Top 10 Gym Fallacies

Stop believing the myths!

So we are all on the same page when it comes to fallacies.  Here are some that have propagated throughout the ages.

1. If you stop working out, muscle turns to fat.

OK.  We have a better chance of turning lead into gold.  This one came about due to the prevalence of athletes gaining weight when they stopped training but kept up the caloric requirements.  This fallacy leaves you with the impression that once you start lifting weights, you are trapped doing it forever or you will suffer the consequences of being covered in unsightly fat.  Nobody wants to be a gym slave, so it would make sense not to start with those wicked weights.  They are like drugs, right?

 

2. Anyone bigger or stronger than you is on illegal steroids.

Seriously?  Please check your ego at the door when you start hitting the gym.  It does you a great disservice and tends to get you hurt by making you crawl under way too much weight for your abilities.  Here is a hard, fast rule.

There will always be someone stronger and/or bigger than you.  This applies to everyone.  Even the best are eventually beaten by someone younger, faster, better.  It is just the way of things.  Get over it and stop projecting your negative B.S. on everyone. 

Keep in mind that sometimes the heaving maniac that just threw a 100lbs plate at you and bit your trainer's ear off is on illegal steroids.  Whatever you do, don't let him know that you are thinking that.

3. Creatine, protein, and all supplements are the same as steroids.

This couldn't be further from the truth.  Steroids are steroids.  I've heard people talk about vitamins and state that they didn't want their kids on the stuff.  Really? ... REALLY???  Please read a label or two and join us in this century.  I don't even use supplements other than vitamins, but I have used creatine, protein powders, and various amino acids to help get stronger.  I still believe that most supplements are the equivalent of snake oil, but there are a few that actually do what the label says they do.  It is up to you to research and fully undersstand what it is you are putting in your body.  

4. I don't lift weights because I want to remain feminine.

The fear that a woman will start lifting weights and all of the sudden become a masculine ape is unfounded.  I recall quite a few of my female clients telling me that they didn't want to look like "Russian shot putters."  I always found it amusing that some people thought one could reach the size of bodybuilding elites by simply lifting a few weights.  I'd have to explain how long it took to build that kind of muscle, how difficult it would be due to the hormones (or lack there of) naturally found in most women, and that most of their fears were based on pictures of pro athletes doing absolutely everything possible to be the best in their sport.  It's just not that easy to get that muscular. 

5. Low reps make you large/bulky and high reps make you lean/ripped.

I understand this one.  I see how most of us could get this from observing others in the gym.  Most of the time when you see someone moving some heavy weight, the individual will usually be a relatively large/bulky guy, right?  Then you spot countless tall, lean, ripped up guys working sets of 20-30 reps and playing volley ball at the beach everyday, so it all makes sense.  That isn't how it works.  In one of his seminars, Dr. Fred Hatfield probably said it most succinctly.  He said that all you can do is make the muscle as big as possible and strip away the fat to better see it.  That pretty much sums it up.  High reps do not have some magic way of making you lose fat.  That comes from a combination of things including diet.  High reps, low reps, moderate reps, slow reps, heavy weight, light weight, short rest periods, long rest periods, etc., etc., ... it all builds muscle.  Strip away the fat and that is all you can do.  Please help me kill this one.

6. You can build a great body in just X weeks and only X minutes per day.

Oh dear ... hmm... uh ... I don't know how to break it to you if you believe in this one.  OK.  I think I've got it.  NO!  While this one depends on what you consider "a great body", it has been my experience that plenty of folks out there come into the gym thinking that they are going to be the stand in for the incredible Hulk character in the next big Hulk movie by the end of Spring.  This is not going to happen because there is no magic pill out there and you should have learned by now that nothing in life comes without some work. I can't tell you how many clients I lost when I would answer their questions of "How long will it take for me to look like insert name here?" with my standard " It takes about five to seven years to build a great body."

Gang, it doesn't matter who trains you, what you eat, what you do, or what you take ... it takes time to build a great body.  If you don't have patience and a strong will, then you will be disappointed.

7. Lifting weights makes you slow.

No.  Training slow can make you slow.  If you are concerned about speed (and we all should be) then you should find a good trainer to prescribe your training regiment.  If you are just pulling workouts out of magazines without having even read a text or two on exercise physiology and end up a little slower due to a critical oversight, then you got what you paid for, right?  This goes along with that whole nothing in life is free thing.  You either do the leg work and dig up the info or you pay someone that has done that already.  There really aren't many other options here.  Just remember that you get specific adaptations to imposed demands in the gym.  So how you train is very important.

8.  Doing ab exercises will give me a six pack.

Sorry.  I even know former drill instructors in great shape that believe this one.  The truth is that you can work abs day and night for years and never see the results until your body fat levels are low enough to reveal them.  You would be shocked how many people have good looking abs, but whose body fat levels are just too high to see them.  Instead of wasting their time doing countless crunches, purchasing ridiculous looking ab machines, and being otherwise obsessed, they should drop their total body fat levels to reveal their abs.  Now if you are already lean and start doing ab exercises, then I'm sure this is not a fallacy for you.

9.  The best way to lose fat is to do tons of cardio.

While doing cardio is a great way to drop weight quickly, it does have its point of diminishing return.  This point usually coincides with a critical loss of active tissue that allows the body to maintain a higher metabolism resulting in a start of a net weight gain.  In other words, you can do so much cardio that you eat through muscle.  Once you do that, your resting metabolic rate will drop.  This means you burn fewer calories at rest which means you must burn more calories through cardio or you start gaining weight again.  This is where a lot of people end up stuck in vicious cycle.  This also feeds into body weight "yo-yo" ing and can frustrate the most willful into submission.  The bottom line is that you can lose a lot of weight using cardio, but you are going to want some resistance training with proper diet to make sure the weight you lose is mostly fat.  

10. I want to lose weight and lifting weights doesn't seem to help.

If you are watching the scale instead of how your clothes fit or how you look in the mirror then you might think this.  The preoccupation with body weight instead of build / shape can cause problems.  This is especially true if you don't fall into the center of the statistical bell curve used for most things concerning body weight.  Here is an example.  When I entered the U.S. Navy, I had to get a waiver for my body weight.  I was 5'5" and I definitely weighed more than 150lbs.  Anything over 150lbs put me at 25+BMI which was (and still is) considered overweight  even though my body fat levels were single digit.  What is even more disturbing is that in the past I've weighed as much as 180lbs which is 30+BMI with less than 8% body fat.  That is considered obese even though I was very lean.  This completely change my risk factors as far as insurance companies were concerned.  Some of us have wider than average bone structure or more muscle than average.  We simply do not fit into some of the averages out there and we must be aware of this to keep from chasing an unhealthy "norm."  Be specific with your goals and try to use a metric that is meaningful to you, not the masses.  Make your goal to fit into a specific pair of pants that you've had hanging in your closet for years or reaching a specific body fat level.  Let the weight fall where it may.