I am of the opinion that the best weight loss exercises are those that involve resistance training, such as weight lifting. This is because you burn more calories on average while weight training, as opposed to cardiovascular training and build quality muscle at the same time. The more muscle you have, the better your body will be at metabolizing body fat. I have outlined here for you the top 10 training errors to avoid and how to correct them.

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1. Incorrect Technique - The most common reason why people use incorrect technique when lifting weights, or "cheat", is because they are not able to handle the amount of weight that they are lifting. By using incorrect exercise technique, you are not working the muscle to its full potential and may expose yourself to injury. The solution to this is to learn how to perform each exercise perfectly and drop the weight down if necessary if you become sloppy.

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2. Repetitions Too Low - If you are aiming to build muscle, aim to keep the repetition range between 8 to 12 repetitions per set. Studies show that this is the perfect range for building muscle. Any higher and you will be training more for endurance. Any lower and you will training more for strength.

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3. Not Training to Failure - In order to stimulate new muscle growth, we need to give our body a reason to grow. Therefore, we need to train to failure whenever possible, as you will then be pushing your body beyond its usual boundaries and have more of a chance of sparking new muscle growth.

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4. Relying on Machines - Machines have their place in the gym, but they will never take the place of free weights, such as barbells and dumbbells. This is because free weights allow your body to move through a natural range of motion and therefore produce better results. If you feel the necessity to use machines, leave them until the end of your workout.

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5. Not Enough Intensity - As has been stated at length above: If you don't push yourself hard enough with your training, you will see no, or at best, little results. This is why it is so important to familiarize yourself with lifting techniques that enable you to train beyond the point of failure. Some of these include forced reps, drop sets and negative reps.

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6. Not Enough Rest - If your muscles don't fully recover before hitting the gym again, you are not going to see the kind of results that you are looking for. What's more, you are asking for an injury due to overtraining. Try to leave it at least 72 hours before training the same body part again and ensure that you are taking in enough nutrients for recovery.

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7. Avoiding The Smaller Muscles - Many people in the gym place all of their effort into training the larger muscles of the body, such as the legs and back, and by doing so, neglect the smaller body parts. The muscles that are usually neglected are forearms, calves and the abdominals. Understand that every muscle is important and that they all help each other to grow in different ways. Therefore, make time in your routine for your entire body and it will show in your results.

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8. Off Target Results - This problem usually applies to people who are new to the gym and have little experience working out. For these people, they may think they are working a particular part of their body, when in fact they have the angles or exercises all wrong. Having a basic comprehension of the human anatomy is important if you want to be sure that you are on the right track to muscle gain and fat loss.

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9. Range of Motion - It is vitally important to take each and every exercise through its full range of motion. This will help to ensure that you are recruiting all available muscle fibres and getting the best bang for your buck. This is not to say that you should train when you feel uncomfortable. If you feel as if an exercise is placing too much strain on your joints when performing it using a full range of motion, swap it for another exercise immediately.

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10. Never Changing Your Workout - The human body is able to adapt incredibly fast to any exercise routine. This is why you need to be changing your workout at least every 4 weeks. If you do so, you will see more gains, as your body is tricked into thinking that it needs to build more muscle in order to cope with the changes. For example, if your cardiovascular weight loss exercises consisted of running and biking, you could change this every 4 weeks to swimming and rowing.

When performing muscle building exercises and weight loss exercises, it is important to know what to do, but it is equally important to know what not to do. When you think about it, knowing what not to do is half the battle. So next time you visit the gym (hopefully tomorrow), remember these 10 training errors and be sure not to repeat them.