Work it out: Separating exercise myths from reality
Despite the age-old cliché of a heavily-muscled athlete hefting barbells, resistance training can in fact help you keep your body lean and efficient.
JUST when you think you understand the rules of working out, exercise scientists have a habit of changing the goalposts. And many of the fitness truths we take as read have now been busted as myths. Most recently, researchers at Harvard University revealed that the golden goal of taking 10,000 steps towards better health is inaccurate and we can make gains with less. But what other myths and misconceptions might be hindering your workout progression? Here we ask experts for the new rules of exercising — and bust some myths in the process:
According to Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE), a daily goal of 10,000 steps — the equivalent of 8km or five miles — should be our daily goal for health and weight maintenance. Most of us currently manage a lowly 3,000-5,000 steps a day, says the HSE, but if that’s you, don’t be too hard on yourself. A recent study in the found that as few as 4,400 steps per day resulted in significantly lower mortality rates compared to inactive people.
Study author, I-Min Lee, professor of epidemiology at Harvard University’s TH Chan School of Public Health, says that when the 16,000 older women in the study reached 7,500 daily steps, the health gains tapered off. Remember, the women in the study were older and previously inactive, so 7,500 is a starting goal and, ultimately, the more you do, the better.
It used to be thought that dehydration slows you down and the advice was to take on fluid before you felt thirsty. But guidelines in sport have changed. Experts now know that overdrinking puts you at risk of hyponatremia, a potentially dangerous condition in which blood levels of sodium become excessively diluted.
Dr Mitchell Rosner, chair of the University of Virginia’s Department of Medicine and a leading researcher in exercise hydration, says we should drink when we feel thirsty — not before — and there is no evidence that a little bit of dehydration affects anybody’s performance. “If you are exercising or doing other daily activities and you are not drinking then, at some point, you get thirsty,” Rosner says. “Thirst is our bodies’ way of telling you to drink.”
Last year, a review in the journal looked at whether runners and cyclists perform better if they drink when they want or if they follow a prescriptive hydration plan that aims to minimise fluid losses. Despite those on the fluid programme consuming twice as much liquid as the free drinkers when performing fairly intense exercise in warm conditions, there was little difference in the performance outcomes.
If your excuse for not working out is that you will consume the calories expended in a post-exercise snack and gain weight anyway, we have news for you. Most studies have shown that the harder you exercise, the less hungry you'll be when you finish, with fast running and weight training along with high-intensity interval training (HIIT) being particularly effective at stemming hunger pangs.
Recently, British researchers confirmed that cycling beats swimming when it comes to warding off post-workout cravings. Researchers at Loughborough University recruited 17 men and 15 women — all of whom swam and cycled at a recreational level — and recorded their food intake after workouts of either 60 minutes of swimming, of cycling, or resting.
Dr James King, lead author and an exercise physiologist, reported that people ate an average of 142 calories — the equivalent of a 25g packet of crisps or two digestive biscuits — more after a swimming trial compared to the rest trial, but the cyclists ate no additional calories.
“One possible reason could be because of a link between body temperature loss and food intake — a process known as thermogenesis, where the body uses food to generate heat,” King says. “Another reason could be changes in brain signals and neurotransmitters, the chemicals that carry messages between nerve cells.”
According to Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, there was a 498% increase in the number of products claimed to be high in protein between 2010 and 2016. And, last year, a Euromonitor report found that sports protein powder continued to record the highest value and volume growth “as an increasing number of Irish consumers became more confident in its use and the desire to support muscle”.
Protein is important for muscle building and repair and, if you exercise a lot, you will need relatively more protein than a sedentary person. However, that doesn’t mean that more is better. The recommended daily allowance (RDA) of protein in Ireland for a moderately active man weighing 70kg is 70g daily, and for a moderately active woman weighing 55kg, it is 55g daily.
If you do a lot of intense exercise or weight training you will have a higher protein requirement — 1.2g to 1.7g per kilogramme of your body weight per day — whereas cyclists and runners need about 1.2g to 1.4g per kilogramme body weight per day. But you won’t gain muscle mass by eating more. Consume more than you need and weight gain will be the result.
Working against any resistance — your own body weight or dumbbells — will increase your muscle mass and your metabolic rate. “By doing that, you will burn more calories as your body becomes more efficient,” says personal trainer Ray Lally, also known as the Happy Fitness Guy.
“Including as many push-and-pull exercises and weight training as you can is very important for strength and weight loss.”
Research confirms this. A study involving 249 overweight adults reported that calorie-cutting plus weight machine workouts resulted in significant fat loss when compared to those who reduced calories and walked, or who followed a calorie-reduced diet alone.
Images on social media of a 12-year-old Cruz Beckham lifting weights caused a media storm three years ago. Yet, experts now say that supervised weight training for children is a good thing and, this March, a statement by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) concluded that “no scientific evidence indicates that participation in a well-designed youth resistance training program will stunt the growth of children or harm their developing skeleton”.
Dr Rhodri Lloyd from Cardiff Metropolitan University and co-author of the ACSM’s Essentials of Youth Fitness — Human Kinetics, says that “childhood seems to be the best time to participate in strength-building activities that enhance bone growth and development”.
The Irish Rugby Football Union is among the bodies that now recommend carefully structured resistance training — which does not involve maximal or near-maximal resistances or loads — from around the age of 12 “to make a young player stronger and more powerful”. It states: “The risk of injuries from weight lifting in young players may not be as dramatic as perceived”.
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