from The Stack e-zine
When it comes to working out, everybody's got an opinion, and usually, they're not afraid to share it. The amount of misinformation that gets labeled as fact within the fitness world is simply stunning. People who dole out this incorrect advice often have the best of intentions, but they just don't know any better.
You want to be a person who can separate fiction from fact. You want to believe the things you're doing are effective and backed by science. You want to know you’re making the most of your time in the gym. Whether it's a poor exercise cue or a misguided take on nutrient timing, believing this bad workout advice can really hold you back. With that in mind, here are some of the more prominent pieces of bad workout advice you need to be aware of.
1). You can eat pretty much whatever you want as long as you work out. Not if you want to maintain your weight in an effective way, hit your weight loss goals, or achieve a better body composition.
Physical activity only accounts for 10-30 percent of the calories we burn each day. Yet food/beverage intake accounts for 100 percent of the calories we consume. While exercise has undeniable physical, mental and emotional benefits, it's not the silver bullet for weight loss.
"Most people tend to focus too much on exercise, but it's much more effective to establish an energy deficit through nutrition and use exercise as a tool for more general health benefits," says James Krieger, M.S. in Nutrition and Exercise Science and owner of Weightology.
"Unless you're engaging in really high volumes of exercise (which is not generally recommended), the amount of energy you expend during exercise isn't a big factor in whether you lose fat. Dietary adherence is the number one predictor of fat loss." Translation: those calories you worked so hard to burn during your 45-minute gym workout can easily be negated by one bad meal or snack.
If you want to eat better, focus on eating "as little or no added sugar, adequate protein, as little or no refined grain, and as many vegetables as you can."
2). Women will look like men if they lift weights. This is perhaps one of the dumbest pieces of workout advice out there, and it's caused a huge number of females to miss out on the massive benefit of resistance training.
Newsflash: a female won't suddenly turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger simply by picking up a weight. It just doesn't work that way. Women naturally have much less testosterone in their bodies than men, so it takes an extreme amount of time and energy for them to become anything approaching "bulky".
If you're not training and living like a female professional bodybuilder (and you would certainly know if you were), you don't need to worry about getting too big and bulky from strength training. Rather, resistance training is the best option for toning the body, dropping unwanted fat, fixing your posture, and simply looking and feeling better.
3). Do cardio right after strength training. It's a common sight in many gyms. As soon as people finish their lift, they head directly to the treadmill for 30 or 40 minutes of cardio. In theory, it makes sense: while strength training movements largely target the anaerobic energy systems, endurance exercise largely target the aerobic energy systems.
It would seem that performing both in the same workout is a recipe for ultra-efficient training. However, recent research has found that performing cardio immediately after strength training significantly impairs the muscle gain stimulated by your strength training. This is a classic case where working harder is not working smarter.
The takeaway: if you want to see big gains from your strength training, the last thing you should do is hop on a treadmill for a cardio session immediately after you finish pumping iron. Save it for opposing days, or at least much later on the same day.
By doing the two back to back, the only thing you're doing is making your quest for better overall fitness much more difficult.
4). Always training to failure guarantees huge gains. If you're unfamiliar with the term, "training to failure" refers to performing as many reps during a set as you possibly can. Only once your body "fails" and you can no longer squeeze out another rep is the set complete. It's also often referred to as "AMRAP," short for "As Many Reps as Possible."
In many people's minds, training to failure seems like it'd guarantee serious gains. Pushing your body to the brink guarantees significant muscle damage, which should leave you with an optimum chance for gains as long as you rest and recover appropriately.
However, training to failure throughout a workout has actually been found to result in lesser improvement in max strength and rate of force development than stopping sets with a few reps in reserve (meaning you feel you could perform a few more reps at the conclusion of the set, but you stop anyways).
Leaving a few reps in the tank rather than consistently training to failure is easier yet leads to better results. While training to failure every now and then can have benefit, it should be used only on occasion as opposed to your default approach.
5). Lifting weights will make you immobile. Walk into a gym and you're guaranteed to see at least one guy who looks like he can't move his upper body. We're sure he can lift a lot of weight, but he is the opposite of athletic.
"One of the things I deal with at the collegiate level are athletes who say they cannot train heavy because they will get tight," states Stephen Gamma, a strength coach and athletic trainer. But fear not, lifting heavy won't make you stiff and immobile.
In fact, strength training at a full range of motion is highly effective at increasing flexibility and mobility. Several recent studies have found that strength training, when performed correctly, can increase range of motion equal to, and in some cases greater than, static stretching.
What do we mean by "performed correctly"? Well, if you only do exercises to build your mirror muscles, refuse to perform exercises through a full range of motion, and don't do any sort of mobility and soft tissue work, then yes, you could become big, bulky and tight. But, if you avoid those common mistakes, strength training should help you become more mobile, not less.
6). Pain is just weakness leaving the body. Everyone's heard this phrase, and it can be pretty inspiring. However, it's important to remember that there's a fine line between toughness and stupidity.
Yes, intense training is going to result in the occasional searing muscles and burning lungs. That's how you know you're working hard. But if your pain is the result of a significant injury, trying to train like it simply doesn't exist is a terrible idea.
The number one goal of a strength training program is to prevent injury, not exacerbate it. If you keep trying to push through an injury that will only get better with rest, you're just going to force yourself into an even longer break from training some point down the road. It's simply not worth putting yourself at risk when you're training, especially when your goal is to play a sport. You need to be healthy to do that.
When in doubt, take a break and see a health professional. In many cases, they'll likely be able to draw up a plan that allows you to still train in some capacity while allowing the affected area to recover.
7). Pair a push with a pull. Ok, "Pair every push with a pull" is not a horrible piece of workout advice. In fact, following it would improve many people's workout routines. However, it is outdated. Why?
Because strength and conditioning experts now believe a workout program should include two pulls for every push. That ratio seems to be the winning formula to prevent asymmetries, build better posture and unlock elite athletic performance.
Due to our modern lifestyles and common training habits, the vast majority of us develop what's known as anterior dominance. This means the muscles on the front of our bodies are significantly stronger and tighter than the ones on the back of our bodies.
By making sure that we perform two pulls for every push inside our workouts, we can combat this issue. Not every pull has to be a heavy exercise, either. Mixing in a few sets of Band Pull-Aparts can go a long way towards building a better body.
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