Fitness Myths Debunked One By One
As you prepare to get fit, you likely are looking for information on which to base your new plan. You want to find the truth about becoming fit and healthy, but many myths stand in your way. While touted as fact by some "experts", they will only stand to cause you grief and misery. Below we have detailed a few of the worst offenders so you can learn what is fact and what is fiction.
If you have back pain, yoga will help. Yes, yoga can assist you with certain types of back issues, but not every problem can be helped by this activity. If the issues are muscular, yoga can stretch them out and help them to relax. It also builds core strength, often a cause of back discomfort. If you have a more serious issue, such as a ruptured or out of place disc, yoga could actually make the pain worse. Be sure to talk to your family doctor before you begin any sort of exercise so that you can be sure that what you engage in doesn't actually cause the problem to become an even bigger issue.
If you don't exercise, your muscle will turn into fat. Sorry, the body just doesn't work that way! Fat won't become muscle, and muscle won't become fat. You can either burn fat or build muscle, but both can't be done at the same time. If you want to lose body fat, engage in a cardio work out like running, biking or an aerobic workout. If you want to build muscle, use strength exercises with machines or weights to achieve your goal. Gaining muscle means you have to take in more calories than you are burning, while losing fat means taking in less calories than you burn. As you can see, it would be hard to do both at once!
The longer you exercise at a low intensity, the more fat you burn. What matters is how many total calories you burn during an exercise, not over how long a period you do it for. If you run more quickly, you'll end up burning more calories per minute. That will allow you to burn more calories in the time you have to exercise, and you will therefore also drop more pounds. High intensity activity, as long as your body can tolerate it, is the best way to start losing weight as you exercise.
If you want to lose weight around a certain body part, you need to exercise that body part directly. While this is true for toning muscles, it isn't true for losing inches. You don't get to pick where the fat you burn comes from - that is up to your body to choose.
Do you now feel ready to tackle your fitness goals? With these myths out of the way, is the path clear for you to find success? Get down to business deciding what steps to take next and dedicate yourself to your health, your happiness and your fitness today!
