Many athletes don't stretch before lifting. They think it is just something you do before practice or running. Stretching though is very important, especially when you are lifting heavy weights week after week and putting strain on your muscles and tendons. By stretching you get oxygen to your muscles, and wake them up for all the punishment they are about to get. When lifting heavy, stretching will help you prevent aching joints and other nuisances that can put an end to your heavy lifting.

Don't Overtrain

The most common mistake made by strength trainers and body builders of all levels is overtraining. Training of each body part should only be done once a week. When you do not give the muscle time to recuperate you stunt your progress and can in fact lose strength. It is better to take an extra day off, than lift a day early. Remember it is not how long you lift, but rather how hard and intense you lift.

Train for Strength

As many of your probably know when you do sets with high reps, 12 and up are training to get cut up, or lean. Likewise when you are trying to gain size you do sets with lower reps. If you want to increase your max lift, low reps in the range of 4-6 are not going to cut it. To build strength you have to push your muscles past the limits. Your main sets will consist of reps between 1-3. Unless you increase the weight and expose your muscle fibers to this type of lifting your max will not increase as rapidly as you would like. Before you lift a weight you need to know what your goal is; is it to be buff, or do you want to be the best in your sport?

Variation

When you do the same thing over and over your body gets used to it and it stops responding. You have to surprise your body and muscles and keep them growing. I am sure that you have seen some athletes come into the weight room day after day doing the same thing with the same weight, and then wonder why they aren't getting stronger. You need to change the exercises you are doing and the order you are doing them. You also have to surprise of shock your body with different routines.

Fatigue

The order in which you perform exercises on a certain day can effect the results of the exercises you do later in the workout. You should always perform mass building exercises at the beginning of your workout, because that is when you are the strongest. Once these are complete you can go on to the sculpting exercises. If however, you do them in the wrong order your muscles will already have begun to fatigue and you won't do as well as you had expected. For example, if you do cable crossovers for your chest, and then you head for the bench press, your weight will drop.

If you are trying to get lean and do a cardiovascular type workout, then it is good to take a short break between sets.

Mindset and Preparation

Maxing out is a very mental exercise. Lifting can be very mental, there is no doubt to that! Visualize your success. Teach yourself mental skills. When you enter the weight room you must be ready!