5 Myths of Fitness for Women
Tell me if you’ve heard any of these before. They’re some of the most common fitness myths I come across, and I think it’s time we discussed them a bit more.
Lifting weights will make you bulky.
No, it won’t. You might build a little muscle but, I hate to tell you this, building enough muscle to look like those girls you’re thinking of takes a LOT of very deliberate lifting and a LOT of eating in a calorie surplus to build that muscle. Saying you don’t want to lift weights for fear of building “too much” muscle is like saying you don’t want to drive a car for fear of becoming a race car driver. And, ladies, if you’re looking to get a “toned” look, you have to HAVE muscle to begin with.
You have to do more cardio to lose weight.
Nope. Cardio is fantastic for so many reasons—stress relief, improved sleep quality, improved recovery, heart health—and it CAN be a component of a weight loss program. But to be honest, most people use it to burn calories, and pay more attention to the number on the screen/their trackers (which can be wildly off, I hate to say), and then *eat back* everything they burned.
Weight loss comes down to diet (what you eat/how much). You can exercise to supplement your goals but you don’t have to add in cardio to burn more. You could lift weights or do Pilates or kickbox or do jiu jitsu. Cardio is not the gold standard here, although it can be a component.
The truth is, my biggest issue with this one (besides the fact that it’s narrow minded and not 100% true) is the mindset that goes into it. Mindless cardio to burn calories is a deep, dark hole to go down. Yes, calories in/calories out dictates weight loss and gain at the end of the day but it’s an awful way to go about living “earning” food (you’re not a dog, stop doing that to yourself).
You can build long lean muscles.
Oof. I really truly bought into the idea that you could create LONG muscles until I went to school and learned the actual science and structures of muscles. Stretching, for instance, has not been shown in studies to actually lengthen a muscle—might improve your posture simply by paying attention to it, which might make you feel taller, but you’re not actually taller, and your muscles are not actually longer. Typically speaking, when you build muscle, you notice a change in the girth of the muscle belly. That’s because when muscle grows, also known as hypertrophy, fibers grow in circumference.
Your body shapes can be changed quite a bit through training and diet, don’t get me wrong. You can build your glutes, shape your back, lean out or fill out. But at the end of the day, your genetics are going to dictate the extent to which you can do those things, and more specifically to this point, your muscle lengths. I have a short torso, and absolutely nothing I do in the gym is going to give me a longer one. The only way those things will lengthen is a growth spurt (sadly, I’m pretty sure I’m done with those).
You can spot reduce fat with specific exercises.
Actually, no you can’t. I know a lot of people talk about certain exercises to “lose that arm jiggle/stubborn belly fat/inner thighs” whatever. First off: we all jiggle and have rolls—it’s natural, so good lord don’t go thinking you have to do anything about them. But back to the point: fat loss comes from a consistent caloric deficit. Weight lifting (in whatever form you do) builds muscle, which creates shape to your muscles (ahem, “toning” them), in which case you CAN target a muscle group, but you cannot lose fat deposits in specific areas that way. The areas you lose weight first and last from a calorie deficit tend to be genetically determined.
You have to be sore and tired after for it to have been a good workout.
My favorite at the moment. This is actually not correct, especially if you’re lifting weights. Don’t get me wrong, if you haven’t done something before or you haven’t done it in a while or you do more than you have in the past, you’ll likely be sore for a day or two. But you may not feel tired or sore immediately after the workout, and you SHOULDN’T feel sore for more than two days (that’s too much). If you are getting better (able to do more, able to lift more, able to perform at a higher level), then you’re improving, and you don’t have to be out of breath dead on the floor to achieve that.
Another important thing to remember here: if you’re TOO SORE to do something three or more days after your workout, you miss out on other quality workouts that week. Three good sessions a week will beat out one killer session any day.
