight reps over time. For everything else, just show up and do the (6:09) work.

Hit your prescribed reps with good form. Focus on the quality of movement, (6:12) not chasing numbers every single time. This takes so much more pressure off because now (6:18) you're not trying to PR on six different exercises in one session.

You're just showing (6:22) up, working out with intention and allowing progress to happen naturally over weeks and (6:26) months, not forcing every single workout. When you stop chasing PRs every workout, (6:31) you actually end up making better progress long-term because you're not constantly fatiguing (6:36) yourself. You're not burning out and you're able to show up consistently to your workouts.

(6:40) Mistake number three is skipping deload week. So a deload week is a planned week where you (6:44) intentionally reduce the intensity, volume, or both in your training. You're still working out, (6:49) but you're really pulling back on purpose to give your body a chance to fully recover.

(6:54) I know that some of you might be worried that dialing back will make you lose progress, (6:57) that you'll get weaker if you ease up even for one week, but that's the exact (7:00) opposite of what actually happens. Progress does not happen in your workouts. Progress happens (7:05) during recovery.

When you lift, you're creating those tiny micro tears in your muscle fibers, (7:11) and your body then repairs those tears, and that's how you get stronger and build muscle. (7:15) But if you never give your body a true chance to recover, if you're constantly stacking workout (7:20) on top of workout week after week without ever backing off, your body cannot complete that (7:25) repair process and you're just accumulating fatigue. And eventually that shows up as stalled progress, (7:31) decreased performance, nagging aches, pains, low motivation, just constantly feeling drained.

(7:36) So a deload week, this is going to help solve that. About every eight to 10 weeks, (7:41) especially if you're consistent in your training week after week, I want you to take a planned (7:45) week where you reduce how intense your workouts are. This is going to give your muscles, your joints, (7:50) your connective tissue, your nervous system, a chance to fully recover and adapt to all (7:54) the work that you've been doing.

And what's really cool is that after a proper deload week, (7:58) you usually come back feeling stronger than before because your body finally had the space (8:02) that it needed to adapt. Now, a deload week doesn't mean you're doing nothing. It just means (8:07) that you're reducing the load.

So maybe you're keeping the same number of workouts, (8:10) but you're just using lighter weights. Maybe you reduce your volume, fewer sets, fewer exercises. (8:16) Maybe you swap out some of your heavy compound lifts for lighter accessory work.

The key is (8:21) that you're giving your body a break from pushing yourself hard while still moving and staying (8:26) active. And if you're not already taking deload weeks, they can be a complete game changer. (8:31) Maybe the thing that you've been missing all along.

Mistake number four is under recovering (8:36) between workout days. So this mistake is really all about how you set up your workouts for the (8:42) week when you schedule them. A lot of women accidentally sabotage their progress by not (8:46) giving themselves enough recovery time between workouts that target the same muscle group.

(8:51) So for example, maybe you're doing a leg day on Monday where you're really pushing yourself (8:56) squats, lunges, deadlifts, the whole thing. And then you turn around and do another intense (9:00) leg day on Tuesday, or maybe you're doing a challenging upper body workout one day, (9:04) and then the next day you're right back at it with more chest and shoulders and biceps. (9:08) Your muscles need time to recover and adapt.

When you work a muscle group, (9:12) it needs at least 48 hours, sometimes more, to repair and rebuild before you work hard again. (9:18) If you're not giving yourself that space, you're not actually building strength, (9:21) you're just beating your muscles up over and over and over again without letting them recover. (9:25) So what is the fix? I want you to structure your workout schedule so that you're allowing (9:30) adequate recovery between sessions that work the same muscles.

(9:34) And this is one of the reasons why my Moom with Julie app only programs a maximum of five days (9:39) a week. So it's not that you can't work out more than that. It's because your body needs (9:44) those rest days to actually adapt to the work that you've been doing.

