Eight common myths in bodybuilding

Everyone knows that the 21st century is a century of information. If it becomes necessary to find the answer to a particular question, we can turn to various search engines for help by entering a question and receiving an instant explanation. However, is the information ""

Content

  • Myth One: Training with weights makes you stiff and slow
  • Myth 2: If you stop training, then the muscles turn into fat
  • 3 Myth Three: To gain muscle mass, you just need to gain total weight
  • 4 Myth Four: Low reps do not increase muscle
  • 5 Myth five: Weight training can slow the growth of young athletes
  • 6 Myth six: Exercise machines are more effective than free weights
  • Myth 7: Strength training does not improve cardiovascular health
  • Myth 8: Aerobic training burns fat more effectively than power

Myth One: Weight Training makes you stiff and slow

The very idea that a stiff body is the inevitable result of weight training is a massive fallacy. On the contrary, and in no other way, exercises using the full range of motion can increase both muscle flexibility and joint flexibility. By the way, weightlifters often demonstrate incredible flexibility.

It’s clear that gradually the muscles are shortened, because you are lifting weights to make this or that movement, however in the future they will lengthen again, which means that no workout can make the muscles short forever. For example, no one, upon completion of biceps training, walks with bent arms in a state of contraction. In addition, even thanks to stretching, it is impossible to extend the muscles for life (the statement of Pilates instructors). If the muscles were able to remain in a state of extension, their joints would lose stability.

Myth two: If you stop training, then the muscles turn into fat

Muscles cannot turn into fat just like a leg cannot become a hand. The fabrics are so different that they cannot in principle become interchangeable! This myth lives and lives only because of one scenario, where people with excellent muscles completely stop training with weights, and then quickly gain weight, as a result of the fact that now they burn fewer calories and their muscles become smaller.

Myth Three: To gain muscle mass, you just need to gain total weight

It involves a set of total weight, both a set of muscle mass and a set of fat, which together allows you to get the maximum possible size. During the fame of Arnold, bodybuilders around the world often gained weight in the offseason, after which, already for competition, they burned subcutaneous fat. However, the fact is that body fat does not lead to a rapid increase in muscle mass. In fact, such a way to gain weight only enhances insulin resistance, and this, in turn, can lead to complications of muscle building and burning of subcutaneous fat. It also upsets the increase in overall fat levels, and the production of thyroid hormones, which are very important for burning it.

Myth Four: Low reps do not increase muscle

The first refutation of the fact that low reps are not able to increase muscle size is that high-level athletes (those athletes who perform jerkings in tournaments, push-ups on the chest) very often have an exceptional level of muscle mass. Together, low repetition and heavy weights allow the development of high threshold motor units (type IIB muscle fibers). If high repetitions and lighter weight are used, then low threshold motor units (type IIA fibers) can be developed. In order to achieve maximum muscle mass, you need to train two types of fibers at once.

Myth five: Weight training can slow the growth of young athletes.

Among the parents there are a lot of those who put their children in a ban on weight training until they reach adolescence, for the reason that they are afraid that training of this kind can damage the pineal gland plates and slow down body growth (linear). It is important to assure them that fears of this kind have no basis and are in vain. As the late Mel Siff, doctor of physiology and a specialist in the field of soft tissue biomechanics, said, “biomechanical studies have shown that traditional daily activity (running, jumping, hitting) can put much more stress on the musculoskeletal system than intensive training with weights. " In addition to this, during national studies, where young athletes participated, experts found that heavy weights can not only stop, but rather accelerate bone growth in children.

Myth Six: Exercise machines are more effective than free weights.

Naturally, if you compare them with free weights, then the simulators have a certain advantage. For example, they help isolate specific muscles, recover from trauma. In addition to this, certain exercises (for example, bending and unbending legs) are best performed directly on the simulator. Despite this, free weights seem to be the most universal than exercise machines, and they are also the most effective way to develop functional strength for those involved in athletics, because exercises with free weights are similar to natural human movements.

Myth Seven: Strength Training Does Not Improve Cardiovascular Health

Among the adherents of aerobics, there are many who confidently claim that aerobic training is considered the most effective for improving the condition of the heart and blood vessels. Despite this, the fact is known that the lack (or complete absence) of aerobic exercise is not yet a cardiovascular risk factor. Absolutely any physical activity can be called this factor. In addition, you can have a serious heart disease, while doing sports and keeping the body fit. A cardiologist, a doctor of medicine Henry A. Solomon, writes in his book, entitled The Exercise Myth: “A person’s cardiovascular health is not his ability to perform the physical work of a particular activity. First of all, a person’s cardiac health is determined by the state of different cardiac structures, which also include the heart muscle, valves, and specific heart tissues that conduct electrical impulses, as well as coronary arteries. "

Myth 8: Aerobic training burns fat more than power

It is important here not only to destroy the myth, but also to note that, on the contrary, resistance training can cause a significant accumulation of lactic acid (in turn, this allows growth hormone to be released intensely). Growth hormone is known in that it burns subcutaneous fat formations. In addition to all of the above, weight training is the most effective way to build muscle, which, in turn, speeds up metabolism at times. As a result: both at rest and directly during training, the largest number of calories is burned.

Since strength training has many myths, it is very difficult at times to separate real and important facts from them. The most important advice that you can give with confidence is to study with great attention all sources, try to develop a reasonable skeptic in yourself who takes seriously and thoughtfully everything that you read and everything that he hears. In any case, the presence of this or that information on the Internet is not a guarantee of its full reliability.