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Common Myths and Misconceptions of Resistance Training

Myth 1: Toning of muscles

It is commonly believed that by doing resistance training, muscles get harder or more ‘toned'. Myth! Why?  Science shows, the tone of muscle is in relation to the electrical activity of that muscle at rest, and not in relation to the ‘hardness' of that muscle. Muscle size increases with weights training, as a result of hypertrophy of the muscle.  A reduction in subcutaneous fat will increase muscle definition (or what is commonly misconceived as toning).

Muscles may feel harder and appear bigger immediately after a weights session due to the influx of plasma into the muscles, plumping the muscles up with fluid. This effect is only short-lived, lasting approximately 15 minutes post exercise. 

Myth 2: Spot reduction

Another popular misconception surrounds spot reduction. It is commonly believed that by doing exercises to target certain areas (i.e. situps for the stomach), the fat will be ‘blasted' from that confined area to give defined muscles (i.e. six-pack abs). Myth! Why?  Resistance training will strengthen the working muscles, but it alone will not get rid of the abdominal subcutaneous fat. Creating an energy imbalance, where the body is using up more energy than it has immediately available, will result in the body using the subcutaneous fat as an energy source, and thereby causing the body to" lose fat". The body uses fat for energy from fat stores around the entire body. It does not automatically use the fat from the area in which you are exercising. Therefore, in order to achieve the desired washboard stomach, it is important to use a combination of resistance training, aerobic cardiovascular training, and a healthy balanced diet to increase muscle mass and decrease total subcutaneous fat to get that defined muscle look.  

Myth 3: Activating different portions of muscles

 In some muscles, it is possible to train different portions of the muscle (for example: the major chest muscle - pectoralis major). This is only the case when the muscle fibres are aligned differently in parts of the muscle, and therefore pull at different angles. In muscles where all fibres are aligned in-series, such as the rectus abdominis (six-pack muscles), the entire muscle is activated at the same time, and different sections cannot be targeted. The rectus abdominis is a great example: People often want to train the different sections of their "six pack" i.e. the lower section! This is not possible.  There are a couple of reasons, for this:

Firstly, the hip flexors attach very closely to the insertion point of the rectus abdominis on the pelvis. Thus, exercises that work the abdominals commonly work the hip flexors as well; eg. leg lifts. In exercises such as these, hip flexors (which are typically stronger than the rectus abdominis in these movements) are more active, and muscle soreness is quite often attributed to overworked hip flexors, rather than the ‘lower portion' of the abs.

Secondly, nervous innervation varies along the length of muscles such as the rectus abdominis, with there being a greater cluster at the top of the abs, and less dense nervous innervations closer to the pelvis. Thus, abs may feel sorer closest to the ribs after a workout, fooling people to believe the ‘upper portion' has worked harder, and that the rest of the abdominals were not as stressed. This is only due to the greater sensitivity of certain areas of the muscle compared to the rest of the muscle, as a result of the nervous innervations and distribution of pain receptors. Despite popular belief, the rectus abdominis muscle is always activated along its entire length.

Myth 4: Muscle will turn to Fat.

Another popular myth is that muscle turns to fat once you stop training. Myth! Why? Muscle cells are incapable of turning into fat due to the fact that muscle cells are totally different to fat cells. They cannot physically change from one to the other. The reason we get fat and lose our muscle mass when we stop training, is that we store more fat and our muscles become smaller. The muscles atrophy due to not being trained. The use it or lose it phenomenon! Because we aren't using as much energy as when we were training, (and most likely didn't reduce our food intake), we store the extra energy we are not using up as fat. The energy in versus energy out equation has been disrupted, and we are eating more energy than we are using up. The extra energy is stored as extra subcutaneous fat.

Myth 5: Resistance training will cause women to get "man arms"

 Many females are fearful of putting on muscle: afraid that they will develop Arnold Schwarzenegger like ‘pecs', and "man arms". Obviously this is not a desirable look for most women. The good news for women is that it most unlikely to happen. Two reasons: Firstly most females don't have sufficient testosterone levels to develop large muscles. Only about 5% of females have enough testosterone to develop "man arms." Secondly, Very large muscles take many years to develop, and many hours of hard work in the gym. Most casual gym goers don't spend enough hours lifting weights to develop "arny pecs".  If a female is lucky enough to grow large muscles and wishes to reduce the muscle size, the good news is that hypertrophy (increased muscle mass) is easily reversible, simply by reducing the amount of weights training that is performed. Ultimately, excessive muscle growth is generally uncommon, and the many benefits of resistance training far outweigh this risk.

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