Weight Gain Myths

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The vast majority of myths about weight gain are mostly passed down from

“gym talk” and so-called experts who know nothing about the body’s workings.

Myths that lead to wasted time, frustration and if are taken blindly as truth, can really set back your progress in the gym. Don’t believe everything you hear in the gym when it comes to exercise and weight gain, do the research yourself.

Simple, basic principles apply to all weight and muscle gain such as progressive overload, variable frequency of reps and high intensity workouts. Lets take a look at some of the most common weight gain myths.

High repetitions burn fat while low repetitions build muscle.

Progressive overload is needed to make muscles bigger.

Meaning that you need to perform more reps than you did

for your last workout for that particular exercise.

If you perform the same amount of reps at each workout nothing

will change on you, also if the weight doesn’t changes on the bar nothing

will change on you. You need to become stronger.

Definition has two characteristics, muscle size and a low

incidence of body fat. To reduce body fat you will have to

reduce your calories; the high repetition exercise will burn

some calories, but wouldn’t it be better to fast walk to burn these off?

Better still; use the low reps to build muscle, which will

elevate your metabolism and burn more calories (less fat).

Vegetarians can’t build muscle.

Yes they can! Strength training with supplementation of

soy Protein Isolate has shown to increase solid bodyweight.

Studies have shown that athletic performance is not impaired

by following a meat free diet, and people strength training

and consuming only soy protein isolate as a protein source

were able to gain lean muscle mass.

Strength Training will make you look masculine.

If it is not you’re intention to bulk up from strength training

you won’t. Putting on muscle is a long hard slow process.

Your strength-training regime coupled with quality food will

determine how much you will bulk up. To bulk up you also require

more food. Women don’t produce enough testosterone to allow

for muscular growth as large as men.

By working out you can eat what ever you want to.

Of course you can eat whatever you want, if you don’t care

how you want to look. Working out does not give you an open license

to consume as many calories as you want. Although you will

burn more calories if you workout than someone who doesn’t,

you still need to balance your energy intake with you energy

expenditure.

If you take a week off you will lose most of your gains.

Taking one or two weeks off occasionally will not harm your

training. By taking this time off every eight to ten weeks

in between strength training cycles it has the habit of refreshing you and

to heal those small niggling injuries. By having longer layoffs

you do not actually lose muscle fibres, just volume

through not training, any size loss will be quickly re-gained.

By eating more protein I can build bigger muscles.

Building muscle mass involves two things, progressive overload

to stimulate muscles beyond their normal levels of resistance

and eating more calories than you can burn off. With all the

hype about high protein diets lately and because muscle is made

of protein, it’s easy to believe that protein is the best fuel

for building muscle, however muscles work on calories which

should predominately be derived from carbohydrates.

If I’m not sore after a workout, I didn’t work out hard enough.

Post workout soreness is not an indication of how good the

exercise or strength training session was for you. The fitter

you are at a certain activity, the less soreness you will

experience after. As soon as you change an exercise, use a

heavier weight or do a few more reps you place extra stress

on that body part and this will cause soreness.

Resistance training doesn’t burn fat.

Nothing could not be further from the truth. Muscle is a

metabolically active tissue and has a role in increasing

the metabolism. The faster metabolism we have the quicker

we can burn fat. Cardio exercise enables us to burn

calories whilst exercising but does little else for

fat loss afterwards.

Weight training enables us to burn calories whilst

exercising but also helps us to burn calories whilst

at rest. Weight training encourages muscle growth

and the more lean muscle mass we possess, the more

fat we burn though an increased and elevated metabolism.

No pain no gain.

This is one myth that hangs on and on. Pain is your body

signalling that something is wrong. If you feel real

pain during a workout, stop your workout and rest.

To develop muscle and increase endurance you may need

to have a slight level of discomfort, but that’s not

actual pain.

Taking steroids will make me huge.

Not true, strength training and correct nutrition will

grow muscle. Taking steroids without training will not

make you muscular.

Most steroids allow faster muscle growth through greater

recovery, while others help increase strength which

allows for greater stress to be put onto a muscle.

Without food to build the muscle or training to stimulate

it nothing will happen. Most of the weight gain seen

with the use of some steroids is due to water

retention and is not actual muscle.

Strength training won’t work your heart.

Wrong!! Strength training with short rest periods will

increase your heartbeat well over a hundred beats

per minute. For example, performing a set of breathing

squats and you can be guaranteed that your heart will

be working overtime and that your entire cardiovascular

system will be given a great overall body workout.

Any intensive weightlifting routine that lasts for

20 minutes or more is a great workout for your heart

and the muscles involved.

I can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

Wrong. Only a few gifted people with superb genetics

can increase muscle size while not putting on body fat.

But for the average hard gainer, they have to increase

their muscle mass to its maximum potential and then cut

down their body fat percentage to achieve the desired shape.