Are you confused about health and fitness? I don’t blame you if you are. It is very confusing to try to get fit. It seems everyone is an expert these days, and coupled with a large portion of the public that wants a quick fix to their health and fitness goals, you have mass confusion.
Then there are the myths that a lot of people still hold as truth. These are myths that will actually halt, cut short or even prevent us entirely from reaching our health and fitness goals.
Here are the industry’s top six myths:
I’m sweating, so therefore I am working. I love to bust this myth. Sweating is the body’s natural way of cooling itself off, not a self-guided GPS system to gauge your exercise intensity. If it were, then all those times you were lying on the beach while on that sunny vacation, you would have been getting fitter. Yes? Instead, use the talk test (you should not be able to talk normally when working out) and heart rate monitors.
I need to stretch before my workout. Holding a stretch will do absolutely nothing to prepare you for exercise. In fact, it might actually do the opposite. In 2013, the New York Times summed up the latest evidence from the University of Zagreb that analyzed over 104 studies on stretching and concluded that stretching prior to exercise actually decreases muscle strength and power and may lead to people feeling “weaker and wobblier.”
While it is recommended that you warm up before exercise, the body requires movement to warm itself up before activity, not static stretching. Do dynamic range-of-motion drills before your sport and workout, and save the stretching for your cool-down.
Standing on a balance tool will work my core harder. The Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance performed a study with 12 trained men to see if exercising on a BOSU ball recruited more core muscles than doing the same movement on the ground. They performed four exercises at 50 to 75 per cent of their repetition max, and after each lift, the major muscles of the abdominals and back were assessed.
Their findings? There were no significant differences in the stable or the unstable group’s activation of their core. In other words, standing on a BOSU ball, wobble board or foam roller will work your balance and the muscles surrounding your feet, ankles, knees and hips harder, but not your core.
Squats are bad for my knees. When I hear people tell me they don’t squat because squatting is bad for their knees, a small piece of my soul dies. You see, it’s not squatting that is making their knees bad, and if squatting hurts their knees then it’s squatting wrong that is the issue. A squat is a very basic human movement. Our knees and hips were meant to hinge in these directions and the body’s largest and strongest muscles surround these joints, making this the perfect movement to do, especially if you are looking to get fit. So, please squat.
If I take a break, my muscles will turn to fat. When you stop training, your muscles do not turn to jelly. Instead, they atrophy, which is a fancy word for saying they decrease in size. Once that happens, our metabolism slows down (because muscle burns more calories).
Combine that with the fact that we also tend not to change our eating habits when our activity levels decrease, and you have added weight and fat to your body. This weight gain, however, is your existing fat cells swelling up while your muscle cells shrink. The best way to get rid of this fat? Don’t stop exercising in the first place.
I’m going to start running to lose weight and get in shape. This is a huge myth. Running is one of the worst exercises for people to do that are looking to get in shape, and it is also one of the worst exercises for fat loss. Research conducted at the University of Tampa found that running on the treadmill for 45 minutes (at a consistent pace) helped out with weight loss, but only initially.
Subjects lost a few pounds during the first week and then nothing more. The reason? Within one week, their metabolisms had adjusted and didn’t need to work as hard to burn the fat on their bodies. What works better? Building your lean muscle mass with strength training.
And then when it comes to getting in shape, start with strength training and yoga and then take up running. Most new runners lack the muscle tone and flexibility to withstand the demands that running places on the body. So, get fit first and then run.
PJ Wren is a personal trainer and writer in the Delta area. You can reach her at www.fitnesswithpj.com as well as work out with her on her YouTube channel and on Delta TV.
