1: The cardio machine knows exactly how many calories you’re burning.
That Stair Stepper is not a psychic. Sure it does its best to assess the calories you’re burning, but these machines don’t know your body composition (some don’t even ask for weight or sex). What you’re seeing is a guess that is subjective and can differ from machine to machine.
2: Women should stay away from weights because they’ll get all beefed up like a professional bodybuilder.
Quit fearing the barbells. According to former female bodybuilder, Leanne Smith, you really have to overload those muscles to build bulk. Plus, women have a lot off oestrogen which makes it more difficult to add muscle like a man—you would have to be spending a lot of time in the gym lifting heavy weights to add a significant amount of muscle mass.
We believe every woman should include weight
in their routine. If you add three to five pounds of muscle to your body, you will burn 250 to 500 extra calories per day, which equals three to five pounds of fat loss per week.
3: Heart rate monitors know exactly how hard you’re working.
Though heart rate monitors are a great inclination, your body is the only true detector of how much energy you’re exerting and the intensity—not some athletic strap-on. Rather than depending entirely on a machine, practice the talk test: your intensity can be measured by whether you can talk in full sentences, short snippets or barely mutter a word.
4: Your weight says everything.
Step away from the scale. Weight is not the ultimate measure for fitness. Whether you see a change in the lb’s right away or not, a few months of increased exercise reduces risk factors such as spiked blood sugar and blood pressure. Working out makes you a healthier person overall.
5: Low-intensity exercise burns more fat.
Low-intensity workouts like walking and riding the stationary bike are less stressful on the joints. The more intense the exercise, the more calories that are burned, plain and simple. Low intensity and high intensity are both beneficial.
6: No pain, no gain.
Who’s pleased to hear this one’s a myth? Um, that would be us. Feeling a bit of discomfort during a workout is good, but you shouldn’t feel like you’re in actual pain … ever. As our trainers say “You want to exercise smarter, not harder.”
7: Stretching totally prevents injuries.
Unfortunately sometimes injuries happen but you should always aim to warm up before you exercise and try to focus on some dynamic stretching also, which is where you practice a range of motions to help encourage movement.
