# Fitness myths



## Just_Some_Guy (Oct 8, 2009)

What are some of the myths surrounding fitness that you've heard, have personally overcome or have otherwise driven you crazy.

I've got two right off the top of my head.

1.) Anyone can figure out how to lift weights through intuition alone.

This is utter BS. I see so much garbage in the gym when it comes to form, mostly in the bench and squat, that it literally makes me sad. Putting weight on your shoulders and lowering your body -is not- a squat!

2.) You can only workout a muscle group once a week.

This is utter bollocks too. This only applies to 100% exertion and even that may take up to 3 weeks to recover from. However, if you're doing sub-maximum workouts, you can workout every single day of the week, although some rest is generally seen as preferable. 

Personally, I work a 100, 90, 80% schedule, so I work every muscle group when I lift, but at varying intensities. Each workout stimulates the muscles and an 80% two days after 100% makes for fantastic "active recovery." 


I'm curious, what sort of garbage have you encountered?


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## geekofalltrades (Feb 8, 2012)

There's the super-obvious but still commonly perpetuated spot reduction myth. You cannot remove fat from one portion of your body by exercising that body part. When fat comes off, it for the most part comes off uniformly.

EDIT: Also, the myth that bending your knees further than 90 degrees in an exercise like a leg press or a squat will injure your knees. _This is a complete myth._ It's much more important to consider the placement of your knees - always keep them behind your toes, and don't allow them to buckle in or flare out. Squat by sitting back into your hips, not going straight down. If you stick your knees way out over your toes and force them to bear your body weight plus the weight of the bar, _that's_ when you'll mess up your knees.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

You don't have to go for some aesthetic form in order to be fit.

Appearance can follow fitness, but the inverse is not necessarily the case. You can try to make yourself look like a Greek god carved straight out of marble and still be damaging your body.


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## Snakecharmer (Oct 26, 2010)

Oh, where do I start with this...? I've worked in the fitness industry for many years, and I've heard it all.

My favorites:
_*The less you eat, the more weight you will lose._ I've had to BEG some of my clients to PLEASE eat more - especially when they start weight training or increase their workouts. People don't understand metabolism and that eating too little can be detrimental. 

_*Scale weight tells the whole story._ No! I've had clients get upset over minimal losses on the scale and not understand that when dieting and weight training, if muscle gain happens while losing fat, the scale may not change much. 

_*BMI is a good indicator of health. _ Nope. BMI is simply a weight-to-height ratio, and doesn't consider body composition.

_*Eating fat makes you fat._ Taking in more overall _calories_ than one needs makes a person over-fat, not dietary fat specifically. 

There is also a lot of misconception about metabolism and how many calories one should eat to lose weight. I hear it all the time...
"So, if I eat 1200 (1500, etc...whatever number) calories every day, I will lose weight, right?" 

Well...not necessarily. BMR is very individual and one-size-fits-all diets don't work for everyone. I've heard of some people having a BMR as low as 900 or 1000, and some are well into the 2000s (I've seen some as high as almost 2500).


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## Vivid Melody (Apr 25, 2011)

Intense workouts benefit everyone - nope.


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## Promethea (Aug 24, 2009)

Thin = fit.

I have heard from medical professionals that even -slightly- 'overweight' is less of a health risk than even your lowest acceptable weight, because at least your body is getting the nutrients that it needs to sustain itself. 

I knew a guy who got kicked out of the military for having a body fat percentage that was 'too low.' And I knew a girl who couldn't get in for the same reason, though she was probably less thin than many models and actresses I have seen. 

Our culture has a purely aesthetic fat phobia and ignorant people try to back up their bigoted fat-hate, by using 'health' as an excuse, when the fact of the matter is that having a bit of body fat is actually healthier than having all of it stripped off.


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## Vivid Melody (Apr 25, 2011)

Yep, there are a lot of skinny people who are unhealthy. I used to be one of them.


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## CrabbyPaws (Mar 5, 2012)

I have to go with "If you eat less, you lose fat." as well, because especially girls my age think this is the most logical route. Actually when you eat less, you slow your metabolism down and make your body go into starvation mode. When your body is in starvation mode, it recognises it is not getting enough food so whenever you do feed it, it will cling onto the fat and store it quickly in case it needs it. Your body doesn't need fat for most of the chemical reactions in the body, it needs protein. So if you start to starve your body of the right amount of food, your body will cling onto the fat, and since you are not feeding it enough protein, it will start using your muscles and protein in your body to survive. So actually the weight you are losing is protein, and you are left with a higher fat percentage then you had in the first place. You will have just fat left. 

It isn't the amount of food you should be changing, it is the type of food you should be changing, which has varying amount of 'calories' if you want. I could eat 5 plates of fruit and I would be fine, but if I ate 5 plates of chocolate I would definitely gain weight. A bowl of soup cannot be compared to a bowl of fries. Same amount but different calories. Since I've changed my diet, I probably eat more than I did when I was binging on junk food. And I _can_ eat more because I am eating healthy food.

