Popular Fitness Myths

PT Secrets

Tags: fitness, health, myths, muscle, fat, body fat, weight, exercise

Sarah Jane Hunter

Sarah-Jane Hunter is a top personal trainer and well known media commentator on the fitness industry. We don’t advocate ‘sweating it out’ in the gym but everybody knows that moderate exercise is good for you and will help you lose weight and tone up. Sarah-Jane is brilliant at creating easy to watch videos that show you exactly how to do simple exercises at home if you want to.

Here are some popular fitness myths you may have heard and what I hear daily when teaching in fitness classes:

Muscle turns into fat when you stop exercising

Muscle and fat are completely different body tissue, it is impossible for one to become the other.

It is definitely true to say that if you stop exercising you will gain fat, but this is because your muscle decreases in size if they are not challenged.

With less muscle, your body is less efficient at burning energy, so you are more likely to gain fat.

All Fat in your Diet is Bad

People go mad trying to keep fat out of their diet in the belief that it will prevent their body from accumulating more fat.

But fat has a very important role in our body and, without it, your body would suffer. You need to distinguish between good fats such as olive oil which are liquid at room temperature, and bad fats, such as butter, which are solid at room temperature.

If I use weights, I will get big and bulky

If only it was that easy to create muscle. The short term accumulation of body fluids within the tissues of the muscle can make you feel as thought you have gained muscle but, infant, you haven't.

To build muscle mass, you need to be constantly overloading the muscle.

Doing Yoga and Pilates is enough to keep me fit

Pilates and Yoga are fantastic forms of exercise. They encourage flexibility and good posture. However, you should never just do one thing.

Fitness is about challenging every part of your body in many ways and there is no single form of exercise that can do it all on its own. To see results, you need to raise your heart rate to an appropriate level 3 -4 times per week and vary your routine.