And also it's very (9:48) customizable. But five days of intentional workouts with proper recovery will always outperform (9:54) seven days of constant under-recovered workouts. If you're someone who feels (9:58) like you need to work out every single day, I want you to hear this.

More is not always better. (10:04) Better is better. A better and better means working out with intention, (10:08) with proper recovery, and with a structure that actually supports building the body that you want.

(10:14) Mistake number five, neglecting tempo and time under tension. All right, last mistake, (10:19) and this one is huge, even though it seems small, but a lot of women are lifting heavy (10:24) weights, which is great, but they're moving through their reps way too fast. You've probably (10:29) seen this in the gym or in your workouts or even on Instagram or social media, but someone is (10:34) loading up the bar or they're picking up those dumbbells.

They're cranking out those reps as (10:38) fast as possible. They're bouncing weights at the bottom of the movement. They're using (10:42) momentum instead of muscle control.

And sure, you might be able to lift heavier weight that way, (10:46) but you're leaving so much progress on the table because building muscle isn't just about (10:51) how much weight you're lifting. It's about how much time your muscles are under tension (10:57) during each set. It's about controlling the weight through the entire range of motion, (11:02) the lowering phase, the pause at the bottom, the lifting phase, the squeeze at the top.

(11:07) When you rush through reps, you're relying on momentum and bounce instead of actually (11:12) engaging your muscles through the full movement. So what is the fix? I want you to slow down, (11:17) focus on tempo and time under tension. A good rule of thumb for most lifts, two to three seconds (11:22) on the lowering phase, a brief pause at the bottom and one to two seconds on the lifting (11:27) phase and squeeze at the top.

So think about a bicep curl, two to three seconds down, (11:32) a brief pause at the bottom and one to two seconds on the lifting phase and squeezing at (11:36) the top. This doesn't mean that you need to move in slow motion every single rep, (11:40) but it does mean that you're in control of the weight at all times. You're not bouncing, (11:44) you're not using momentum, you're making your muscles do the work.

And when you do this, (11:48) something amazing happens. You don't need to lift as heavy to get results because the quality (11:53) of the movement matters just as much, if not more than the quantity of the weight. (11:58) And this is something that I really incorporate on the movement with Julie app on certain (12:02) exercises.

I program tempo cues. So you're not just moving the weight around, but you're (12:07) working your muscles more effectively. So, you know, you're in a sumo squat and you're doing (12:11) one, two, three, four, five, pause at the bottom.

One, two, three, split up. So there are so many (12:18) different tempos that you can intertwine into your movements, whether it's on upper body, (12:23) lower body, cardio and core, all of the things. So inside the movement with Julia, that's why I (12:28) have so many movements in there because a two dumbbell sumo squat or a one dumbbell sumo squat (12:34) or a tempo sumo squat with one dumbbell, like all of those are a little bit different from each (12:39) other.

And they're all just fun because you're not doing the same exact movement every single time, (12:44) you're adding that interest to keep you coming back. All right, let's quickly recap the five workout (12:49) mistakes that we covered in today's episode. So mistake number one is training too close to (12:53) failure on every single set.

The fix is leaving that one to two reps in the tank on most sets (12:59) to preserve your nervous system and support long-term progress. Mistake number two is treating (13:03) every workout like a PR day. The fix here is focusing on one progressive lift per workout and (13:08) letting everything else just be good, solid work.

Mistake number three is skipping deload weeks. The (13:14) fix here is taking a planned recovery deload week every eight to 10 weeks to let your body (13:19) fully adapt to your training. And if you're inside the movement with Julia community and workouts, (13:23) you can do the deload week whenever you want.

Like it can be a regular week programmed week (13:29) of workouts, but you just dial down that intensity a lot and you can really customize (13:34) your workout within the app, which is why I created that so that you're able to take (13:38) a deload week or be hitting a PR in the same week, right? Whether it's so, you know, Susie (13:44) might be doing this week's work workouts and she's hitting PRs. And then Tammy might be (13:50) doing this week's workouts and she's doing a deload week. It's all about the intensity (13:53) that you're putting in or you're dialing down the intensity.

