Six Common Myths About Weight Training

Six Common Myths About Weight Training Every sport or activity probably has it’s share of useless advice and half-truths that get freely passed on to the newcomers. But when it comes to weight training, there is more time wasted and dangerous mythology told, than any other activity out there! The fact is, there is literally tons of free advice given out in gyms, that if taken for absolute fact, can not only set back your progress, but possibly injure you as well. This sort of thing can lead to frustration and make you think it’s a waste of time to exercise and make you want to quit altogether. But before you fall victim to these "Myths", lets take a look at some of the falsehoods to avoid, so you can train rationally. MYTH # 1 "BIG MUSCLES SLOW YOU DOWN" Muscles are responsible for every movement your body can make. From the blink of an eyelid to getting up and mowing the lawn, it is muscles that provide movement. This "Muscles slow you down" myth comes from the days when the term "Muscle Bound" was used to describe weightlifters and bodybuilders. However, in any given sport or activity, people are finding that a stronger body makes them perform better. Simply put, if you want to swing a bat faster you need more power. If you want to pull yourself up a rope faster you need more power. That power comes from your muscles. MYTH # 2 "MUSCLE ONLY TURNS TO FAT LATER" Muscle tissue and fat tissue are completely different from one another. It is impossible for one to turn into the other. Here is where this myth comes from. Muscle is metabolically active tissue meaning it requires lots of energy to maintain it. A pound of muscle burns around 60 calories per day. If you add ten pounds of muscle to your body, it will need an extra 600 calories daily to maintain the extra mass, this will make you eat more. But, if you stop training, that extra muscle will begin to shrink and you will not need the extra calories you’ve gotten used to eating anymore. And sure enough, if you keep eating like you were when you were training minus the extra muscle, you’ll end up with extra fat on you. MYTH # 3 "YOU NEED TO SHOCK YOUR MUSCLES BY DOING THINGS THEY DON’T EXPECT" This one always gives me a good laugh. The idea behind this myth is that your suppose to change up and do different exercises for each muscle group as a way to surprise them and get a better response from them. Yeah, sure, ok. Let’s look at your biceps muscle for example. Like any other muscle, it attaches at two points on the bone and contracts in one "strait line" direction and relaxes in the other. Period, there is no exception at all. You can lift the bar on a $10,000 machine or lift a box of rocks, your biceps move exactly the same and do not know the difference between what they are lifting. So where is the shock? Your biceps aren’t going to say, today we are lifting dumbbells instead of the bar on a machine so we better put on more size to make up for it! Muscles are not shocked by variation in exercise, they don’t know the difference. They only respond to increases in weight then adapt to handle the extra load. MYTH # 4 "YOU NEED HIGH REPS FOR DEFINATION AND LOW REPS FOR SIZE" A muscle’s shape is predetermined by genetics at birth and cannot be changed. A muscle can only do three things; (1)It can get bigger, (2)It can get smaller or (3)It can stay the same size. The only way to make a muscle bigger is to make it work under progressively heavier loads. To keep it the same size, just keep the weight the same. To make it smaller just stop exercising it altogether. Now the idea that one type of exercise will "Define" muscles and another type of exercise will make it bigger has no basis of reality. Muscle definition is a combination of muscle size and lower body fat. So, if you want better definition you need to make your muscles bigger by using heavier progressive loads and reduce your bodyfat with proper eating and aerobic exercise. High reps may burn more fat as would any long duration exercise, but the low weight you have to use will not make your muscles any bigger. So, it makes more sense to do heavier resistance for size and aerobics for fat burning. Correct this myth by saying: low, heavier reps for size, lower bodyfat for definition. MYTH # 5 "NEW MUSCLE GAINS DIMINSH AFTER 48 HOURS" This myth has led to more wasted time in the gym than the search for Bigfoot! The theory is that you have to work every muscle group every two days or else you’ll start to lose whatever results you got from your previous workouts. This simply is not true. In several clinical studies done on this, it has been found that on average, it will take from between 30 to 90 days for any muscle loss to begin. As long as proper protein consumption remains intact, along with proper overall calorie amounts kept in the proper range. This explains why after a person recovers from an injury, then goes back to the gym after five to six weeks off, they rarely show more than a marginal loss of performance from what they were doing when the injury occurred. If it only took 48 hours for muscle loss to start to take place, imagine how far this person would have digressed and how long it would take for them to catch back up to where they were. MYTH # 6 "FOR BEST RESULTS, YOU NEED TO TRAIN INSTINCTIVLY" This myth is somewhat new and likely came from the new age movement. It is commonly called "Listen to Your Body". Now, listening to your body has it’s part when you feel pain during exercise. But the idea that "Instinct" will tell you whether 15 reps with 120 pounds will work better than 8 reps with 160 pounds is simply shooting in the dark. When the facts given by reason, math and lots of research are right there giving us exact answers for what brings results, why would you rely on something as vague as "Instinct" to guide you? Would runners put down their stopwatches and train by instinct? Would a javelin thrower stop measuring his progress with feet and inches? Certainly not! So, why should you throw away proven tools of reason, math and research in favor of a weight training "Instinct" that has never been proven to exist? Now that you know six of the most common myths to avoid in the gym and you can see how flawed they are, you can spot these, as well as other time wasting pieces of advice and ignore them. Good, sound, productive weight training is easy. What’s hard is seeing past all the bad advice that is freely dispensed in the gym.