Exercise, Fitness

December 9, 2008

Debunking the Most Common Fitness Myths

Nowhere are these words of wisdom more apt than in the fitness field. Fact is, anyone can hang a shingle on their door and call themselves a personal trainer or fitness expert. No knowledge of exercise required.The upshot: There are a lot of people out there perpetrating fitness myths that are at best misleading and at worst potentially dangerous. Here are three of the most common.

MYTH 1. You shouldn’t lift weights until you get down to your ideal body weight.

TRUTH: This myth is based on the premise that adding muscle if you’re overweight will make you look even fatter. This has resulted in a legion of people who try to diet their way to fat loss and just focus on cardio. Bad idea.

Fact is weight training helps to promote fat loss. Muscle mass increases your metabolic rate, which directly aids in the burning of fat as fuel. Studies have shown that for each pound of muscle added to your body, you burn an additional 30 to 50 calories a day at rest. Avoid weight training and your body actually cannibalizes its own muscle, suppressing metabolism and ultimately leading to a rebound effect.

Bottom line: If you want to lose weight and keep it off, lift weights! It’s essential to sustaining fat loss and even more important than cardiovascular exercise for long-term weight maintenance.

MYTH 2. Performing abdominal exercises will give you a flat stomach.

TRUTH: Watch late night TV and you’re bound to see an infomercial for some new ab blasting device that claims to whittle away your gut. Wishful thinking.

Fact is the body can’t selectively target fat on any part of your body, including the midsection. The only way to get a flat stomach is to strip away abdominal fat. This is accomplished by having a proper nutritional regimen, performing cardiovascular exercise to help burn calories, and increasing lean muscle to increase metabolism (see Myth 1).

Bottom line: Ab training will help to develop the abdominal muscles, but you’ll never see that “six pack” unless the fat in this area is stripped away.

MYTH 3. You should train your abdominals every day to get a “six pack”.

TRUTH: This fallacy goes hand-in-hand with Myth 2. It is widely believed that the abdominals exercises can and should be trained on a daily basis to achieve maximum results.

The fact is abdominals can be over-trained just like any other muscle group. Muscle tissue is actually broken down during training, and therefore needs adequate rest and recuperation in order to regenerate. When your abs are trained too frequently, the recovery process is shortchanged, resulting in diminished muscular development.

What’s more, your abdominals are worked indirectly while training other muscle groups. They are stabilizers for virtually every movement you perform. In effect, you get an ab workout every time you train with weights!

Bottom line: Considering these facts, you need only train your abs a maximum two or three times per week. Allow at least 48 hours between ab workouts. If you do not see proper results, train more intensely and/or use weighted abdominal exercises. Remember, it’s the quality of training -— not the quantity of training -— that produces results!

Brad