Here are the top 6 muscle-building myths that every fitness geek must know about. But first, you must know why people start to get interested in fitness, even though they don’t know how to lose body fat. It’s pretty evident that everyone wants to look healthier and more physically charming.
However, the primary constraint is that we don’t know where to start and what to eat and avoid. The problem is that there is a lot of misleading information over the internet that tends to provide muscle-building myths but doesn’t coincide with reality.
The problem is that no one knows what is suitable for every person on this planet. Here I have gathered those common muscle-building myths floating inside every gym on this planet.
Muscle-building myth 1: Slow lifting can build incredibly bigger muscles.
Certain truths are yet to be discovered in the fitness world, one being the myth of slow lifting to gain more muscles rapidly. Lifting super slowly can benefit one from receiving severer injuries.
“We’re a lot smarter than we were even five years ago,” says Bill Hartman, C.S.C.S., co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training. Further, he added, “Researchers and trainers are all starting to agree on what works and what doesn’t.”
The University of Alabama conducted research based on two groups. One with a 5 second up and 10 second down phase, while the other group performed a more traditional approach 1 second up and downstage. The results are that the first group lost 71 calories of body fat while the faster group lost nothing.
To be more specific, when you swing weight through the air, you’re relying heavily on momentum. By slowing down the exercise to a 6-second count, you’ll eliminate this momentum. This makes your muscles work harder through the full range of motion. So you can see that lifting slowly benefits in building muscle more quickly.
But if time is a factor for you, then I guess this concept is really a myth.
Muscle-building myth 2: Eat more, to build more.
When it comes to gaining muscle, the most important thing is to consume more and more calories, i.e., eating more. Basically, this goes without saying to build muscle. You have to create a calorie surplus. So it’s not that you can eat everything, it’s more important to eat selectively.
Think of your body as a storied building. Without building the first block from day one, it’s impossible to build the second block. Our body mechanism works in such a way that if it finds a food deficit, it starts to feed on the internal calories stored inside our body. So to view it like this, if you build two-storied blocks on day one and you took the next day off. Then your body will come down to the first block position, feeding itself. Again if you build another block the next day, it will break down to the previous block the next day.
To give you an idea, a 180-pound male needs about 3,600 calories on workout days to gain lean muscle. He needs to scale back on rest day by mixing pre and post-workout meals to put him on the right track. So focus on the correct quantity of protein, carbs, and fats.
Muscle-building myth 3: Leg extensions are safer.
It goes with saying that it’s safer to work with leg extensions for quadriceps or muscle thigh. But the truth is that many physiologists at the Mayo Clinic have suggested using leg extensions puts a lot of knee stress than squats does. And to prove this notion, Auburn University scientists found that People who do squats regularly have tighter and strong knee ligaments.
So to say this, the more straightforward way one must do free weight squats, split squats, lunges etc. study suggests that leg extensions activate quadriceps muscles independently. Slightly uneven activation leads to disruption in the kneecap and the thigh muscles, which results in severe pain.
So I’m not saying that you should neglect leg extensions, but I would recommend you to do it after you have completed all your compound work. Leg extensions are not useless, as others try to say. But they would add size to your quads over time if performed correctly and under supervision.
Muscle-building myth 4: Drinking Cold water can help to burn calories and lose fat.
This is the most ridiculous thing that I have heard over the internet and at local grocery stores. Many people have promoted that drinking 7-8 glasses of cold water will burn 70-80 calories per day.
Regardless of this, I am not saying that you should stop drinking water, but you should drink 12-14 glasses of water (any temperature will do). This will rapidly boost your metabolism rate, and you won’t feel dehydrated ever again.
Muscle-building myth 5: According to many personal trainers, you need to do cardio early in the morning on an empty stomach.
Although this myth is kind of accurate in the sense that you do need to exercise early in the morning, don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to go for the treadmill at 4:30 am every morning. This time is preferred by many fitness trainers not because that it’s a magical time to bump up extra muscles, but because it provided peace of mind if you train yourself before the day starts.
It doesn’t matter when you exercise to lose weight; fat loss lasts 24 hrs. Mainly focus on relatively high-intensity workouts early in the morning to boost your metabolism rate rapidly. Then only you can burn fat rapidly.
Muscle-building myth 6: Negative calorie foods are the leading cause of weight loss.
According to many so-called experts, a negative calorie food requires more energy to digest than to provide energy to you. But I must tell you that there is no such thing as “negative foods”. According to them, foods like apples, bananas, etc., are negative foods. But if you go by logic, one will starve to death if he has to eat apples all day.
So to make it in a short phrase, you don’t need to slow lift or even eat more to lose weight (that’s ridiculous to think if you eat more, you will lose more). Mainly focus on squats, split squats that will do the trick. I highly recommend you not to go for heavy leg extensions. They can ruin your kneecap joints. The next best thing is to drink a lot of water irrespective of its temperature (but don’t burn yourself drinking hot water directly). And get out of your comfort zone and start to exercise daily (if you have time) early in the morning. And lastly, forget the word negative foods; there is no such thing as that.