This is one of the most popular and most stupid myths. I think it is that popular because many people think "Eat more to increase metabolism and lose weight" sounds too good to be true.


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## Stelmaria (Sep 30, 2011)

CrabbyPaws said:


> I have to go with "If you eat less, you lose fat." as well, because especially girls my age think this is the most logical route. Actually when you eat less, you slow your metabolism down and make your body go into starvation mode.


This is almost a myth in itself. Unless you are starving yourself, then it won't make that much difference. The problem is probably - some people starve themselves because they mistakenly think that 'fast weight loss' is a good idea.

A modest calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight, the problem is accounting for the energy usage per day as well as the precise amount of calories in the food you eat is not a precise science like some suggest.
Within reasonable bounds (eg you are not eating only 500 calories a day or less), the rate of metabolism itself doesn't change unless you let it - eg by being less active when eating less.

The solution is obviously to have a long term view in terms of 'diet' eg design a diet that will maintain a healthy body weight and level of nutrients and stick to it forever. This may mean that it may take a year to get to that body weight, rather than two months, but the difference is that those short term dieters will just put the weight back on unless they commit to a healthy diet long term.


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## SlowPoke68 (Apr 26, 2010)

I think most people overdo the cardio, especially the long steady-state walks and runs. 

I've seen and personally experienced much better results focusing on resistance training and keeping cardio to 30 minutes of HIIT (short 2 min bursts up to close to max heart rate separated by a few minutes of swift walking pace). This should be done after the resistance training.

I also have found that low fat/high carb diets are totally wrong for me. But I won't say this is a general misconception because they seem to work for some people, at least some of the time. All I know is that my weight and hunger decreased, my fitness increased, and my health issues disappeared soon after I went to high fat/low carb, with most of the carbs coming from peppers, onions, mushrooms and greens like broccoli and spinach.


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## Promethea (Aug 24, 2009)

SlowPoke68 said:


> I think most people overdo the cardio, especially the long steady-state walks and runs.
> 
> I've seen and personally experienced much better results focusing on resistance training and keeping cardio to 30 minutes of HIIT (short 2 min bursts up to close to max heart rate separated by a few minutes of swift walking pace). This should be done after the resistance training.
> 
> I also have found that low fat/high carb diets are totally wrong for me. But I won't say this is a general misconception because they seem to work for some people, at least some of the time. All I know is that my weight and hunger decreased, my fitness increased, and my health issues disappeared soon after I went to high fat/low carb, with most of the carbs coming from peppers, onions, mushrooms and greens like broccoli and spinach.


I have seen a few sources mention that long distance endurance running does not condition the heart, but wears it out -- and high intensity interval actually conditions it. And those sources mentioned cases of endurance runners dropping dead of heart attacks. 

And yeah, bread can make me gain 5 lbs in no time. And its not even that good. x_x


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## SlowPoke68 (Apr 26, 2010)

Promethea said:


> I have seen a few sources mention that long distance endurance running does not condition the heart, but wears it out -- and high intensity interval actually conditions it. And those sources mentioned cases of endurance runners dropping dead of heart attacks.


I've heard the same things. 

When I see all the everyday people training for marathons I sometimes think to myself . . . but the first guy in history known to have done a marathon DIED. . . 

A friend of mine who is really into the primal thing suggests we should exercise like the hunter-gatherers did while on a prowl. Basically walking at varying paces and occasionally sprinting up to max. I think there's good reason behind that.


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## Up and Away (Mar 5, 2011)

I think a muscle group once a week is fine depending on goals. If their goal is mass gaining, then, if they are sore on days 2 and 3 after a workout, then they have 3 days I think before they would really start losing any muscle, and then they hit it again hard.

I'm not sure that anyone mentioned the spot reduction myth yet: Training a certain muscle makes fat burn in that area.

Here is something for discussion: Do reps in the muscle building range, where the muscle fiber actually gets bigger, result in "harder tight" muscle than doing higher reps, where the cells add more sarcoplasm and mitochondria and glycogen or whatever, being then more "fluid soft" muscles?

I'm also trying to refresh my memory on the exercises that essentially pull the shoulder out of its socket somewhat. I can't remember what the movement is called.

Edit: As far as conditioning the heart vs wearing it out, it is possible to do both. Conditioning occurs with recovery time after a workout, of any kind. Wearing out simply means not enough recovery time.

Unless there are some hormones that outweigh the benefits of the training, like a stress hormone.

Myths are often started between power trainers and endurance trainers, making themselves better than the other.

IMO, endurance training works more with seratonin, haha, and serenity, where as power training is more crazy, dopamine rush, adrenaline.

I read a study saying power training results in a 20% increase in endurance, where as endurance training gives no increase in power.

So, power training seems to have more athletic bang for buck, whereas, endurance training seems to be more healthy.

The heart wearing out though, haha. Post the study.


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