10 Excercise Myths.
Misconceptions about exercise can sabotage your efforts to
get in shape. Here's the truth behind 10 common myths.
Recently Martina Navratilova
decried one of sport's most persistent myths - that women
lack stamina and endurance. That's why their tennis matches
are limited to three sets, while men's matches can go five
sets. Actually, the physiological differences that make men more
muscular than women confer no edge in endurance. Women can
exercise at least as hard and long as men can. And they recover
from a grueling workout significantly faster than men do.
While scientists and female athletes are finally laying that
myth to rest, other antiquated notions about exercise have
stubbornly persisted - and new misconceptions keep popping
up. Such incorrect notions can discourage you from exercising
or lead you to waste time, effort, or money on workouts that
don't really work. They can even harm your health. Here are
the facts about 10 unfounded fears, negative notions, and
false hopes about working out.
Myth #1: While light exercise does yield some benefits, it's
not nearly as beneficial as strenuous exercise.
Truth: Strenuous workouts do improve aerobic capacity far
more than light or moderate workouts do. While that may improve
athletic performance, it does not necessarily translate into
a great health advantage.
The death rates from coronary heart disease, cancer, and
all causes combined are much lower in moderate exercisers
than in non exercisers; but they're only a little lower in
heavy exercisers than in moderate exercisers. The same holds
true for the risk of developing type II diabetes, by far the
most common kind.
In addition, non strenuous exercise seems to reduce stress,
anxiety, and blood pressure as effectively as strenuous exercise
does. And moderate exercise like walking can do just as much
to control weight as vigorous exercise like jogging, since
the number of calories burned depends on how much ground you
cover, not how fast you cover it. In fact, moderate exercise
is potentially more effective than vigorous for most people,
since they can walk much further than they can run.
Myth #2: You can lose fat from specific parts of your body
by exercising those spots.
Truth: There's no such thing as "spot reduction."
When you exercise, you use energy produced by burning fat
in all parts of your body - not just around the muscles that
are doing most of the work. In fact, your genes may dictate
that fat disappears from, say, your face or arms before your
belly, even if you do endless abdominal exercises. However,
working a specific region like the belly can have one site-specific
benefit: Strengthening the muscles can make you look thinner
by helping you hold in your gut.
Myth #3: The more you sweat during exercise, the more fat
you lose.
Truth: The harder you work out, the more calories you'll
burn within a given period and thus the more fat you stand
to lose. But how much you sweat does not necessarily reflect
how hard you're working. Some people tend to sweat profusely
due to heavy body weight, poor conditioning, or heredity.
And everyone sweats more in hot, dry weather or dense clothing
than in cool, humid weather or porous clothing. (You may feel
as if you're sweating more in humid weather; but that's because
moist air slows the evaporation of sweat.)
Exercising in extremely hot weather or in a plastic "weight
loss" suit will indeed make you sweat heavily and lose
weight immediately. But that lost weight is almost entirely
water; the pounds will return when you replenish your fluids
by drinking after the workout. Further, you could develop
heat exhaustion if you push yourself too hard in extreme heat
or in plastic clothes. which prevent sweat from evaporating
and, in turn, cooling you off.
Myth #4: Sports drinks can help you exercise more safely
and effectively.
Truth: Sports drinks contain two main ingredients that are
theoretically beneficial for exercisers: sodium, which helps
the body retain water, and sugar, which the body burns for
energy. But very few people exercise hard enough to sweat
away much sodium or to use up their carbohydrate reserves,
which the body converts to sugar. You'd have to jog for at
least two hours, for example, before your carbohydrate stores
would start to run low. So unless you're doing a marathon
or other exhaustive exercise, plain water is all you need.
Myth #5: Aerobic exercise tends to make you hungry, so it
actually undermines your efforts to lose weight.
Truth: Aerobic exercise, such as jogging or brisk walking,
may indeed increase your appetite - but only, it seems, if
you need extra calories. Studies suggest that lean individuals
do get hungrier after such exercise; that helps prevent them
from getting too thin. In contrast, working out does not seem
to boost appetite in obese individuals; so exercise should
help them slim down.
Myth #6: Strength training won't help you get thinner, since
it burns few calories and adds pounds of muscle.
Truth: Strength training, using either weights, machines,
or elastic bands, can substantially increase the number of
calories you burn. A typical session, in which you rest briefly
after each muscle-building maneuver, uses up calories at least
as fast as walking does. Circuit training, in which you move
quickly from one strengthening maneuver to the next, burns
calories faster than walking does. And your body continues
to burn calories for hours after either type of strength training.
More important, the muscle you build consumes calories more
rapidly, even when you're not exercising.
In one study, three months of strength training boosted the
average calorie-burning rate by an average of 7 percent, burned
off 4 pounds of fat, and added nearly that much muscle. Since
muscle is denser than fat, the volunteers presumably did become
thinner. Equally important, they burned off that fat despite
a 15 percent increase in their calorie content. If the researchers
hadn't prodded them to maintain their weight by eating more
than they felt like eating, the volunteers almost surely would
have lost weight.
Strength training is particularly helpful as part of a comprehensive
weight-loss program that includes both aerobic exercise -
which burns lots of calories during the workout and some calories
after the workout - and a moderately low-calorie diet. (forget
crash diets, which almost always never work and can be dangerous.)
A recent study found that women who ate a moderately restrictive
diet and did either strength training or aerobic exercise
lost more weight than those who only dieted. But those who
split their workout time between strength training and aerobic
exercise lost the most weight of all.
Myth #7: Strength training builds muscle and bone but does
nothing for the heart.
Truth: Strength training plus aerobic exercise may be the
ideal exercise regimen not only for the waistline but also
for the heart. One analysis of 11 clinical trials found that
strength training can reduce levels of LDL cholesterol, the
artery-clogging kind (though it has little effect on HDL cholesterol,
the artery-clearing kind). Aerobic exercise has a complimentary
benefit: It improves HDL but does little for LDL. Further,
some studies suggest that strength training, like aerobic
exercise, may help reduce blood pressure. (But check with
your doctor for guidance before starting a muscle-building
program if you have hypertension, since straining can temporarily
increase blood pressure.) One final benefit: By fortifying
the muscles, strength training reduces the likelihood that
sudden or unaccustomed exertion, such as moving furniture
or shoveling snow, will trigger a heart attack.
Myth #8: When you stop exercising, your muscles turn to fat.
Truth: Lack of exercise does make the muscles shrink, reducing
the body's calorie-burning rate. The lack of activity itself
further reduces the number of calories you burn. So people
who stop working out are indeed in danger of getting flabby.
But that doesn't mean that muscle actually turns to fat -
they're totally different types of tissue. Nor does it mean
you're doomed to gain fat around the muscles after you stop
exercising; you just need to cut back on the calories you
consume. (Of course, the best way to stay slim is to eat a
lean diet and continue to exercise regularly.)
Myth #9: Building muscles reduces flexibility.
Truth: If you strength train without moving your joints through
their full range of motion, you can indeed lose flexibility.
But strength training can actually improve flexibility if
you do move your joints fully. Stretch after a muscle-building
workout to help keep yourself limber. (Stretch before as well
as after an aerobic workout.)
Myth #10: Strength training tends to give women a bulky,
masculine physique.
Truth: It's very difficult for most women to build large
muscles. That's because women have relatively low levels of
the hormone testosterone, which influences muscle growth.
Both men and women can build firmer rather than bulkier muscles
by working against lighter resistance more than 25 times rather
than heavier resistance fewer times.
| Authors
Details: - from Consumer Reports on Health, October 1996 |
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