Fitness Experts Debunk 17 Exercise Myths

one of the most common myths that I hear is that if unused muscle tissue converts into fat it's really important to say that the muscle tissue has muscle cells and fat tissue has fat cells they are not interchangeable by no means is it chemically or physically possible for muscle tissue to convert over to fat and vice versa fat into muscle that's Jean kike Meister I'm a clinical athletic trainer at the New York sport science lab in Staten Island New York and he's one of three athletic trainers we brought in to our studios my name is Janelle Mason my name is an easter to debunk 17 of the most common exercise myths it really depends on your goals training fasted in the morning is more conducive to losing fat because when you wake up you're in a fasted state and that means your body is basically consuming itself so it's looking at fat storage it's looking at muscle storage that's the time where if your goal is to lose weight and just slim down lean down that's the best time to optimize that window for training but in terms of effectiveness of training in general I don't think it really matters you just need to make sure that if you are training at night you are not fatiguing yourself throughout the day so when most people think stretching their thinking static stretching you achieve a certain position you hold that position and your goal is to increase your range of motion a problem with that is you can end up really loose and if you follow that type of stretching with something explosive or something ballistic or something strength based you now have a loose tissue or you have a lacks joint and you're not going to be able to produce as much force and you could also potentially lead yourself to being injured because you're not as stable so what my favorite is when it's the holidays right and you have you know that aunt or uncle that's just like yeah I'm just trying to lose it like right here and they start pinching the lower abdomen oh my god Greek you can't spot reduce the part that you want and in good news it doesn't go the other way either it's not like when I eat a cheeseburger it's gonna go right to my right yeah and if you are trying to lower your body fat cardio isn't the best way to do it cardio doesn't burn fat cardio burns calories so if your goal is to lose weight you want to be in a caloric deficit so as a part of getting into that caloric deficit doing cardiovascular exercises is helpful but if you're not eating a diet or if you're not monitoring your caloric intake on top of that and making sure that you are in that deficit no amount of cardio that you do you can't outrun a bad diet and in fact doing too much cardio can actually be a bad thing if all you're doing is cardio with the goal of losing weight you can start to burn into that muscle tissue so if you're burning into your lean muscle tissue now you could actually be slowing down your metabolism you could be decreasing your bone density and you could be making yourself weaker and that's why I think this myth is potentially the most dangerous and damaging one for the general population but it may not be as common as the belief that I love this one one myth I hear all the time is that muscle weighs more than fat a pound of bricks weighs the same as a pound of feathers so it's not that muscle weighs more than fat it's that muscle is more dense than fat so in terms of you building muscle you can add weight on the scale the scale isn't necessarily the best indicator of progress when we're trying to develop our physique and oftentimes at first you can add muscle and the scale will reflect that you're heavier but over time understanding that for all the lean muscle you have you're increasing your resting calories burn per day that's a long-term sustainable change in your body as opposed to just doing cardio sessions and going into caloric deficit and starving yourself of course building muscle isn't just for men women think that they'll bulk up if they start working out and if that's the look you're going for I think that's great because you're doing something that you want to do but if you are working out for general wellness and health I don't want you to be afraid to lift heavy weights you're not going to get bulky by nature and in fact weight lifting is especially important for women as we age we become more prone to getting osteoporosis so we definitely need to be doing resistance training where our muscles are feeling that stimulation so that the bones nearby can remain strong and whether you're a man or a woman you don't actually need weights at all to build strengths I mean the myth being that you have to go to the gym to be doing strength training it's crazy all right your body is a weight so bodyweight exercises have been around forever and they are so important be able to push up your body or crunch or squat or pull up and if it's a six pack year after the muscles themselves aren't even that important getting a six pack is not about doing tons of cartridges a lot of it has to do with your nutrition and Stearn agrees abs are made in the kitchen the abs are a muscle if you're gonna target the muscle by doing crunches leg lifts bicycle crunches oblique twists you're essentially building the muscle so think of it as you're building the engine of the car and then the outside is your body fat and how do you show off the inside of the car you've got to reduce that body fat so sweating a lot means you got a really great workout it's something I hear all the time unfortunately that's not true either some people are just naturally more prone to sweating some people just have underactive sweat glands so it means that you're healthy and your filtration system but it doesn't necessarily reflect the effectiveness of your workout but if you do sweat a lot how should you replenish I would not say that most commercial sports drinks are the most efficient way of rehydrating following a workout but plain water isn't going to cut it either if you're just consuming water too that's also not the most effective way of hydrating because hydration is not just water there's also trace minerals that as electrolytes which help with nerve conduction they help with brain function they have but muscular contraction so if you're looking for the best way to rehydrate post-workout it could be very beneficial to add just a dab of pink Himalayan sea salt to water a pink Himalayan sea salt has over 60 trace minerals all of which are found naturally in human sweat so when you consider something like a Gatorade or Powerade they may have four or five different electrolytes in their blends so Derrick falling drastically short in terms of overall hydration when it comes to all the minerals of your body and after a workout you should also eat protein immediately right if you already have a protein rich diet you don't need to worry so much about downing a protein shake right after your workout now what you are going to be depleted of though especially if you're doing an aerobic exercise you're going to be depleted of glycogen glycogen is the immediate form of energy for muscle contraction and that comes in way of simple carbohydrates and sugars so post-training it's important to replenish that glycogen but even if you're fueling muscles with a proper diet they still need time off hashtag no days off the old myth that we should not take a day off is an extreme there's a huge value in letting the muscle repair itself right so every time you do let's go back to the bicep curl if I'm doing a bicep curl a small tear is gonna happen in my bicep so the body is going to repair itself because again it's a machine who knows how to to survive and if I continue to do it I don't have a window of opportunity for the body the soldiers to jump in alright let's fix this tear because it's just constantly me more so it needs some of that downtime to again to heal itself especially if you're sore that's a myth for sure soreness is the breakdown of muscle tissue it's the chemicals released during that breakdown it's not an indicator of oh I'm getting stronger oh I'm getting weaker but if you're soreness persists for longer than 72 hours that could be a sign that you're under recovering or overtraining one month is not enough to undo a lifetime of bad habits so it's important to start slow find the things that you enjoy find the physical activities that make you feel good make that a daily habit and there's no one-size-fits-all approach there's not one type of movement that you should be doing that is better than the other so if you enjoy dancing go out and dance go out dancing three times a week or do a dance cardio class or something that gets you moving if you like to jump on trampolines do that I think the best movement for anyone to do is something that they enjoy because the only way that you're gonna stick to your work out being a lifestyle for you is for you to be doing something you enjoy

Channel: Science Insider

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Keywords: Business Insider, Science Insider, human body, health, health science, human science, working out, exercising, myths, debunked, cardio, trainers, weightloss, muscles, muscle gain

Id: IW9hz1kZP2I

Length: 9min 8sec (548 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 25 2019