With the rise of social media and preconceived notions, misinformation can easily creep into fitness and health. Get the facts so you can make the best choices in your workouts.
Many women fear bulking up with weight training and avoid incorporating strength exercises into their workouts. However, lifting standard weights for standard reps does not cause women to bulk up unless they have a testosterone imbalance.
1. Cardio Burns Fat
Cardio (or aerobic exercise) is a key part of any healthy exercise routine. It gets your blood pumping and oxygen flowing, which is good for all your muscles, but it also helps burn calories and keep you lean. And studies show that people who regularly perform cardio live longer.
The exact number of calories burned during a cardio workout depends on your intensity and your body weight, but generally speaking, you’ll burn more fat than carbs. That’s because your body uses carbs for energy during low-intensity cardio, but then it starts to dip into fat reserves as the workout continues and you move toward your “body fat reducing zone,” or about 65 percent of your maximum heart rate.
Another way to boost fat-burning is to combine cardio with strength training. This type of exercise helps you build muscle while burning even more calories during and after the workout. It’s called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC, and it can burn extra calories for hours after your workout is over.
So, if you want to get your body fat percentage down, be sure to include regular cardio sessions in your exercise regimen and be sure to pair them with a diet that includes lean proteins, healthy fats, and plenty of fruits and vegetables. And remember that a pound of fat is equal to 3,500 calories, so you’ll need to cut that number from your daily food intake in order to lose weight.
2. Weight Lifting Makes You Big
While lifting heavy weights does increase muscle mass (known as hypertrophy), it won’t make you big. This is a myth that has been perpetuated by the stereotype of bodybuilders in gyms wearing muscle T-shirts grunting like Hulk Hogan.
Putting on mass requires optimizing training and diet to ensure you have the right amount of calories for muscle growth. This process is very different from toning muscles, which are primarily fat-burning exercises. Toning is a way to lose body fat and slim down while still looking lean.
The biggest mistake many people make is trying to build muscle and tone simultaneously. Putting on mass increases the number of calories your body burns during the day, so if you want to slim down, you need to keep your body fat low while adding toning strength training.
If you’re trying to build muscle, it’s best to focus on a few heavier lifts in the one- to five-rep range to maximize strength and hypertrophy. Then, add in techniques like super sets, pyramid sets and repping to failure to encourage even more muscle-building growth. This is a safe and effective way to build muscle without getting bulky. This will give you a strong, lean physique that will help you look and feel amazing!
3. Weight Lifting Doesn’t Burn Fat
Adding weight lifting to your workout routine can increase the number of calories you burn even at rest, which can help reduce body fat. However, you’ll still need to decrease your overall body fat percentage through diet if your goal is to lose weight and look slimmer.
Despite the fact that most gyms are dominated by men, women who want to tone up their bodies can safely add weight training to their exercise regimen. The common misconception that women will bulk up if they lift weights is simply untrue, and it’s blatantly sexist to suggest that women should avoid looking muscular.
When you’re lifting weights, your muscles experience micro-tears that your body repairs to make them stronger and bigger. Depending on your genetics and the amount of testosterone in your system, you may grow larger muscles more easily than others.
But no matter how much muscle you build, getting “toned” is largely a matter of losing enough body fat to reveal the muscles you’ve built. That’s why it’s important to balance your strength training with cardio, which also helps you burn fat and improves heart health. If you’re new to weightlifting, you can ease into it by starting slow and taking plenty of rest days.
4. Weight Lifting Doesn’t Tone Muscles
When it comes to the body, there are many fitness myths that persist and have been ratified by years of social media. Whether you’re new to the gym or a longtime member, it’s important to separate fact from fiction when it comes to weight lifting. Michael Mendes san francisco fitness has dedicated over a decade to mastering the art of personal training.
When you diligently build muscle, your fat cells will shrink in response to the increased amount of calories you burn. However, the number on your scale will not change. Your body composition will shift but your scale won’t move because muscle does not turn into fat.
It’s important to train for both strength and muscle growth, which requires a combination of one- to five-rep ranges with moderate-to-light weights (anything eight reps and up). However, some people believe that the only way they can build muscles is to lift super heavy weights or take supplements such as creatine. Creatine isn’t a steroid but can help boost performance during short, high-intensity workouts.
It is also important to rest between sets so that the muscles can recover, but you should never push yourself too hard and risk injury. In addition, overtraining may lead to muscle fatigue, which will interfere with your ability to lift at the same level of intensity.
5. Weight Lifting Doesn’t Build Muscles
Whether you’re a gym novice or an experienced lifter, you may have heard that lifting too much weight is bad for your muscles. While it’s important to push yourself during your workouts, overdoing things can lead to muscle fatigue and decreased strength gains. Taking each set of every exercise to the point of failure or beyond (with the help of a spotter, of course) isn’t necessary for a good workout.
Some people, particularly women, are concerned that strength training will bulk them up to the point where they look like a bodybuilder. This is untrue. Although female hormones prevent the rapid build-up of muscle mass, weight training can still improve your muscle tone, which can help you lose weight faster and keep it off longer.
Adding strength training to your routine will also maximize the calories burned during cardio sessions. If gaining muscle is your goal, be sure to meet your daily protein target, and eat enough carbs and fat to fuel your body. Avoid consuming unnecessary supplements, such as creatine, which is marketed as an anabolic steroid. Instead, eat a diet rich in lean proteins, such as chicken, fish, eggs and poultry. Then eat healthy fats, such as nuts and avocado, to give you energy throughout the day.
6. Weight Lifting Doesn’t Strengthen Bones
For decades, doctors and health experts have told patients to do weight-bearing exercise such as walking, jogging, tennis and dancing to help strengthen bones and prevent fractures. That advice is based on the well-established fact that bone density is higher in people who engage in these activities than those who don’t.
It’s also true that the stress placed on bones during a weight-lifting session, or any exercise with added resistance, kicks bone-synthesizing cells into high gear. This stimulates the formation of collagen, other specialized proteins and a mineral called hydroxyapatite that gives bones strength.
But what isn’t well understood is whether these changes in bone density translate into a lower risk of fracture. With the advent of sophisticated tests that allow scientists to examine bones at a microscopic level, some researchers have found that weight bearing exercise makes bones healthier in terms of their quality.
Those findings are consistent with the observation that some post-menopausal women who perform regular weight lifting exercises have better bone quality than those who do not. It may be that combining strength training with a diet rich in calcium will maximize the benefits of exercise to the bones. And it’s a good idea to consult with a personal trainer before you try any new exercise to be sure your body can handle it safely.
7. Weight Lifting Doesn’t Improve Mental Health
In addition to helping people feel more empowered, weight lifting and resistance training have been shown to decrease anxiety and improve mental health. In fact, it’s one of the most effective ways to alleviate depression, even rivaling antidepressants without their negative side effects, according to a study published last month in Frontiers in Psychology.
Despite the stereotype of muscular powerlifters and bodybuilders, lifting heavy weights for standard reps won’t make you bulky. In order to build a large amount of muscle, you would need to follow a very specific program that requires years of training, an intense diet, and an immense amount of dedication. This is why it’s important to ignore the fitness myths that discourage women from weight lifting because they fear looking “bulky.”
It’s also helpful to forget about the old saying “No pain, no gain.” While some discomfort during exercise may indicate that you’re making progress, it’s not necessarily true. In fact, studies have shown that doing dynamic stretching before and after a workout can actually help reduce the amount of post-workout soreness you experience.
