10 Gym Myths

Myth 1: No Pain, No Gain

While it’s absolutely true that you should push yourself and try to extend the limits of your endurance when you exercise, it’s not true at all that the best workouts are the ones that leave you feeling horrible, sore, and beat up the next day. Discomfort is natural, but pain? No way. “The idea that exercise should hurt is simply wrong—muscle pain during or following exercise usually suggests an injury,”

Myth 2: Soreness After Exercise Is Caused by Lactic Acid Building Up in Your Muscles

So what is that soreness you get a day or two after working out? It’s called DOMS (delayed-onset muscle soreness,) and the belief that it’s caused by lactic acid building up in your muscles while you exercise is false

Myth 3: Exercise Is Worthless If I Can’t Do It Regularly for Hours

Speaking of miserable, getting in shape (not to be confused with losing weight, mind you) doesn’t have to take a really long time. The fact that it does for most people though, is probably a good thing. Let’s be clear: there’s no silver bullet, and there’s no magic method to get in shape quickly, but there’s a great deal of new research that shows a healthy exercise regimen doesn’t mean spending hours at the gym every single day.

Myth 4: You Need a Sports Drink When Exercising to Replenish Your Body’s

This is one of those myths that got carried away from its original intent. “Sports drinks are important for improving performance in high-intensity exercise that lasts longer than an hour. Think of a marathon or triathlon. The reason: sports drinks provide water to replace what is lost in sweat and sugar (glucose), the fuel muscles need most in intense exercise,

Myth 5: Stretching Before Exercise Will Prevent Injury

This particular myth is contentious. There are pro and anti-stretching arguments, with staunch support on both sides, but the confusion about stretching comes down to the fact that many confuse “stretching” with “warming up.” It’s very important to warm up before strenuous exercise, and warming up can prevent injury, but stretching specifically has been shown to at best have little benefit

Myth 6: Working Out Will Only Build Muscle, Not Help Me Lose Weight

Frankly, most people who start exercising won’t see much immediate weight loss, unless everything else in their lifestyle is already optimal. And sadly, because many people don’t see that initial benefit, they believe that exercise is worthless and diet is where it’s at.

Myth 7: Exercise Will Help Me Lose Weight Quickly

The inverse of the previous myth, this is the one that usually turns people off from exercise entirely when they spend hours exercising and don’t see the results they were hoping for. The problem is that exercise can help you lose weight, but it’s not the direct “calories in less than calories burned therefore weight lost” oversimplification that’s so often repeated. For example, walking a mile in an hour will burn about 100 calories. Sitting in a chair for the same period of time will probably burn 60 calories. The real weight-loss benefits to exercise come from the eventual ramp-up of tolerance for intensity and duration of exercise that you get once you get started.

Myth 8: You Need to Take Supplements to Build Muscle

Sadly, this is another myth that’s applicable to some people, but not most of us—but you’d never know it from the way they’re marketed. Supplements can help, especially if you’re a bodybuilder or strength trainer, but the typical person who does some weight training two or three times a week to stay fit and build a little muscle mass doesn’t need to chug creatine or protein shakes in order to build muscle.

Myth 9: If You Don’t Exercise When You’re Young, It’s Dangerous When You Get Older

It’s never too late to start a workout regimen and improve your overall health, you just have to be cautious and aware of how you go about it.

Myth 10: Working Out at Home/Working Out at the Gym is Better than Working Out at Home/Working Out at the Gym

Ah, the double-sided myth. No, we’re not going to weigh in on whether exercising at a gym is better or worse than working out at home, or vice versa. There are opinions on both sides of the issue, and studies that have come down on both sides as well. The important thing here is to get rid of the “one is better than the other” statement and remember that different people exercise differently.