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As you go about your workout routine, one thing that you have to make certain of is that you’re not falling for any of the major exercise myths that tend to circulate around.
While there’s no question that the diet you’re following will have a very large influence on the type of progress that you see from your workout program, it’s also true that if you’re forming your workout program in the right manner, this too will really increase the results that take place.
Form your workout incorrectly however and you’ll be seriously wasting your precious hours in the gym doing exercises that will fail to bring you results.
Let’s take a quick peek at three of the top exercise myths that you might be falling for so you can get it straight in your mind the proper way to attack your workout program.
If Some Is Good, More Is Better
The very first myth that you might be calling for is that if some exercise is good, more must be better. After all, it only seems to make sense. If you can burn off 300 calories during your workout session, if you double the time and can burn off 600 calories, won’t you see faster rates of weight loss?
Not quite.
The thing to remember is that the body can only handle so much exercise before it just becomes too overworked and broken down to continue. Unless you’re giving your body enough rest time to recover from each workout session that you do, you’re just going to continue to break it down further and further.
As this takes place, the body may actually start holding onto its body fat stores making it more difficult to lose weight.
Some exercise is good, more is not better. Always make sure you take at least one day off each week to rest and recover.
Light Weights Are Best For Toning
Second, another common exercise myth is that if you want to firm up your body and add muscle tone, you should lift lighter weights in the higher rep range. Again, this is incorrect.
In order to get your body to change, you have to challenge it to work harder than it ever has before. While higher rep training may test out your endurance abilities, using a heavier weight will cause the muscles to work harder.
The harder your muscles have to work, the more calories you burn and the leaner you will become. Therefore, start pushing yourself with heavier weights. This will create a much more desirable effect in the body and really go a long way to enhancing muscle tone and definition.
Interval Cardio Burns Hundreds Of Calories Post-Session
Finally, the last exercise myth that you might be falling for is the ‘EPOC’ myth. EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) refers to the number of calories that the body will burn immediately after a workout session is performed in order to return it back to its resting state.
The thinking here is that interval or sprint cardio training causes EPOC to take place, while moderate intensity cardio does not.
While it is true that the intensity of the form of exercise plays a key role in whether EPOC occurs (so that part of this is true), the second truth is that EPOC for interval training is still nothing all that significant.
Generally speaking you might burn 10-15% of the calorie burn you got from the exercise session over and above it after it’s completed, but if you can only perform those intervals for 10 minutes and burn 100 calories, how many calories are you really burning? 110 or 115 total?
If you do a moderate intensity cardio workout and can maintain the pace for a good 45 minutes and burn a total of 400 calories during that session, that will be the one that moves you closer to your weight loss goals.
So make sure that you’re taking some time to consider all these points as you go about designing your workout program. Heavy weight lifting along with modest amounts of cardio training and enough rest will be your best bet to success.
