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The vast majority of myths about weight gain are mostly passed down from "gym
talk" and so-called experts who know nothing about the body's workings.
Myths that lead to wasted time, frustration and if are taken blindly as truth,
can really set back your progress in the gym. Don't believe everything you hear
when it comes to exercise and weight gain.
Simple, basic principles apply to all weight and muscle gain such as progressive
overload, variable frequency of reps and high intensity workouts.
Lets take a look at some of the most common weight gain myths.
High repetitions burn fat while low repetitions build muscle.
Progressive overload is needed to make muscles bigger. Meaning that you need to
perform more reps than you did for your last workout for that particular
exercise. If you perform the same amount of reps at each workout nothing will
change on you, also if the weight doesn't changes on the bar nothing will
change on you. You need to become stronger.
Definition has two characteristics, muscle size and a low incidence of body fat.
To reduce body fat you will have to reduce your calories; the high repetition
exercise will burn some calories, but wouldn't it be better to fast walk to
burn these off? Better still; use the low reps to build muscle, which will
elevate your metabolism and burn more calories (less fat).
Vegetarians can't build muscle.
Yes they can! Strength training with supplementation of soy Protein Isolate has
shown to increase solid bodyweight. Studies have shown that athletic
performance is not impaired by following a meat free diet, and people strength
training and consuming only soy protein isolate as a protein source were able
to gain lean muscle mass.
Strength Training will make me look Masculine.
If it is not you're intention to bulk up from strength training you wont.
Putting on muscle is a long hard slow process. Your strength-training regime
coupled with quality food will determine how much you will bulk up. To bulk up
you also require more food. Women don't produce enough testosterone to allow
for muscular growth as large as men.
By working out you can eat what ever you want to.
Of course you can eat whatever you want, if you don't care how you want to look.
Working out does not give you an open license to consume as many calories as
you want. Although you will burn more calories if you workout than someone who
doesn't, you still need to balance your energy intake with you energy
expenditure.
If you take a week off you will lose most of your gains.
Taking one or two weeks off occasionally will not harm your training. By taking
this time off every eight to ten weeks in between strength training cycles it
has the habit of refreshing you and to heal those small niggling injuries. By
having longer layoffs you do not actually lose muscle fibres, just volume
through not training, any size loss will be quickly re-gained.
By eating more protein I can build bigger muscles.
Building muscle mass involves two things, progressive overload to stimulate
muscles beyond their normal levels of resistance and eating more calories than
you can burn off. With all the hype about high protein diets lately and because
muscle is made of protein, its easy to believe that protein is the best fuel
for building muscle, however muscles work on calories which should
predominately be derived from carbohydrates.
If I'm not sore after a workout, I didn't work out hard enough.
Post workout soreness is not an indication of how good the exercise or strength
training session was for you. The fitter you are at a certain activity, the
less soreness you will experience after. As soon as you change an exercise, use
a heavier weight or do a few more reps you place extra stress on that body part
and this will cause soreness.
Resistance training doesn't burn fat.
Nothing could not be further from the truth. Muscle is a metabolically active
tissue and has a role in increasing the metabolism. The faster metabolism we
have the quicker we can burn fat. Cardio exercise enables us to burn calories
whilst exercising but does little else for fat loss afterwards.
Weight training enables us to burn calories whilst exercising but also helps us
to burn calories whilst at rest. Weight training encourages muscle growth and
the more lean muscle mass we possess, the more fat we burn though an increased
and elevated metabolism.
No pain no gain.
This is one myth that hangs on and on. Pain is your body signalling that
something is wrong. If you feel real pain during a workout, stop your workout
and rest. To develop muscle and increase endurance you may need to have a
slight level of discomfort, but that's not actual pain.
Taking steroids will make me huge.
Not true, strength training and correct nutrition will grow muscle. Taking
steroids without training will not make you muscular.
Most steroids allow faster muscle growth through greater recovery, while others
help increase strength which allows for greater stress to be put onto a muscle.
Without food to build the muscle or training to stimulate it nothing will
happen. Most of the weight gain seen with the use of some steroids is due to
water retention and is not actual muscle.
Strength training won't work your heart.
Wrong!! Strength training with short rest periods will increase your heartbeat
well over a hundred beats per minute. For example, performing a set of
breathing squats and you can be guaranteed that your heart will be working
overtime and that your entire cardiovascular system will be given a great
overall body workout.
Any intensive weightlifting routine that lasts for 20 minutes or more is a great
workout for your heart and the muscles involved.
I can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.
Wrong. Only a few gifted people with superb genetics can increase muscle size
while not putting on body fat. But for the average hard gainer, they have to
increase their muscle mass to its maximum potential and then cut down their
body fat percentage to achieve the desired shape.
Gary Matthews is a trainer from "down under" who has been coaching clients from
athletes to bodybuilders for two decades. You may contact Gary directly at
gary@maximumfitness.com
and visit his website at
http://www.maximumfitness.com.
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