You might disagree, but hear me out on this; 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, do the
research yourself.
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 you look masculine.
If it is not you're intention to bulk up from strength training you won't.
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
largely of protein, it's easy to believe that protein is the best fuel for
building muscle. However muscles work on calories that 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 and on steroids 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.
In conclusion, simple basic principles that apply to all weight and muscle
gain such as progressive overload, variable frequency of reps and high
intensity workouts are the way to go.
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