You may be surprised to learn that some long-held beliefs about exercise are not really true. While it’s a fact that exercise is good for your health, understanding the realities behind the myths can help you get more out of your workouts.
MYTH: Gaining muscle will significantly increase your metabolism and thus help keep your weight down.
Reality: There are many benefits to resistance (weight) training, but the boost to metabolism often is overstated.
It is true that one pound of muscle burns about five to six calories per day, while one pound of body fat burns about two calories per day. But even if a person gains five pounds of muscle, it increases his/her resting metabolism by only about 25 to 30 calories per day, which is not a significant change.
MYTH: If you stop exercising, muscle turns to fat.
Reality: Muscle and fat are two separate types of tissue — one does not become the other. Often when a person stops exercising, his calorie needs decrease due to reduced activity. If his eating pattern does not decrease accordingly, body fat will increase over time. Together with a loss of muscle tone, it may appear that muscle is turning into fat, but increased body fat is the reality.
MYTH:You can build lots of muscle while losing pounds of fat.
Reality: Generally, it takes an increase of calories to build muscle tissue, along with resistance exercise to stress the muscle. If you attempt to lose weight and gain muscle simultaneously, your results on either end will be minor. A very low calorie intake even can cause a substantial loss of muscle tissue — especially in people who have only a small amount of body fat to lose. Crash diets that severely restrict calories often result in losses of lean body mass.
MYTH: It takes a lot of protein to build muscle.
Reality: Protein needs are higher if you are trying to gain muscle mass, but it’s not necessary for recreational exercisers to eat pounds of meat or drink protein shakes. Most people get the protein they need from a balanced diet.
Example: A 154-pound person who doesn’t exercise needs 61 grams (g) of protein per day to maintain his/her health. If the same person were engaged in a heavy-duty weight-lifting program and were trying to gain muscle mass, the maximum amount of protein he would need per day would be 130 g, which easily could be met by eating the following foods over the course of a day — a turkey sandwich, a bowl of bean soup, eight ounces of fish and one cup of plain yogurt.
On average, the body can’t use more than 0.9 g of protein per pound of body weight per day. Additional protein will be turned into glucose, which is burned for energy or stored as body fat.
MYTH: You can lose fat in a part of your body by exercising that part.
Reality: Resistance exercise on specific muscles will strengthen and tighten those muscles. But if you carry body fat over those muscles, repetitions of weight-lifting or toning exercise won’t burn the fat in that area.
Example: Many fitness enthusiasts think that targeting abdominal muscles will yield flat tummies. Exercise will strengthen and tone these muscles but won’t yield a flat stomach if body fat covers them.
To lose body fat, you need to create an overall energy deficit — burn more calories than you take in. If you do this, you may lose the fat from areas that have extra padding, but this is by no means guaranteed.
MYTH: Carrying weights while walking or running burns extra calories.
Reality: Studies have shown that there are no benefits to using hand or ankle weights during cardiovascular exercise. And there are potential drawbacks to carrying heavy weights. The unnatural weight distribution along your arm or leg may inappropriately stress your joints (shoulder, elbow, knee, hip). The weight imbalance to your limbs also may lead to muscle injury.
