3 Exercise Myths That You Need to Know

This time of year health and fitness are at the top of everyone’s consciousness.

-New Years's Resolutions
-Gym memberships
-Diet books

All hot items for the first few weeks of January until annual fade starts.

Well I was watching one our local morning talk shows the other day(Think The View) and they had some fitness author on, I think the name of her plans is called The Eat Clean Diet.

Long story short the host started to solicit exercise tips from her; and I was blown away by the exercise myths that came spewing for with.

Unfreaking believable.

Myth #1 - The knee shouldn't go past the toe when performing lunges. Hello study some anatomy and biomechanics, the knee is meant to travel past the toes. As a matter of fact allow the knee to go over the will lead to better activation of the glutes/buns and hamstring, an area most of us really need to work.

This myth has been made prevalent by people using shit form when performing lunges, and blame the knee pain they get on the exercise not THEIR shit form.

Myth #2 - Working the Lower Abs, this such bullshit. Abs as we know them are defined as the 6-pack, or more technically the rectus abdominis.

Let me keep this simple, muscles (i.e. abs) work on something call the All-or-Nothing principle mean they either contract or do not contract. Since the abs are all 1 muscle this means that the whole muscle either contracts or it does not.

Pretty damn, simple.

Long story short do your ab work and don't worry about trying to 'hit' the abs from all directions, and wasting 1/2 a workout doing abs.

By the way you might want to spend your 'ab time' on some interval training as it is a quicker route to unveiling your abs, since you can't spot reduce anyway.

Myth #3 - This a new one. Great fat loss results are 90% dependent on nutrition and 10% on exercise.

While you can't out exercise a shit nutrition plan.

Exercise plays a far great role in achieving high quality fat loss results than 10%.

The majority of exercisers let alone general fat loss population are NOT even in the ball park when it comes to exercise we should be spending per week.

That number is 5 hours a week minimum, which may sound like a lot but it is only 3% of our available time each week.

By the way, in my book walking does NOT count as exercise, not unless you are obese.

I believe the reason many people lend credence toward this myth is that exercising five hour per week is hard work and most people will avoid hard work at all costs.

So if you have been dieting only or walking and dieting try throwing 3-5 hours of higher intensity exercise and I guarantee it will kick your fat loss into high gear.

You can not achieve significant fat loss results with a WEAK exercise program it is just not possible.

So keeping walking if you want but when your ready for some REAL results I will catch you in the weight room.

I am really surprised that the 1st two myths are still around I mean this is shit straight out the 80's Jane Fonda era. This other one is one is more recent.

Regardless I hope that learning of these myths will keep you from making some of the same mistakes that many others will be making if they follow the popular mythology.

Troy M Anderson
Tempe, AZ Fitness Bootcamp