7 Myths about Lifting
Just in case you wanted some more myths, here’s a manticore.
Image taken from "Crimson Manticore" from Magic: The Gathering, owned by Wizards of the Coast.
Out on the internet and in the magazines there are still, for who knows what reason, a series of ideas floating around that just don’t seem to want to go away. You’ve seen and heard them dozens of times. They’re common myths that seemingly everyone still believes despite the fact that a lot of them have been proven false, some for years. Maybe you’ve heard some of these before. Well, it’s time to send them to their graves, hopefully once and for all (at least for you.)
1. This many reps gives you growth.
At some point, you were probably told that 8-12 reps is where you need to be to get your muscles to grow. Anything more than that and you’ll just get endurance. Anything less and you’ll only get strength. Well, the good news is that that’s not quite true.
Instead of thinking of it as the borders between states, think of it more as the borders between three colors in a rainbow. There’s no sharp line between them. They fade into each other. If you’re doing 1-3 reps, you’re pretty solidly in strength land. Around 5, things shift a bit and you’re getting some growth now. By 8-12, you’re solidly in growth land. Around 20, you’re getting a mix of growth and endurance. By 30, you’re solidly in endurance. So, the real range for getting growth is something like 6-25 reps. That’s a lot of room to play. The important part isn’t so much how many reps as it is how close to failure you get.
2. You can use certain exercise and lose bodyfat in that area only. This is going to break your heart, but it’s not true. Don’t believe me? Think of it this way: if it were true, every 15 year old boy would have one forearm that’s really, really lean. Bodyfat is like a swimming pool. When you scoop out some water, there’s not a bucket shaped hole in the water. The overall level of water is lower now. When you burn fat, that’s what happens too. It gets pulled from all over your body. Besides, the amount of calories you burn during a workout is tiny. What you need to focus on is your diet. It’s easier to not eat the Boston crème donut than it is to try and exercise it away.
3. Squats are bad for your knees. No, just no. People will come to me and say this. Then I’ll ask them to show me how they squat. “Squats aren’t hurting your knees. That weird thing you’re doing that you call a squat is bad for your knees.” When an exercise is done correctly, it’s almost never going to cause injury. You might say, “I have bad shoulders and no matter how I bench press it hurts them.” So, stop bench pressing and find something else. You’re the exception, not the rule. If you’re injury-free and you’re doing the exercise right, you almost certainly won’t get hurt.
4. Light weights for very high reps will “tone” a bodypart. This one is similar to Number 2. Let’s just leave aside that the word “tone” is made-up by people in the marketing department to get you into those aerobic step classes with the pink dumbbells to fatten their pockets. If by “tone” you mean “make the muscle seem more defined,” then I’ve got some bad news: you’ll have to do the diet thing for that. This means you watch what you eat (and I don’t mean with anticipation while it’s cooking.) Eat fewer calories than you burn and soon enough your muscles will start to show. The best part about that is that you don’t have to pay lots of money for it and get swindled.
5. Machines are bad. Oh god. The pendulum has finally swung the other way. Twenty years ago, people would’ve been telling you free weights are bad and dangerous and they’ll get you injured. Now people are basically saying the same thing about machines. Like so much else in life, they’re just tools. Sometimes they’re the right tool for the job. Sometimes they’re not. When it comes to hitting your hamstrings, for example, a combination is often the right answer. A free weight exercise to get them when your knees are straight and a machine exercise for when you need to bend the knee. Think stiff-leg deadlifts and hamstring curl machines. Machines are also excellent for working around an injury. Shoulder got hurt and you can’t bench press? Hop on the chest press machine until you get better so you can keep your size and strength.
6. Being sore the next day means you’re getting results. While it definitely means you did something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you get results. Believe it or not, scientists don’t know exactly why we get sore when we work out. They know what activities are likely to make you sore, but not why it happens. If you do a lot of exercises where you lower the weight slowly, you’re likely to get sore. If you haven’t worked out in a while (or ever,) you’re likely to get sore.
7. Lifting weights makes you bigger and bulkier. OK, first, let’s agree that by “big and bulky” we mean “looks like a bodybuilder.” Sadly for all the guys trying to get big and bulky (which includes me,) it’s not true. In order to get big and bulky, you have to do a lot of lifting in a specific way and you have to eat… a lot. As in, eat past the point of being comfortable every meal for several weeks at least. Nobody gets big and bulky by accident. It’s like saying you don’t want to go jogging because you might run a marathon. Nobody gets big by mistake unless they’re a complete genetic freak. And if you’re wondering “Am I a genetic freak?” then that proves that you’re not. It’s kind of like wondering “Am I tall enough to be in the NBA?”
Knowing that some of these are nonsense should give you a little bit of relief. You don’t have to worry that if you did 13 reps instead of 12 that you’ll miss out on gains because you’re in endurance mode. You also don’t have to worry about turning into a bulk-asaurus rex just because you lifted some weights. Now get in there and get after your goals. And don’t be afraid to do some squats.