Mistake number four, (13:58) under recovering between workout days. The fix here is giving yourself at least 48 hours (14:02) between sessions that work the same muscles. This is why again, my movement with Julia only (14:06) programs five days per week.

You'll also see here. So for example, we schedule like shoulders (14:12) and glutes. If you are following the Monday through Friday protocol, you'll see shoulders (14:16) and glutes is scheduled on Thursday.

And then full body is scheduled on Friday. (14:20) Sometimes there is some shoulders or sometimes there is some glute work there. But the key (14:26) for full body days is in my opinion, and what I typically recommend is dialing back your (14:33) weight for full body days because you typically will have like a two in one or sometimes a three (14:39) in one movement.

So let's say you're doing a lunge to curl to press that's three separate movements, (14:45) but it's all in one rep. So you're likely going to dial back your weight versus you just doing (14:52) a shoulder press, a standing shoulder press because you're doing three movements in one. (14:57) So I really dial back my weight on full body days and allow it to literally be a full body workout (15:03) instead of trying to push and being like, Oh, you know, I do 25 pounds here on bicep curls.

(15:08) So I'm going to try and do 25 pounds on the reverse lunge to bicep curl to press. Well, (15:12) that's just likely going to completely gas you out. So I encourage you to dial back (15:17) your weight on full body days and really just let it be a full body conditioning workout.

(15:22) And then last but not least, mistake number five is neglecting tempo and time under tension. (15:26) The fix here is slowing down, controlling the weight and focusing on quality over speed. (15:31) If you're making any of these mistakes, I would just want you to know that you're not failing.

(15:35) These are subtle. They're counterintuitive. They don't feel like mistakes in the moment, (15:39) but now that you know what to look for, you can adjust.

And those adjustments are going to (15:43) make massive differences in your results. And if you're thinking, okay, this is really helpful, (15:47) but I don't want to have to figure all of this out on my own. That's exactly why I created my (15:52) Move with Julie Dumbo only workouts.

Again, this app in this program is designed to take (15:56) the guesswork out of it. Recovery days, those are up to you. There's two recovery days planned.

(16:02) So if you do the Monday through Friday workouts, you will always have recovery days on Saturday (16:06) and Sunday, whether you do a recovery day and then a complete rest day, totally up to you. (16:11) And you can customize this app. Like I said, you know, you have Susie doing a PR week with (16:15) the same week of workouts as Tammy doing a D-load week with the same week workouts, (16:19) because you're able to dial back or push depending on where you're at.

You can go to (16:25) salesale.movewithjulie.com to learn more and sign up. If you're a brand new subscriber, (16:29) you get 50% off your first month. And then if you sign up annually, we do have an annual sale (16:34) going on right now.

You get four months free. So it's 160 for the year and you get four (16:39) months free there. Before I let you go, if this episode shifted something for you, (16:43) would you just do me a favor, hit that follow button so that these episodes land in your (16:47) feed every single week.

They're completely free. We release them on Monday and Thursday. (16:52) And if you have 30 seconds, if you could leave a review that makes a huge difference, (16:57) probably bigger than you even realize.

If you want to keep learning, I know you will also love (17:01) these two episodes. We have the importance of a rest day and seven reasons why you've (17:07) stopped seeing results after years of training. I will link both of those in the show notes (17:10) below so that you can easily go check those out.

But that is all that I have for today's episode. (17:15) Thank you so much for tuning in. I love you so much.

I'll talk to you in the next one. (17:25) All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do.

(17:31) First thing, if you're not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so Julie A. Ledbetter. (17:36) Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that daily post-workout real talk, (17:41) healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. (17:45) The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode.

(17:51) Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with (17:56) one last thought.

The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are (18:00) completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty (18:07) goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace it real because you're worth it.

 
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