Benefits Muscle Basics
Fundamentals of Weight Training
Exercises for Specific Muscles
Injury Prevention
Strength Training Myths

• If you stop exercise, your muscles will turn into fat
  • Muscles and fat are molecularly different and they don’t interconvert. What does happen is that muscles lose their tone as one stops exercise for an extended period of time. Furthermore, one might also gain fat as one stops exercising.


• You can spot reduce fat in a particular area by strength training in that area
  • Strength training can help you to tone your muscles. You can only lose fat by burning more calories than you consume and that fat is lost equally in all areas. See our weight maintenance section for more information on weight loss.


• Strength training can help you to tone your muscles
  • You can only lose fat by burning more calories than you consume and that fat is lost equally in all areas. See our weight maintenance section for more information on weight loss.


• Strength training will make women muscular like female body builders
  • Women don’t naturally produce as much testosterone as men so are not prone to become as muscular. With moderate weight training, women’s muscles will become firmer and toned, but only slightly larger.


• You need to eat extra protein in order to build muscle mass
  • The only way to build additional muscle mass is to overload the muscle. The small increase in protein needed for muscle growth is easily met by the average American diet, which contains 2-3 times more protein then is needed. For more on nutrition, visit our Nutrition Basics section.


• Exercise burns a lot of calories
  • People are often discouraged by how little calories exercise actually burns. Running a mile only burns a 100 miles. People who exercise regularly tend to burn more fat for calories rather than carbohydrates.


• There is no point of exercising if you don’t lose weight
  • This often discourages people because they expect to see fast results. Exercise has innumerable benefits which many people don’t appreciate. Some of these include lower risk of diabetes, lower risk of heart disease, lowering cholesterol and etc… Exercise also improves the quality of life in other ways such as improved sleep and relieving depression and anxiety.


• You will inevitably gain weight as you age
  • Most Americans gain fat as they age due to less physical activity and lower metabolic rate due to less lean muscle mass. The solution is a strength training program which causes an increase in the muscle mass and attacks the problem at its foundation.


• You have to exercise at a high intensity to gain the full benefits
  • The benefits of moderate intensity exercise are usually equivalent to the benefits of high intensity exercise. One can either jog for 20 minutes or walk for 40 and they would be roughly equivalent in terms of their benefit.


• There is no point of exercising if you can’t do so regularly
  • Although one should follow the CDC’s recommendation of 30 minute activity on most days of the week, one should realize that every exercise session improves health. Every session is a step towards better health.