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7 Dangerous Fitness Myths Debunked Here
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It’s an easy thing to do. You hear advice about an exercise from your high school gym teacher and you pass it on to others.
Your personal trainer tells you something during your gym routine that you think must be true and you pass it on to the girls in the office. Trying to dispel rumors and myths in the world of fitness has proved to be difficult.
Myths and almost truths are everywhere and some of them are actually dangerous to your health! Here we debunk the 7 most popular and dangerous fitness myths around.
Myth Number 1 – Running on a treadmill is safer than running on the streets.
Although running or jogging is a great workout, it does have tremendous impact on your knees. It’s the stress of your body’s weight on your knees that is the problem and that won’t change if it’s the treadmill or the pavement.
The best way to reduce stress on the knees is to vary your workout.
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Myth Number 2 – Doing crunches or other abdominal exercises will help you lose belly fat.
Although exercising your abdominal muscles will tone the abdomen area, there is no such thing as spot reducing.
Exercising reduces fat all over and although you can strengthen certain muscle groups, they will not help you lose fat in a particular area. 30 minutes of cardio workout daily, combined with a good diet, will fix that belly fat problem.
Read more about vital exercises you may do.
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Myth Number 3 – Weight Machines are much safer than using free weights and dumbbells.
The truth is machines can put you at higher risk for injuring yourself. Weight machines cannot “see” your form the way a spotter or personal trainer can.
Believing that the machine is safe has caused many enthusiastic people to injure themselves using too much weight, the wrong form, doing too many reps, and having the machine set in the wrong position ( such as the wrong height) for them.
Find out about sport injuries.
Free weights and weight machines are equally safe as long as you are using them correctly. If you don’t know how to use it, ask someone and save yourself a lot of pain.
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Myth Number 4 – Women will bulk up if they use heavy weights.
It’s not the amount of weight that can cause a woman to bulk up with large muscles, its testosterone.
Most women simply don’t have sufficient levels of this male hormone to build up much muscle.
Lifting heavy weights will actually help most women lose weight and add definition to their muscles.
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Myth Number 5 – You must stretch before exercising to warm up your muscles and avoid injury.
This is an old myth that just won’t die. Study after study has shown that stretching does nothing to keep you from injury before you exercise.
The truth is stretching before running can actually cause more injuries than prevent them.
Now, if you want to avoid soreness, stretching after exercising seems to be helpful.
Instead of stretching muscles, simply warm up your body by doing a few minutes of jogging in place or jumping jacks.
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Myth Number 6 – Low Intensity Workouts Burn More Fat
Losing fat is all about burning calories and it doesn’t matter how you do that.
There is no evidence that low intensity cardio workouts burns more fat.
In fact, the more intense you work out, the more calories you will burn.
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Myth Number 7 – No Pain No Gain
Although exercising might leave you a little sore the next day, anything more than that is a definite sign that you are over doing it.
Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong.
Extreme pain for more than a day indicates either over training or an actual injury.
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