Welcome to Marvinspire Fitness! Do you know NOT all what you read on the internet are true? Most of the information are there to catch your attention! Leaving the painful fact behind. There are fitness myths out there. Especially, when we have access to the internet anytime and anywhere with no filter. Therefore, it’s important to know the truth from a reliable source. I am going to share the top three MYTH and the TRUTH to clear the air. I am very sure you heard about these myths before. Let`s go!
1. Myth: You can reduce fat in one area of your body.
The first myth is the fat reduction in one area of your body. The typical questions most people may ask, ”How can I reduce the size of my stomach?”, How can I reduce the size of my thigh?”, “How can I reduce my arm size?” and the list goes on. There is no such thing as fat spot reduction because it is just a myth.
THE TRUTH: First of all, no matter how many sit up you do, someone with 30% body fat will never have visible abs like someone with 5% body fat. This is due to body fat percentage. You need to reduce your body fat percentage to make your abs visible. When your body develops fat, they are not producing more fat cells. Instead, the existing fat cells are storing more lipids and becoming larger which contribute to your fat percentage. Where your body stores fat, depends on multiple factors. The factors due to gender, hormones, genetics, and insulin sensitivity. It all depends on how your complex body system responds to your lifestyle.
Fat reduction happens in the overall of your body. It depends on your genes, one part of your body may reduce faster than the other. What must you do to lose fat? It is a mix of food management specifically on calories deficit, cardiovascular exercise and strength exercise.
To simplify, reduce your usual food portion and replace your process food with high-quality natural food. Do not drink drinks that have calories. To add on, you need to invest some time to exercise by including cardiovascular and strength exercise with the right intensity. I would suggest more than three workout days in one week. You need to be consistent and patient to achieve the desired result.
2. Myth: You will get big from lifting weights.
The second most common myth is you will get big from lifting weights. Most women and even men believe that lifting weight leads to massive muscle gains resulting in a large body-builder physique like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I have to say it is not that easy and not true because it requires a significant amount of lifestyle and dietary change.
THE TRUTH: You will not get big from lifting weight. This is how the misconception born. We can categorise people`s fitness goal into two groups. There are general fitness and specific fitness. General fitness is a group of people who have the general fitness goal such as to lose weight, to move well and to be pain-free. Fundamentally, they want to be healthy fit, look good and feel good. They need to invest 3 to 4 days of exercise within a week and on average 1 hour per day. Probably, they are people who have a day job or even working in shift. You could be one of them.
Now let’s talk about specific fitness. They are a group of people to compete in a specific sport to perform and to win! They are elite athletes. They need to commit 5 to 7 days a week of training because they need to get better every day for the specific movement. They call it a training session, not an exercise session. There is a difference. Most of the time, they need to engage 2 to 3 hours of training, and sometimes it can be two sessions of training in a day: one in the morning and the other in the evening.
Arnold Schwarzenegger `s specific sport is body-building, Serena William plays professional tennis player, Usain Bolt is an Olympic sprinter, and Tia-Clair Toomey is a cross-fit athlete. You need to train and eat like them to be as big, strong and fast like them.
Social media is the cause of this misconception. It has no filter. The media loves to showcase these elite athletes rather than average people who have a general fitness goal. Why? It’s just because it is impressive and fancy! Once you saw a picture posted in the internet Arnold Schwarzenegger squatting over 200kg, a misconception of “You will get big from lifting weights” was born.
The media do not show an office worker doing a bodyweight squat in the gym. Once, again if you are focusing general fitness, you will not get big like him. For the ladies, they are not built to bulk up, so it requires even more concentrated effort and dietary changes for a female who lifts weight to start seeing progress.
On the positive note, investing 1 to 2 hours of lifting in your weekly schedule will give you an enormous benefit. It helps to build your strength, bone density and help to boost your metabolism.
3. Myth: All elite athletes are healthy!
The third myth is probably one of the most controversial myths. We live in a world where we love to see good looks with being healthy. Wow! He or she has six-pack abs. They must be healthy! Someone is muscular. They must be healthy! They are strong! They must be healthy. Unfortunately, NOT ALL elite athletes are healthy.
THE TRUTH: Healthy is a state of complete physical, mental and free from disease or pain. In other words, you feel good, energised, no pain and no disease. Athletes need to perform to compete because they want to win in a specific sport. Athlete put additional stress or load on the body because they need to move faster, stronger, and longer. Most of the time, they will go beyond their body limits pushing through pain. Some of them even will lose the balance between being healthy and performance. Some of them may even push through pain and injury to perform. It that healthy to you?
Let look at some examples, elite powerlifter and strongman. They are strong! Very strong! However, they are mostly big and really big. Yes, they can squat over 400kg, with the bodyweight over 120kg. You can look at Ray Williams and Eddie Hall. Bodybuilders are often on a very very strict diet like Kai Greene and Ronnie Coleman. Removing carbohydrate and dehydrating their body up to below 3% of body fat is not healthy for the long term. The 3% of body fat is basically whatever fat left to protecting your internal organ. In fact, you can even died for being extremely low body fat.
They need to return to their off-season weight after the competition is over. Same goes in any other sports. They may experience an injury which we may not know off, and at one point some athlete may take enhancement drug to push their body to perform. Is it healthy for the long term?
To be clear, I am not saying these elite athletes are bad. It is just the statement of “All elite athletes are healthy!” is just a myth. I have nothing but respect their dedication and commitment to prepping their body to compete. I am a competitive Powerlifter myself. The process is tough as I need to learn to push my body to my limits and work on recovery at the same time.
That is all for the top three fitness myth and the truth is given as well. Some people still believe some of these myths. It will affect the quality of your fitness goal because it may set the wrong expectation. Hence, the best thing to do is to seek certified professional help and advice from certified health and fitness practitioner. So what are the fitness facts that you think it is actually a myth? Please leave a comment below.
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