Ultra-FIT magazine

More exercise myths exposed in part 2 of this 3 part series…

Myth number 3)
To tone up I need to do lots of reps with a light weight.

The lovely Jane Fonda did wonders by getting people exercising, but she also set us back years by promoting “the burn” and super-high reps for toning and inch loss. That burning you feel when you are exercising is not fat melting away, it is Lactic Acid being produced by your muscles as they run out of oxygen. Lactic acid does not cause spot reduction of body fat. If super high reps caused spot reduction of body fat, people who eat lots and often would have thin faces from all that chewing!!! Spot reduction is a super-sized myth! Fat stores will disappear globally, not locally. It’s cruel but it’s the truth.

 

Someone once asked me “what’s the best exercise to make my stomach thinner?” I replied “Push your self away from the dining table sooner”. Probably not the answer they were seeking, but it’s a painful truth very few exercisers/dieters ever grasp.

The best (in fact only) was to improve the condition of a muscle or muscle group is to overload it – in other words ask it to do more work than usual. This means work it harder, not longer. Think about it. You do 30 side leg lifts to tone your glutes (your butt). When that gets easier, you do 35, then 40 and so on. After a few months you are doing 5 sets of 50 per leg and your entire exercise routine consists of nothing but side lying leg lifts because that’s all you have time for. Sounds like madness doesn’t it? Surely, it would be better to increase the workload, overload the muscles more and not have to spend an hour on the same exercise? To improve the condition of a muscle, it must be exposed to progressive overload i.e. asked to do more than it’s used to on a regular basis. Only then will it we see the adaptation (increase in tone) we are seeking.

A rep count of 20 or less is best in terms of effect and training time economy. Any higher than that and really it’s just a waste of your valuable time. This 20 rep rule applies to all muscle groups, including abdominals. Super high reps do nothing but waste time. Find ways to make exercises harder rather than do hundreds of unnecessarily time wasting reps. 

Myth number 4)
Free weights for men, machines for women.

This is one of those old, sexual stereotypes from the ‘70’s that is only slowly going away. Old fashioned gyms used to be the reserve of manly men, but that stopped in the ‘80s when commercial gyms came into being. The thing is, in many cases, the free weights area is still kind of off limits to women. Why is this? Do the men intimidate the women with all their unnecessary grunting? Is it because the exercises seem “too manly”? Are women concerned that they might get big muscles like the guys? (We’ve covered this now). Is it really the smell??? (Can’t help with that one – too many protein shakes are the probable culprit there I think). Whatever the reason, the free weight area contains some of the best tools a girl can use to give her the body she always dreamed of.

It’s interesting to note that some exercises and machines are deemed to be male or female when the reality is that our bodies are so similar, that pretty much all exercises are beneficial to both sexes. That being said, some exercises considered very “masculine” are virtually essential for any woman wanting to work on the traditional female “problem areas” of the hips, butt and thighs. I refer to the squat, dead lift, stiff legged dead lift and to a lesser extent the lunge and high step up. With enough weight, these exercise will give most guys the “killer wheels” they’re after, but with moderate loading and a rep count of 15-20, they will carve any woman an awesome lower body in much less time than endless sets of hip abduction, hip adduction or standing leg curls.

Any woman who wants a good lower body should learn to squat and dead lift. Period.

Myth number 5)
Muscle turns to fat when you stop training – I don’t want that to happen to me!

Go back to our water and oil in a glass image from part one in this series. Is it possible to turn water into oil or visa versa? The answer of course is no (Unless you can perform magic – then you’d probably just transform yourself into a super-model anyway!) The same is true of muscle and fat. They are biologically different and cannot turn into each other. However, it is possible to reduce fat stores and increase muscle mass thus giving the appearance of one turning into the other.

Because muscle is biologically active, it needs energy (calories from food) to sustain it. However, if our subject stops exercising for an extended period without reducing their calorific (food) intake, their muscles will shrink (correctly termed atrophy) and their fat stores will grow (hypertrophy) again giving the impression of one turning into the other. The easiest was to avoid this happening is to a) don’t stop training and b) if you do have to stop training for an extended period e.g. illness or vacation, try to reduce your food intake so that the excess energy that would usually be used up by your exercise wont be stored as fat.

In part 3, we’ll expose a few more myths and make you the master (or mistress) of the weight room.

