A misunderstanding can get you into a lot of trouble, particularly in the fitness world.

A great mass-building move may become a backbreaker, and an imbalanced training philosophy may result in an injury rather than muscle gain or fat loss. Hopefully, these frequently misunderstood training points should help you dodge the bullet and gain a better understanding of your workout.

How to train after a break: ratchet the intensity up gradually, rather than all at once. Giving your body time to acclimate will prevent you from overtraining. At the least, it will help you avoid the overwhelming soreness that usually comes from training too hard too fast, particularly after a workout sabbatical.

Thinking about muscles, the right way: Opposing muscle groups help stabilize one another, and when you have a muscle group such as your abdominals that’s substantially stronger than its opposite, like your lower back muscles, you create an imbalance. These imbalances can lead to injuries. Prioritize neglected body parts by training them earlier in your workouts.

Relating sets to muscle size: too many weightlifters choose a number of sets haphazardly, without thinking about the relative size of muscle groups. In general, you should do more sets for larger muscle groups and fewer sets for smaller muscle groups. While this rule allows some room for maneuvering, you shouldn’t be doing the same number of sets for chest as you would for biceps, for instance.

Everybody’s different: You may like to work out with that big muscular friend of yours, but you shouldn’t be mimicking his or her workouts exactly. Different people respond to different types of training. So while a friend may introduce you to training, you eventually should experiment with different exercises and construct a routine that meets your own individual needs.

The bench press is not the only chest exercise. Try doing more flat dumbbell bench for a while, or more incline dumbbell bench, rather than barbell moves. Dumbbells give you a larger range of motion and allow you to target your chest more specifically than most barbell movements do.

Step out of the box: Adding variety to your training routine will help you stave off boredom and kick-start new gains. If you’re stuck in a rut, try manipulating either sets and reps, or the entire training routine itself.

- Daniel Hanna is a certified personal trainer and a stringer for The Red & Black