Dispelling Myths In Fitness Training

“Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.” – DH Lawrence.

Myths were something used in ancient times to explain why things happened.  There was no scientific technology for people to research facts and form educated opinions on why things are as they are… so stories were created and passed on through generations; Gods and Goddesses were credited for weather changes and natural disasters, tragedies and misfortunes were explained through creative and fictitious stories; monsters were invented, creatures were given life and victims became legends.  Even though most of us now don’t believe that a thunderstorm means we angered the God Zeus, or a boating accident is due to a Siren calling from the rocks, we still try to invent explanations when we don’t have the answers.  But why is it when the answers are at our fingertips, we can’t let go of the myth?

                Although sports date back to ancient times, the Fitness Industry is a relatively new one; Fitness clubs didn’t really become popular until the 80’s and becoming a qualified trainer wasn’t a requirement until the1990’s.  Prior to this, anyone who could move to music could take an Aerobics Class and anyone who could lift a weight and feel a muscle could train someone else to build strength.  As a result, just as those ancient folk before us did, those of us who didn’t know created a theory or story based on emotion and sensation.  According to Jane Fonda if you lie on your side and kick your leg up in the air it will tone your leg muscles (hey, they burn after 200 reps so! naturally it’s working!), and then she had us walking on our butt cheeks to burn fat from our arse (hey, I think the carpet burn alone did it!), and then someone told us that if you do sit-ups every day fat instantly disappears from the stomach area!…. There are endless examples; if I don’t feel sore after the workout I haven’t worked! If I don’t train weights today all my muscles will shrink overnight and I will become a weakling!  I am female and I lifted a weight! I’ll be huge by the morning!   The word is out there and we felt the sensation.  Of course it’s true!

                As the Fitness Industry becomes bigger and more competitive, the more educated the fitness population gets.  There is a lot of scientific research out there that proves that ‘feeling the burn’ isn’t the easy equation to seeing results.   Muscle soreness indicates muscle trauma and is believed to result from inflammation and microscopic tears in the elastic tissues surrounding muscle fibres.  Soreness is often a sign that we have not yet adapted to the training, not an indication of whether we have worked out or not.  Shock creates trauma, not necessarily growth.  There is scientific evidence to prove that a female doesn’t have enough testosterone to produce bulk and that recovery is an important stage of muscle growth.  The information is out there and yet we cling to the feeling!  We crave the ‘burn’ because it is physical and psychological evidence that we have experienced physical activity so we do small actions like bicep curls, or calf raises, or pulse sit-ups because we feel the burn more easily!  We do not consider the fact that bigger movements such as squats and dead lifts engage more muscles, work more of our body and, therefore, burn more calories and develop more muscle.  We hold onto the feeling and tell ourselves that it is not working or we won’t get results if that feeling isn’t there.

                I thought the idea of a convenient lifestyle was modern but now I realise it was ingrained within us from early generations; stories are easier than facts, answers are easier than questions, explanations are easier than knowledge.  If you look at the modern world it is all about convenience; cars to get you places faster, mobile phones to get you communicating instantly, drive-through for quicker eating, coffee drive-through for that caffeine hit without  the patience of waiting…  it is no wonder that so many myths become part of our lifestyle!  The made up explanation is so much easier to obtain and because it is often emotionally charged and delivered with vigour, we are hooked on the thought; we accept it and pass it on willingly.  It is easier to pass the word and see it go off like wildfire than to pass a book or essay and consider it.

                Sometimes it is the face of the message that doesn’t get the message across.  The 2% body fat girl without an ounce of muscle on her cannot tell the 100+kg body builder that biceps alone may not get his arms bigger, just as the muscle bound hulk cannot go to the 50% body fat woman and say, “Hey, weight training makes you leaner!”  How the message is delivered affects the lesson despite the research and the facts.  In this case perhaps proving that there are many educated voices proving the same points will hold more weight.

                How does one disprove any myth???  Myths work so well because they come from our emotions and our feelings; we feel the physical sensation (‘the burn’ or pain), we connect that with the emotional experience (‘results’ or ‘the lesson’) and then we summarise the result.  We often switch off to this idea of really knowing what works because the answer takes us away from what is more pleasurable; we want to believe that lying on our side and kicking our leg in the air means we exercised today and maybe we don’t like weights or cardio training because they take us from our comfort zones.  It is easier to take on board the myth that tells us what we want to hear.  What if we actually had to learn about our body and ourselves to achieve our real desires? This would mean work!   We would then have to research and be educated, get the information out there and then hope we role model what we are talking about. The answers are out there.  We only have to let go of our emotions and dismiss the myth to reap the rewards.