Five Fitness Myths Uncovered
With a growing consciousness among most people today to stay fit and healthy, many myths related to fitness and exercises have mushroomed. Hence, telling fact from fiction when it comes to advice related to your health can be difficult. The following are five of the most common fitness myths that are in wide circulation.
1. The more time you spend working out, the better results you get
Spending excessive amounts of time working out does not guarantee that you reach your fitness goals faster and more effectively. On the contrary, over training yourself can actually impede muscle growth. Due to over training, your body starts to break down muscle tissue, instead of rebuilding it. Hence, you will ultimately end up losing muscle mass. The key is training smart, instead of training hard. While at the gym, you should work your muscles as much as you can, but you should also give them adequate rest after the workout is over. Also, ensure that you perform some cardio exercises. Your workout should not take more than one hour. If it is, then you are probably wasting time in between your sets or you are not training efficiently.
2. Increase in strength requires you to bulk up
The strength you possess and your body size need not be directly related. Power training is a form of exercise that does not increase your size and yet still provides great benefits to your overall strength. Most renowned martial arts experts are very strong and powerful but usually small in stature. While having the goal of bulking up is perfectly fine, you should know that doing so is not necessary in gaining strength.
3. You must use the latest and most sophisticated equipment to get best results
Due to an increase in the diversity and number of fitness equipments, deciding which the best for your personal needs can be quite hard. Sometimes though, the best choice is the simplest of all equipments, such as dumb bells. Dumb bells help in targeting your core muscles while you are working out. Also, with dumb bells you can perform a wide variety of exercises, which is extremely important in preventing you from getting stuck on weight loss plateaux. Another important factor is that dumb bells are extremely cheap to buy. The portability of the equipment also ensures that you can work out with them wherever you please.
4. If you perform cardiovascular exercises, you will not gain muscle
Though doing cardio may make it slightly more difficult to gain muscle mass, it does not make it completely impossible. As you will be burning a lot more calories through cardio and aerobic exercises, you need to ensure that you make up for these calories through your diet. This is to make sure that you still keep up the extra calories that you need to put on muscle mass. Focusing your cardio workouts on shorter and more intensive durations than on longer ones, will help benefit your strength and weight training routines.
5. Lose love handles by performing abdominal exercises
While performing innumerable number of sit ups and leg raises may help you in developing a very strong and tough abdominal section, it will not help you lose the layer of fat that sits on top of those muscles. To lose your love handles, you have to lower your body's fat percentage. Body fat can be decreased through a proper cardiovascular fitness program and a healthy and nutritious diet.
1. The more time you spend working out, the better results you get
Spending excessive amounts of time working out does not guarantee that you reach your fitness goals faster and more effectively. On the contrary, over training yourself can actually impede muscle growth. Due to over training, your body starts to break down muscle tissue, instead of rebuilding it. Hence, you will ultimately end up losing muscle mass. The key is training smart, instead of training hard. While at the gym, you should work your muscles as much as you can, but you should also give them adequate rest after the workout is over. Also, ensure that you perform some cardio exercises. Your workout should not take more than one hour. If it is, then you are probably wasting time in between your sets or you are not training efficiently.
2. Increase in strength requires you to bulk up
The strength you possess and your body size need not be directly related. Power training is a form of exercise that does not increase your size and yet still provides great benefits to your overall strength. Most renowned martial arts experts are very strong and powerful but usually small in stature. While having the goal of bulking up is perfectly fine, you should know that doing so is not necessary in gaining strength.
3. You must use the latest and most sophisticated equipment to get best results
Due to an increase in the diversity and number of fitness equipments, deciding which the best for your personal needs can be quite hard. Sometimes though, the best choice is the simplest of all equipments, such as dumb bells. Dumb bells help in targeting your core muscles while you are working out. Also, with dumb bells you can perform a wide variety of exercises, which is extremely important in preventing you from getting stuck on weight loss plateaux. Another important factor is that dumb bells are extremely cheap to buy. The portability of the equipment also ensures that you can work out with them wherever you please.
4. If you perform cardiovascular exercises, you will not gain muscle
Though doing cardio may make it slightly more difficult to gain muscle mass, it does not make it completely impossible. As you will be burning a lot more calories through cardio and aerobic exercises, you need to ensure that you make up for these calories through your diet. This is to make sure that you still keep up the extra calories that you need to put on muscle mass. Focusing your cardio workouts on shorter and more intensive durations than on longer ones, will help benefit your strength and weight training routines.
5. Lose love handles by performing abdominal exercises
While performing innumerable number of sit ups and leg raises may help you in developing a very strong and tough abdominal section, it will not help you lose the layer of fat that sits on top of those muscles. To lose your love handles, you have to lower your body's fat percentage. Body fat can be decreased through a proper cardiovascular fitness program and a healthy and nutritious diet.
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