Exercise Myths
There are plenty of great exercise tips out there, but equally there are some myths. Sadly some of them we hear so many times that we start to believe them.
1. Lifting weights will make you bulk up
It won’t! Ladies, please don’t be afraid of lifting weights. Putting on any significant amount of muscle is extremely difficut for women because we just don’t have the testosterone to do so. Around 10 years ago, I did manage to put on a fair amount of muscle. But this was after 6-8 months of heavy weight training 6 days per week and eating a truckload of protein. A few sessions a week will definitely not make you look less feminine. It will however, help you look more toned.
As you get older it’s particularly important, because we lose muscle mass every year and strength training helps build bone mass so you’re less likely to get osteoporosis.
2. Pilates will give you long, lean muscles
Great marketing by the Pilates industry but patently untrue. You cannot change the length of your muscles, unless you are able to go back in time to change your genetics because this is what determines the length of your muscles. Don’t get me wrong, Pilates is OK as part of an overall exercise regime and like yoga is good for increasing your flexibility but you shouldn’t rely on it for resistance training and definitely not for your whole exercise regime. If you don’t believe me, ask the next Pilates instructor you see who has a body you admire what exercise she does other than Pilates. There’s a really good chance she will say weight training. And it’s more likely she got the body you admire from it not Pilates.
3. You just need to do cardio if you want to lose weight
Exercise alone isn’t usually enough to result in significant weight loss, you need to change diet too. As any honest trainer will tell you, you can’t exercise out a bad diet, for most people their weight is 70% diet, 20% exercise and 10% genetics. And even with exercise you are better including weight / resistance training because while cardio might speed up your metabolism more while you are doing it, the effect stops almost as soon as you finish the exercise whereas weight training will continue to increase your metabolism for hours after your work out. It will also increase your lean muscle and muscle burns more calories so you’ll get an on-going benefit.
4. You can spot reduce fat
Unfortunately no. Working out a particular muscle group will help tone the muscles in that area, but it won’t reduce fat there compared to the rest of your body. No amount of crunches, sit ups will give you a six pack. If your abs are already visible, these exercises will make them more defined but they won’t make the fat covering them disappear to make your abs visible. Similarly, all those “reduce belly fat” diets may help you lose weight overall, but no diet will spot reduce fat on your abs or anywhere else.
