Photo Credit: Candie_N on Flickr.com
1. Weight Lifting Will Make You Bulky: This relates mostly to women, but it’s false nonetheless. Weight lifting will not make you bulky unless you are really working towards that particular goal. Lifting weights will make you stronger, leaner, and fitter. Not like a body builder.
2. High Reps will “Tone” Your Muscles: “Toning” your muscles is not a real thing. Getting toned comes from a combination of increased muscle density and a decreased body fat. There is not a certain rep range that will result in toned muscles. Proper diet combined with any weight lifting program will have the desired effect.
3. You Can Get a Six Pack From Crunches: Working out your abs for hours on end will definitely leave you sore and probably give you bigger and stronger abs, but it won’t give you a six-pack. Visible abdominal separations are almost entirely a function of low body fat. Regardless of your ab routine, if your body fat is low enough you will have visible abs. So stop with all the extra crunches and go for a run instead.
4. The Sorer You are the Better: There is a fair amount of soreness and tightness that will accompany most training programs, but just because a workout left you incredibly sore doesn’t mean it was incredibly effective. Soreness is a result of all the micro tears produced by the weightlifting, so being sore is only an indicator that muscle was damaged and is being rebuilt. There should be some soreness from an intense weightlifting session, but if you are having trouble moving around … then you have pushed it too far.
