Once again, we try to bust some myths that you may have heard in the course of getting to your fitness destination. Now what’s wrong with fitness myths, anyway? First and foremost, we have to be in possession of the proper knowledge in order to execute our fitness objectives.
Acting on wrong information, as with anything in life, is simply bad form. So here, we bust some muscle myths that may stand in the way of your body goals:
Muscle turns to fat once we stop working out
Muscle and fat are two entities independent of each other. These are two separate tissues. Fat tissue is found under the skin, between muscles and around internal organs. Muscle tissue is found throughout the body. One cannot simply convert into the other. Lifting weights will build muscle, but will not convert fat to muscle. In the same vein, when you stop lifting weights, muscle growth may stop or slow down, but your muscles will not turn to fat.
Lift light weights, with high reps for long lean muscles
If you lift light weights for high repetitions, this will make your muscles longer and leaner. Low reps with heavy weight, on the other hand, will make you grow big, bulky, muscles. So goes the myth. You may have heard this from people who seem to know what they were talking about. Unfortunately, this is one big myth. When we lift weights, our muscles will either grow, from a proper program—or stay the same if they are not challenged enough. Having the appearance of lean muscles is more a function of having low body-fat levels, than lifting with light weights. And no, lifting weights will not make your muscles longer. Certainly, heavy weights with low reps can build big muscles, but so can lifting in high repetition, lower rep range so long as you practice progressive overload. This means that if you slowly increase the weight of your lift over time once your muscles get used to a particular load, your muscles can and will grow. Whether with high reps and lighter weight, or heavy weight with low reps.
Training with weights will make women too bulky
There’s this apprehension some women have about lifting weights. They fear it may make them too bulky and give them a manly appearance. Truth is, such fears are largely unfounded given the difficulty it would take for the average woman to put on the kind of muscle that may be considered by some to be too masculine. Female bodybuilders who seem to have the appearance of muscularity achieve that look through years of consistent, programmed weight training, proper diet and supplementation. They did not get there by simply hitting the weights room a few times a week. It is a tedious, painstaking and challenging process to look like a bodybuilder. Pick up the weights, load up the bar. There is nothing to fear.
What other muscle and fitness myths should we debunk? E-mail me at greggyromualdez@yahoo.com
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