5 EXERCISE MYTHS, MISTAKES AND MISCONCEPTIONS EXPOSED

Have exercise misconceptions prevented you from starting an
exercise program? Clear up any confusion and let these
exercise tips improve your workout routine. Hopefully none
of these common exercise myths, mistakes and misconceptions
have prevented you from working out.

1. Common Mistake: Failure to set goals. Do you exercise
without a clear goal in mind? Having a clear goal set is a
critical step in exercise and weight loss success. Tracking
your progress in a journal will help ensure you see your
improvements, will help motivate you and help you meet your
ultimate goal.

2. Common Misconception: No Pain, No Gain. Pain is your
body’s way of letting you know something is wrong. Do not
ignore this. When you go beyond exercise and testing
yourself, you will encounter physical discomfort and need to
overcome it. An example of this would be training for a
marathon. It is important that you have the “base training”
before getting into the advance training. The base training
develops the body and gets it ready for extensive training.
You need to learn to “read” your body. Is the heavy
breathing because you are pushing your body or could it be
the beginning of a heart attack. Exercise is important. Do
it correctly and you can do it for the rest of your life.

It is normal for you to hurt after you exercise, but it must
be done gradually with a good amount of rest periods to
allow proper healing. There are two common problems here
with beginning exercisers. You can cause long lasting damage
to muscles, tendons and ligaments if you work out while you
are in pain, without allowing enough rest time to heal. You
might find yourself in constant and long lasting pain if you
do this which means that you will no longer be able to
exercise.

If you wake up the next morning after you exercised and can
barely drag your aching body out of bed because everything
hurts, you are going to be less motivated to exercise at
all. Constant pain is a sure way to kill your exercise
program.

3. Common Mistake: Sacrificing Quality for Quantity. When
you are ready to increase the number of reps of a particular
exercise, and strengthen the corresponding muscles, instead
of forcing yourself to do a little more each time try
decreasing the number of reps in a set but increase the
number of sets. Also, back off to half your usual number of
reps but add a couple of more sets. You will feel less tired
and will be able to gain strength in your fast-twitch
muscles.

4. Common Myth: Weight Training Makes Women Bulky. Weight
training for a woman will strengthen and tone muscle, burn
fat and increase metabolism, not build mass. Women do not
produce enough of testosterone to build muscle mass the way
that men do.

5. Common Mistake: Over-Emphasizing Strengths. You should
start focusing on your weak points rather than what you are
good at. This will help you balance things. For example, if
your lower body is stronger than your upper body, then try to
work only on this area one day a week.

Being smart about how you exercise will take you a long way.
It is important to have a healthy body so get out there and
start exercising today.