Part 1 of this series can be found here http://www.ultra-fitmagazine.co.uk/?p=1204
Part 3 of this series can be found here http://www.ultra-fitmagazine.co.uk/?p=1221

I have just returned from my daily trip to the gym. While I was there, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. The gym I use is a big, open plan, well equipped room but it seemed there was an invisible force field around the weight training area that only the female clientele could see. The whole time I was there, not a single member of the gentler sex came into the weight training area. Luckily for me, the force field didn’t prevent me from going into the cardio area and asking a few ladies why they didn’t come over to the other side of the gym. Their responses ranged from “I don’t want big muscles” to “cardio is best for weight loss” to “it smells really bad over that side!”

 

 

After speaking to a few more women (in the name of science obviously) I realised there was an awful lot of misinformation, confusion and outright lies being spread about resistance training so in this series of articles, I intend to dispel a few of those old myths and start a petition to get more woman lifting weights!

Myth number 1)
Strength training will cause big, bulky muscles and make woman look masculine.

Most women do not have the genetic potential to develop big muscles. They lack sufficient amounts of the male hormone testosterone to develop the kind of muscle mass seen in men. The dominant female hormone, oestrogen, is not responsible for muscle growth, unlike male testosterone. The only way for the majority of women to develop large “male like” muscles would be for them it ingest/inject extraneous testosterone to override their normal hormonal functions. Clearly, this is not a common practice and is only really seen in the sport of bodybuilding and other pursuits where developing maximal strength is necessary.

Myth number 2)
To lose weight, I need to do lots of cardio.

Imagine a glass. In your mind fill this glass with three parts water and one part olive oil. As you know, water and oil don’t readily mix so the oil will float on top of the water. This glass represents your total body weight; the water represents your lean tissue (muscle, bones and internal organs) and the oil representing your body fat. Most exercisers are only concerned with what they weigh, not what that weight is made up of (correctly termed body composition). Using our glass analogy it would be easy to pour off either liquid and reduce the contents of the glass, however, the reality is we want to keep the water (lean body tissue) and ditch the oil (fat). Getting rid of muscle and keeping fat is just pure madness, but with someone who exclusively uses cardio exercise for weight management, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Cardiovascular exercise is essential for our health – it keeps the heart, lungs and circulatory system in tip-top condition, and also burns energy (calories) when we’re doing it. However, because your body is the master adapter and responds to the stress you put upon it, it will do everything it can to make cardiovascular exercise easier. The body lays down new capillaries to aid in oxygen delivery and lactic acid removal, grows bigger/more cells called mitochondria to produce more energy giving ATP, makes the heart bigger and stronger and improves the function of the lungs to increase the efficiency of the cardiovascular system, and rids it self of any extra muscle not actively used in the chosen cardiovascular activity. Think about it. Muscle is vascular – it needs oxygen to survive. Even when you are running, the muscles of your upper body still need large amounts of oxygen. To increase the amount of oxygen available for the running muscles in the legs, it makes sense from a survival perspective to get rid of some of the redundant muscle mass of the upper body. It’s like trimming unnecessary weight off of a car chassis to give greater performance.

This is all well and good for runners wanting to run faster or further, but for someone who wants to control their body fat and look good, this is about the worst possible thing you can do. Muscle needs fuel (food). Less muscle = less food required. We call the daily amount of energy you need your Basal Metabolic Rate – or BMR for short. The resulting loss of muscle mass lowers your BMR resulting in an energy surplus which will most likely turn into fat when that energy is not used. A two pound loss of muscle will result in a approximate 70 kcal drop in daily energy requirements. This means our aerobic loving exerciser will lose muscle, gain fat and look worse than they did before starting their exercise regime.

What is the best way to maintain/gain lean tissue I hear you ask? The answer is “Lift weights”. It’s a simple case of use it or lose it. The body will maintain/increase its muscle mass if that muscle is being called on regularly to perform work.

A small increase in muscle mass will result in a higher daily BMR which means our exerciser will need more energy on a daily basis, and if they are under eating, that extra energy will have to come from body fat stores.

So, the take home message is that a combination of cardio and weight training is best for fat loss. Weight loss can occur when we lose muscle but the reality is that it’s the fat we need to lose, and keep the muscle.  

In the next part of this series more myths will get busted!

Part 2 of this series can be found here http://www.ultra-fitmagazine.co.uk/?p=1213
Part 3 of this series can be found here http://www.ultra-fitmagazine.co.uk/?p=1221

As a result of increased Breast Cancer awareness, as women, we are possibly now more aware of our breast health than ever before. We are told to check ourselves for lumps regularly and to be consciously aware of the changes we experience from month to month. We are more open about health problems and our “women’s troubles” than previous generations ever were.

