4 myths Men and women hear but there is no difference
There are many myths around the fitness world, directed toward both men and women. The most common that we hear are
1. Exercise choices should be different for men and women– When it comes to exercise choices point each sex in toward one way. Take the lower body for example; for guys it’s all about the squat and deadlift and for women it is about bands and hip thrust. Yes, you need to squat a lot to get better at the squat but if you don’t do other moves you will never improve your weakness of the squat. This is where things like bands and hip thrust will help you on your journey for a better squat and legs. The opposite holds true for someone who does a lot of band work, you won’t be able to overload the legs and butt and once your body adapts you will see no more growth. This is where it would be better to add the squat to be able to overload the legs. It’s about changing stimulus and giving the body new adaptations to advance.
My recommendations are to program changes in exercise every 4-6 weeks, but you don’t have to change every exercise. At the end of the day exercise is more based on individual needs.
2. Men need to lift heavy weight for muscle gain and women need to do high reps to be toned. - First, we need to dispel the idea and concept of toned, because it does not exist. What we need to understand is you can only build muscle and lose fat. Doing more reps won’t make your muscles look longer or doing things like yoga and pilates. Just like lifting heavy won’t make your muscles bigger. There are multiple factors to the way you look aesthetically. It takes genetics for the amount of muscle growth you can naturally have, how you respond to certain movements/exercises, and how your muscles look on your body. For example, all because someone has the body you want doesn’t mean you can get that body too. Some men have naturally broad shoulders (or look like they do) and you may not be able to build your back and shoulders if your body type isn’t built that way. It could be that their waist tapers a little more (mesomorph) so for someone who is slim and lean (ectomorph) it’s not going to look the same. Genetics do play a role. There are other factors including, full range of motion, how the rep is done, etc. For example, a female client was used to high rep ranges and cardio but switched to doing low reps heavy weight and her results were great.
My recommendations are to program changes in every rep range every 4-6 weeks. You should change rep ranges and stimulus every time.
3. That training to failure will be the best to build muscle and get you the body you want – One of the biggest myths in the fitness industry is to get better you must go to failure. We should be looking at the best programs around the world, with the best results in their perspective sports. Powerlifting and Olympic lifting are excellent athletes to copy because they only really go to failure during competition everything else is practice. This is the example that most people should follow. The one time I would use training to failure is during safer exercises and with an athlete who needs to learn to push themselves. But even then, when it comes to training most of the coaches will push their athletes during practice mentally. Training should be what it is, training which means practice or teaching a skill.
My recommendation is to use failure when you want to push yourself a little mentally but not every time. Use rarely and also choose safer exercises when executing.
4. No pain, no gain - the idea you can only get muscle or get better by killing yourself is actually false. I really learned this lesson in the last couple of years and have hit my greatest gains. I rarely feel like I have to slow down because I went too hard at the gym the day before. When you go all out and feel sore you are less likely to go back and perform better and you can get stuck in what is called the recovery trap. For example, if we are talking about building muscle, this is where your body is constantly trying to get back to normal because you over trained instead of growing more muscle.
My recommendation is you should feel good when you leave the gym and perform close to your best every time you work out, when you can. We have to do this to maintain health the rest our lives.
At the end of the day there are so many other myths out there. The hard part is there could be some truth to these myths but it’s about knowing what works for you. For a majority of the population the 4 myths reviewed are false, male or female.
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