No shirking at the gym

If you want to see results at the gym, don't be a shirker. Here's what fitness experts had to say on the matter -- it's fairly easy to undermine your workout by making these common mistakes:

• Not working out hard enough. A workout means work, not a vacation. If you're chatting with friends, reading magazines and holding the phone to your ear during cardio, you're burning less calories.
• Shirkers lean -- one study revealed calorie burn is reduced by 60 percent when you lean on the machine.
• Number of calories burned reported on a cardio machine is more like a guess-timation not an estimation. In reality, it's often an overestimation.

Everyone needs a shirker-day-at-the-gym. Better to be relaxing lazily on a treadmill than eating ice cream on the couch. But make those gym days an exception, not a routine. Instead, leave your phone in your locker and start paying attention to your heart rate during cardio.