Fitness Myths Busted
Lifting weights will make you ‘bulky’
This one is more commonly a fear among women that exercising with weights will suddenly make you look like a bodybuilder. It won’t and avoiding using weights will only hinder your results. Gaining muscle will only contribute that ‘toned’ look that a lot of people are chasing, as well as making you stronger, and staving off age-related muscle loss. In fact, women gain muscle at half the rate of men so not only would you have to be doing weight significantly longer to gain a large amount of muscle mass, but it is far from something that would happen overnight. If you did start gaining more muscle mass then you like, then its easy enough to adjust your training to suit.
Men and women should train differently
This is only slightly true, while women can train identically to men for great results, their programs differ slightly because of estrogen’s effect on their body. The high amounts of estrogen mean women can recover slightly quicker than men which means they’re able to handle a higher amount of volume and still recover from it. Another common myth is that women don’t have the same muscular potential as men, women can actually gain the same amount of muscle mass of men, but as they don’t have as much testosterone the time taken to get there is greatly increased.
Muscle turns to fat when you stop exercising
This myth is one of the quickest to disprove as its physically impossible, muscle and fat are two completely different tissues, and they can’t turn into one another. It’s understandable why some people assumed this as usually when you stop exercising you are losing muscle and gaining fat, however, these are two separate processes.
You’re an ectomorph/mesomorph/endomorph
Somatotyping is the classification of people into three supposed body types, ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph, which has been completely debunked as a pseudoscience. Originally made by a psychologist called William Sheldon in the 1940’s, the three classifications are defined as:
Ectomorph – Usually skinny, thin and delicate in nature
Mesomorph – Genetically gifted, gain muscle quickly, lose fat without trying and can eat anything they want. They are courageous, outgoing brave and dominant
Endomorphs - Endomorphs are those predisposed to carry excess body fat, have rounder physiques and are slower. Personality-wise Sheldon claims they are prone to being complacent.
It should be obvious from the massive assumptions he’s made the reasons these have been thoroughly debunked. For starters, you can’t tell someone’s personality from their body type, and you can’t claim they are predetermined to be fat/skinny/muscular. People come in all shapes and sizes and putting someone into one of three boxes is a massive generalisation. Your amount of muscle or body fat doesn’t make you genetically pre-determined to stay that way. By claiming you aren’t able to change your body fat/ muscle mass just because of your current body composition is limiting your results before you’ve even started.
I can’t gain muscle/lose fat because of genetics
Following on from the previous myth, the harsh truth is if you claim to be an ‘ectomorph’ who can’t gain muscle or an ‘endomorph’ who can’t lose weight you’re likely just not:
a) Optimising your diet (getting enough protein/calories/micronutrients for your goal)
b) Using an effective workout program (enough frequency, intensity, volume and type for your goal)
c) Prioritising recovery (insufficient recovery will impede your results)
These are all things that should be consulted with an allied health professional to make sure you’re doing the right things. If you’ve been doing all three things right for a year minimum and still struggle with results, then you might be what’s called a ‘hardgainer’, people who do gain muscle at a slower rate. Does this mean you won’t be able to gain muscle? Not at all, everyone can gain muscle with the right diet and training program so don’t use it as an excuse to limit your own potential.
As with the above, if you’re still struggling to lose weight after following all those steps, then a consultation with a dietician is an important step. The truth is unless you have a legitimate hormonal issue, then chances are you’re just eating more calories than you’re burning in a day and aren’t losing weight because of it. It can be easy to miscount calories so advice from a dietician will be a great way to make sure you’re on the right path.
You can 'tone' your body
Often fitness magazines, women’s fitness magazines are especially bad for it, claim that by doing workout x, which usually involves lightweight for many repetitions, you can 'tighten' and 'tone' your body. These are BS terms.
There is no such thing as tightening or toning your body, and what is really happening when people ‘tone’ their body is they lost fat, gained muscle or both. Ironically the workouts they often give to ‘tone’ your body, involving light weights and high reps, is one of the least effective ways to get there. Using a moderately heavy weight for lower reps will get you results quicker while actually improving your physique.
You can 'target' fat loss
While this would be nice the bad news is that where you gain fat and where you will lose it is almost entirely determined by your gender and genetics. Men more often accumulate fat in an ‘android’ figure (apple shape), while women tend to gain weight in a gynoid figure (pear-shaped). While plenty of workout programs and fitness magazines claim you can do this workout to ‘torch your belly fat’, fat loss doesn’t work like that. Short of getting a torch to burn off parts of your belly fat, the only way to target fat loss is to be in a consistent calorie deficit, with fat loss usually being lost in the inverse of where you gained the fat.
You should be sore the day after a workout
This isn’t entirely a myth as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), the fancy term for sore muscles post-workout), can sometimes be a good thing and is to be expected. If you’re starting a new workout program, doing a new exercise or doing significantly more weight/reps etc than usual then its normal to be experiencing soreness post-exercise.
If you consistently feel sore after your workouts, you are either
a) Working out too hard
b) Not recovering enough.
c) A bit of both
If your exercise program is done right you should only rarely be feeling sore after a workout, and deliberately trying to make yourself sore is only impeding your results. The goal isn’t to have extreme DOMS the days following your workouts, this is ultimately counterproductive, leading to you being unable to train as hard as you could, as well as making you feel run down and likely less motivated to train.
Burpees are a good exercise
Burpees are a very common exercise and one of the few exercises that people should stop ASAP. Its an exercise trying to be three things at once, the jump squat, push up and a cardio exercise, and its not good at any of them. You’re throwing yourself at the ground into a push-up position which forces your wrist into extension (increases risk of injury) and your form will only deteriorate as you get tired. If you want to train your chest, just do push-ups, if you want to train your legs just do jump squats. Overcomplicated exercises are often only going to increase your risk of injury. If you want a high-intensity exercise that uses your whole body exercises better alternatives are skater hops, star jumps, step ups, sprints and high knees to name a few.