Top 10 Bodybuilding Myths

1.Workouts Should be at least an Hour Long:

If you aren’t supplementing with steroids, your body is not able to handle the stresses of a workout lasting much longer than an hour. Though you may feel as if you are doing yourself a good, the reality is that you are placing too much stress on your body. Too much stress can leave you tired and over trained, robbing you of hard-earned muscle gains.

2.The More You Work out, the More you’ll Grow:

No, no no. This is one of the most damaging myths that ever reared its ugly head. 95% of the pros will tell you that the biggest bodybuilding mistake they ever made was to over-train–and this happened even when they were taking steroids. Imagine how easy it is for the natural athlete to over train! When you train your muscles too often for them to heal, the end-result is zero growth and perhaps even losses. Working out every day, if you’re truly using the proper amount of intensity will lead to gross over training. A body part, worked properly, i.e. worked to complete, total muscular failure that recruited as many muscle fibers as physiologically possible, can take 5-10 days to heal.

To take it a step further, even working a different body part in the next few days might constitute over training. If you truly work your quads to absolute fiber-tearing failure, doing another power workout the next day that entails heavy bench-presses or deadlifts is going to, in all probability, inhibit gains. After a serious leg workout, your whole system mobilizes to heal and recover from the blow you’ve dealt it. How, then, can the body be expected to heal from an equally brutal workout the next day? It can’t, at least not without using some drugs to help deal with the catabolic processes going on in your body [and even they're usually not enough.

Learn to accept rest as a valuable part of your workout. You should probably spend as many days out of the gym as you do in it.

3. Muscle Will Turn to Fat if you Stop Training.

Muscle can’t turn to fat anymore than fat can turn to muscle. They are two completely different substances. This myth gets it biggest boost from jealous types who wouldn’t know a barbell if they tripped over it. It doesn’t help matters either when bodybuilders and others athletes gain fat when they retire from bodybuilding training. It’s not that their muscles have turned to fat but that their muscles have lost tone and begin to sag, giving the appearance of fat. Trust us your muscle won’t turn to fat if you stop training. Of course why stop training? Training is the key to fat loss, building muscle, and overall health.

4.You Should Only Rest 45 Seconds in Between Sets.

That's true if you're trying to improve cardiovascular health or lose some bodyfat. But in order to build muscle, you need to allow enough time for the muscle to recuperate fully (i.e. let the lactic acid buildup in your muscles dissipate and ATP levels build back up). In order to make muscles grow, you have to lift the heaviest weight possible, thereby allowing the maximum number of muscle fibers to be recruited.

If the amount of weight you lift is being limited by the amount of lactic acid left over from the previous set, you're only testing your ability to battle the effects of lactic acid. In other words, you're trying to swim across a pool while wearing concrete overshoes. When training heavy, take [at least!] two and three minutes between your sets. Notice I said, “when training heavy.” The truth is, you can’t train heavy all the time. Periodization calls for cycling heavy workouts with less intense training sessions in an effort to keep the body from becoming overtrained.

5.Situps Are the Quickest Way to Get Great Abs.

This is one of the biggest mistakes made by weightlifters and bodybuilders. Oftentimes, most of their routine is pretty good and they see decent results, but when they go to work out their abs they just do endless amounts of crunches. They do most of their work in the 8-12 rep range, but then go and do 50 sit-ups. If you want to build your abs, work them out like anything else. Do weighted sit-ups or use a machine; anything to get you into the 8-12 rep range so you can actually BUILD your abs. One more thing though, building your abs is one thing, but seeing them is another. The ONLY way to see your hard earned abs is to have a lower body fat percentage, meaning more diet and more cardio.

6.You Must Eat More to get Big

Now, contrary to the point above, others think that if size is their goal, then life should become a 24-hour buffet. They eat everything and anything in sight, in the hopes that it will help spark new muscle growth.

What these individuals need to realize is that, yes, they do require more calories however, the body can only assimilate so many of those extra calories into lean muscle tissue. After that, the remainder will go toward fat mass. Your P-ratio is what determines the amount of surplus calories going to fat and the amount going toward lean muscle mass. Your P-ratio is partly influenced by genetic make-up — which is something you can’t change — but the changeable factors that affect are your workout program, your nutritional intake and the timing of your meals.

So if size is your goal, you need to make sure that you are eating enough to get growth in the first place, but not so much that with the additional muscle mass, you get a great deal of fat mass as well.

7.Deadlifts and Squats are Dangerous:

Have you picked a bag of groceries off of the floor recently? Then you’ve done the deadlift. Have you stood up from a seated position? Then you’ve done the squat. Danger in these movements is a factor of load and technique. Proper technique will ensure proper skeletal alignment, reducing the chance of injury. Using a load appropriate for your current fitness level will also reduce the chance of injury. Notice I did not say eliminates injury. All movement involves the risk of injury to some extent, whether it’s rocking a 400-pound squat or crossing the street.

8.You need Supplements to get in Good Shape

Supplements should be used only for what they’re name implies: to “supplement” an already nutritious diet. Pills, powders, potions, and magic elixirs are not the Holy Grail they are purported to be.

Most supplements are useless, and the few that are beneficial should only be applied after solid nutrition is in place. What supplements do I consider alright? A good multi-vitamin is never going to get badmouthed by me. An omega-3 supplement if you are unable to get it from your diet (and few of us can) is alright. And maybe, and I said maybe, a protein powder if you are unable to acquire the required amount of protein from your diet. Keep the Horny Goat Weed to yourself.

9.If You Are not Getting Bigger, Blame it on Your Genetics

Too bad the advice of ‘choose your parents wisely’ is out of your power! The bottom line is that bad genetics is an excuse for the lazy. It’s an easy way out and it’s a very convenient cop-out especially when there is no one around to prove that it’s true. How sure can we be when the guy who cries ‘bad genetics’ is training his calves every few weeks as an afterthought and eats like “crap” when no one is around? Perhaps he was born with 50% less muscle fiber than the rest of us, but most likely it is becausehe has not learned the basics of muscle growth.

10. Getting A Pump Is Necessary For Muscular Size

The muscle pump is described as when you put your muscles under an extended period of constant tension. As your muscles stretch and contract they become gorged with blood, making them feel tighter and fuller. Getting a muscle pump is not necessarily what causes the muscle to grow – doing 100 reps with a light rep will create a huge pump, but will this make your muscle grow? Of course not. Distance runners get a pump in their legs when they sprint uphill.

Do they get big muscles?  no!

The main problem with training for the pump is that it leads to muscular fatigue and not muscular overload. Muscular fatigue is when you lift moderate weights for higher reps and you can not complete the set because of the burning sensation caused from the lactic acid buildup which results from a lack of oxygen to the muscle. You complete the set far from muscular overload. You must discontinue the set because your muscles are simply on fire and burning – not because your muscles failed you because of strength. Lactic acid, waste products, and no oxygen are great if you want to lose body fat, do a cutting phase or run a marathon, but they will limit the size you put on your frame.

Search Opportunities By Keywords