7 Lies You Are Being Told About Weight Training

1) You shouldn’t lift weights because you will look like a body builder

This is perpetrated everywhere and would be laughable if it wasn’t so pervasive. And it’s perpetrated by athletes who should know better too! There’s a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was a competitive body builder that people used to tell him they didn’t want to look like him and his response was don’t worry, you will never look like me.

You can take that and quadruple that for women. It is really hard to build muscle, so the idea that you could become accidentally ripped is pretty ridiculous. People often imagine fitness models when they think of weight training but the reality is that they have put an insane amount of work into their bodies and it’s designed to look that way for competitions but it’s not sustainable or healthy beyond that.

When people start to work on their fitness, they often want their body to look strong and fit too. And that is exactly what weight training does. But how it looks, is always up to you. And if your aim is to put on significant muscle, you are going to have to fight for it.

2) High Reps = toning, Heavy weight = bulking

False. There is no toning vs bulking it’s all just muscle building. As long as you are doing high reps/low weight to failure point or high weight/low reps to failure point you are going to be achieving muscle building – so it’s much more about what you enjoy doing. Although high repetition is probably more advantageous if you are developing your endurance fitness.

3) Exercise is about calories and weights don’t burn as much as cardio

Because calories. This is a common misconception. Because cardio burns the more calories it is of more value than weights. But the thing is muscles are calorie hogs. They burn more calories. So a good weight training program will turn your body into a calorie burning furnace, all day, every day. So unlike a cardio session where the calorie burn is done when the session is over, you have a calorie burn that is happening all the time.

4) It’s not as much of a workout

It’s as much of a workout as you want it to be. Exhibit A.

5) You need special equipment or you need to go to a gym

I have dumbbells and a barbell but for ages I used water bottles or bottles with sand in them or cans. You don’t need any special equipment at all.

6) You aren’t strong enough for weight training

In the beginning you start with mostly using your own body weight and you build on that. Anything can be adapted to any level so there’s no reason not to get involved.

7) You don’t have time

The best thing about weight training is that it is so easy to do at home with kids. Admittedly, my planks are a little harder if you have a four year old sitting on your back – but it’s a great way to get a workout at home and have the kids involved as much or as little as you like. And it’s very flexible because you can do it early in the morning or late at night.

Do you have any others that you’d add to this list?