5 Top Fitness Myths

We hear a lot of things about fitness, particularly exercise fitness, and we buy into programs, we buy equipment, and let’s face it: not all of it works for everyone. In this blog, I wanted to give you a few myths about fitness.

1. If you sweat while exercising, you are burning more calories. Alas, this does not always prove to be the case. Sweating is a natural physiological response to exercise. It cools the skin and is like an internal thermostat for regulating your body’s temperature. You might also be sweating if the room you are exercising in is hot and this does not necessarily translate to burning more calories!
2. You need to work out 45 minutes to get any health benefit. Any amount of working out equals some heart health benefit. So, if you have an extra 5 or 10 minutes to spare, you will still get something positive from that. One study showed better blood pressure readings when splitting their time walking into 3 10-minute segments rather than one 30-minute session.
3. More working out is better. The human body needs to rest and essentially recover after working out, especially from a grueling session. There’s such a thing as too much of a good thing, and over-exercising can be one of them.
4. You can target where you burn fat. Unfortunately, no matter what the hype is about programs and equipment, the body pulls fat where it wants to. Genes may play a role. In one experiment, participants only trained on one leg, but they all lost the same amount of body fat in both legs. Ouch!
5. You should always eat before working out. No, unfortunately your body can burn more fat before you eat. Also, your metabolism stays a little more active for longer after working out.

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