We know that we need to be taking action to protect our assets on a daily basis. Perhaps the one thing that most of us dread is the inevitable fact that one day our firm friends will no longer sit so proudly adjacent to our armpits, and will, like the birds in winter, head further south as a result of motherhood and growing older. With this in mind, we need to be aware of the damage that we may be doing to our chests whilst we are exercising. Many women, young and old, are guilty of neglecting to take care of their breasts while they are engaged in physical activity. As a female, it is a major concern for me when I see any woman training without appropriate support, whether they be training in my home, or independently at the gym.

You wouldn’t go out for a run without equipping ourselves with trainers offering cushioning and support. So, why are we so quick to neglect our breasts? Plenty of women take great care over their appearance when they are training, often buying matching sets of tops and leggings and color co-ordinating our socks or trainers. However, too many women are failing to properly attire themselves in the appropriate gym wear necessary for supporting their breasts, as well as offering a comfortable, unrestricted workout. O.K. so let’s face it, from a fashion point of view it is probably easier to color co-ordinate your regular, everyday bras with your tank tops and Nike tick on your trainers. And if you leave your sports bra at home, then you can usually make do by wearing our usual everyday bra. However, when it comes to training, unless you’re doing yoga, or wearing a training top with hidden support, your normal bra just won’t cut it in the support stakes. They simply are not designed for women moving outside the realm of normal posture in the anatomical position. The moment the arms are lifted above the head, the shape of the bra changes and the support offered is compromised.

This, in itself, is leading to weakening of the Cooper’s ligament, the “connective tissue in the breast that helps maintain structural integrity” [1] of the breasts. The Cooper’s ligament provides an elastic band-like attachment from the clavicle, the large bone between the shoulder and the chest, which gives the female breast its characteristic shape and form. Just like other connective tissue within the body, the Cooper’s ligament is prone wear and tear and can lose strength as a woman matures.

Certain factors impact just how strong the Cooper’s ligament will be for each individual female. For example, if you have small breasts, are wearing the correct bra size, have never engaged in any strenuous exercise, and haven’t had any children, then your Cooper’s ligament should be fairly strong and your breasts should sit quite high on your chest, even when you take your bra off. If, however, you are a woman with a very large bust, a mother, or someone who exercises at a high intensity without wearing appropriate support, you might find that your breasts aren’t where they used to be.

Relaxin, a peptide hormone, which is released during pregnancy also impacts the elasticity of the Cooper’s ligament.

So breasts are more likely to appear saggy after child-birth. It also “stimulates the growth of the glands in the breasts that are responsible for milk production”.[2] Which is why the breasts get bigger during the pregnancy, and heavier, placing the ligament under even more stress.

If you have ever been very overweight, and have lost a significant amount of weight over a short space of time, perhaps with the help of a very low calorie diet, then it is also possible that your breasts are saggy as a result of going from one weight extreme to another, as this also weakens the Cooper’s ligament. Safe weight loss at a rate of 1-2 lbs per week is recommended for keeping the weight off in the long term as your hormonal response to weight loss can be very confusing for the body. It also allows the skin to shrink slowly as your muscles become tighter and more toned. It gives your breasts a chance of appearing more lifted, rather than resembling the ears of man’s best friend! However, even if you are smaller in the chest, do not be fooled into thinking that gravity will not have its way with you. Everyone is at risk.

Different types of training and exercise have different effects on the body and have different consequences for your breasts. Yoga and Pilates, for example, are a more focused on core stability and balance and are therefore not so demanding on the Cooper’s ligament as there is little bouncing or jumping around during a class. However, things like a circuit class, running, Body Attack and Tae-bo can really impact our breasts as they tend to be high-impact cardio classes focusing on increasing the heart rate, meaning we move a lot more and, therefore, put more stress upon the Cooper’s ligament.

If you’re unsure of how much your regular workout is impacting your breasts, just monitor the movement of the hair on your head. If you tie your hair back when you train this will be much easier to assess. Depending on what you may be doing, your hair could be swinging around like crazy. Just imagine what is happening to your breasts.

So, the important question is what can we do to preserve the elasticity of our Cooper’s ligament and stay abreast of the situation? The good news is that sagging can be delayed with the use of properly fitting bras, more specifically, sports bras. Make sure that you wear a bra designed especially for exercise that fits you properly and matches your exercise intensity. Sports bras are made of sturdier material than our regular, everyday bras and should make up an essential part of our sports kit for the gym. They have come along way in the past 30 years and with the styles, colors, shapes and sizes available, there really is no excuse not to be wearing one. Sports bras are generally designed to compress or to provide a protective capsule for each breast. Some sports bra can even do both.

