7 Exercising Myths
Since the time we learned that exercise has health benefits, the fitness industry has been plagued by myths. Some of them had good intentions behind them, while others are down right dangerous.
1. The More You Work Out, The Fitter You Will Be
This may be something you've heard in the media, or by people that only know a little bit about fitness, and create a situation where little knowledge is dangerous knowledge. This statement simply isn't true. If you look at top athletes their focus is on quality, not quantity. There are a few sports, e.g. swimming, which is not as hard on your body as others and you can spend more time doing. But most sports are very hard on the body, and without moderation over training can quickly develop.
To explain this further, any adaptation from exercise does not happen during exercise, it occurs during rest. If not enough time is given to rest the body will not be able to recover. Poor recovery can result in things like injuries.
The best way to approach exercise is to workout hard, but allow plenty of time for recovery. E.g. with Weight lifting, the norm is to allow at least 48 between working out a muscle group.
Watch out for these warning signs of over training:
- A drop in strength
- Feeling tired during the day
- Loss of appetite or a significant appetite increase
- Irritable and anxious for no apparent reason
- Trouble sleeping at night
- Sore joints, or muscle soreness that doesn't go away
- Increased resting heart rate throughout the day
- Increased resting breathing rate throughout the day
- Getting sick regularly, e.g. colds
The only solution to over training is rest.
2. No pain no gain
Until a few years ago many people, even experts, believed this to be true. But now we know better. There are two factors to consider here. First, what are your goals. For example, if you are just interested in general fitness then you should not do anything that makes you feel pain. If you are a professional athlete, then some pain may be unavoidable. Second, what kind of pain is it? If it is the kind of pain from muscles being fatigued, then this is necessary if you are training to be e.g. a power lifter. However, if you are experiencing pain in the joints, then you are simply risking serious injury, and there are no benefits from this kind of pain. Similar to stretching, if there is pain then what you are doing is stretching tissue beyond its capacity and you are simply causing tearing which will lead to scar tissue.
If you do something brand new then some is normal for the next 2-3 days. But this soreness should go away within approximately 3-4 days, and should not occur again unless you do a new type of exercise.
3. Stretching prevents injuries and muscle soreness
This is something we've all been taught since gym class in public school. And it may make sense, but, there is no scientific proof to prove or dispute this claim. In fact, stretching when you are cold may cause an injury. This may occur because trying to stretch a cold muscle is like pulling on an old elastic that is beginning to crack. Ideally, you should do a light jog first to increase body temperature, then stretch, if you like to stretch. There is also no proof that stretching after exercise will reduce muscle soreness, especially since no one knows for sure why muscle soreness occurs in the first place.
4. Consuming protein shakes will make muscles grow
While it is true that protein is the main building block, and necessary for proper body function, it is also true that in industrialized societies protein malnutrition is not something that occurs very often. In fact, most people get more than enough protein. Something else to keep in mind, protein is also calories. If you consume protein that your body does not use it will be converted to fat. But, fat can not be converted to protein.
5. Muscle turns into fat
If this were true then we should also be able to change copper into gold. Fact is, muscle does not turn into fat. Now, you may have noticed that someone that is very muscular, and stops working out, they gain fat while their muscles atrophy. What is happening though is two fold. First, their muscles start to atrophy because they are not using them. This is the case with muscle, if you don't use it you lose it. But, it doesn't turn into fat, it is just broken down and the protein is used by the body for whatever it needs. Second thing that happens is that if the person continues to eat the same number of calories while they were working out they will now gain fat as they are not burning all the consumed calories.
6. Weight lifting makes you muscle bound
While it is true that many people that weight lift become muscle bound, this is not always the case. Weight lifting is only one aspect of fitness. If one also works on flexibility then muscle bound ness is not an unavoidable outcome.
7. Cross training
Cross training has a few advantages. For example, it may help you avoid over use injuries, or it can help you maintain fitness during an injury (e.g. swimming while recovering from a knee injury if you are a runner), it's benefits for your specific sport will be minimal. For example, if you are a cyclist you need to cycle. All the swimming in the world is only going to help a little bit for improving your cycling.