Compression sports bras are the most popular as they are considered to be the most stylish option. They reduce breast movement by flattening the breasts against the chest. They are best suited for women with small or medium breasts, for any type of training, but offer little support for women with a C cup or above.

Encapsulation sports bras look more like our everyday bras and certain types actually have an underwire to offer additional support. They work by supporting each breast by surrounding them and offering support the whole way around, rather than pinning the breasts down and forcing the shoulders to carry the weight. These are great for women with large breasts, (DD or bigger), as they minimize bounce whilst distributing the weight of the chest between the bra and the shoulders.

Compression/Encapsulation sports bras work by both flattening the breasts and surrounding each breast to provide optimal support for the wearer. These are best for women who wear a C or D cup.

Before you buy one, remember to get yourself properly fitted by someone who knows what they are doing, and don’t be afraid to go elsewhere for a second opinion. Our bra size will change during the year as a result of fluctuations in our body weight, so it’s a good idea to get measured once a year. Most bra retailers have staff fully trained in measuring your bust to help you buy the best fitting bra to support your bosom buddies. The majority of women out there are wearing the wrong bra size. If you’ve got a sports bra it should fit you without chafing the skin or rubbing painfully under the arms.

Make good use of this facility to get yourself properly kitted out. A good quality, well-fitting sports bra can enhance the quality of your workout by eliminating the bounce you experience during a walk or run. We all know how irritating and distracting a bouncing chest can be when we are focusing on trying to get the most from our training. Especially if we are “gifted” in that area. So get the most out of your workouts by getting the most from your kit. It’ll be a worthy investment in your health and fitness, guaranteed to have “the girls” sitting pretty for years to come.

Resources

Women’s Strength Training and Anatomy by Fredric Delavier

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper’s_ligaments

[2]medicalcenter.osu.edu/patientcare/…/breast…breast…/index.aspx

For more from Donna, visit her website at http://www.personaltrainerinbelfast.co.uk/

Question – Do you find that men and women need different motivation from instructors to make their workouts successful?

Mr T replied…

“From goal setting to programme design and exercise adherence to motivation during a workout – training clients of different genders can require different approaches.

The genders often have different training goals e.g. for female clients weight loss and improved muscle tone are often primary goals whereas for males muscle hypertrophy is often the raison d’être for working out. Because of this, it’s sometimes necessary to employ different strategies for making clients workouts effective and successful.

In terms of exercise choice, many male clients tend to gravitate towards free weight exercises especially exercises that allow for significant loads to be used and often become overly focused on “mirror muscles” i.e. those on the front of the body however female clients may well be more inclined to use cardio machines and resistance machines and shun the male dominated free weight area. Ironically some exercises deemed as being masculine e.g. the deadlift and barbell squat are amongst the best for improving the typical female problem areas of the thighs, hips and bum and most guys would benefit from doing more flexibility training which is often seen as being “a bit girlie!”. It’s up to the instructors to convince their clients of the benefits of cross gender exercises!

Male clients often are less definitive about their exercise goals and say things like they “want to build up their arms” or “lose their beer bellies” whereas female clients are more specific and have an ideal weight or clothing size in mind for their end goal.

During workouts it is my experience that female clients respond best to positive encouragement with the instructor focusing on how an exercise should feel and its specific benefits where as male clients often respond better to a firmer form of encouragement and respond especially well to being challenged to exceed previous workout performances.”

Question – Do you find that men and women need different motivation from instructors to make their workouts successful?

The Fitness Vixen replied…

“Men and women think and behave very differently in many situations and this is very evident when they start exercising. As an instructor, it is essential to treat all clients as individuals from the beginning and get to know your client, their interests and their reasons for starting exercise. A female client may want to be in a size 12 dress for a friends wedding in 3 months time but a male client might want to get fit to play football with his friends in a local soccer league. Trying to convince a female client that using weights will help her achieve her figure goals more effectively and quickly than cardio alone, or to explain to a male that stretching his hard worked muscles will actually help improve his game is a different matter altogether!

Females on a whole are less interested in the amount of weight they are using and get the impression that using big weights will make them overly muscled. It’s likely they will probably be more interested in how many calories they have burnt during a session and will relate this to the food they have eaten. Males however will want to see the pin going lower down the weight stack, more plates going on the Olympic bar or the speed on the treadmill going up so they can record their success in their training diary.

Group exercise can be a great motivator for both men and women and can help add variety into a training programme. Men tend to find a circuit based class a great way of adding variation and an element of competition into their workouts whilst a group exercise class like aerobics or step classes will keep female clients coming back for more as they enjoy the social aspect.”