Myths Debunked – The Bulking Myth
A common misconception is that lifting heavy weights will cause a person to become bulky in an Arnold-Schwarzenegger-like fashion. As a result, people have gotten the silly idea that lifting light weights with high repetitions will give a “toned” physique instead of a “bulky” one.
The first problem is (if you remember what I said in Part 1) that all forms of physiques are accomplished the same way: more muscle and less fat. If you want to look “toned” (which is the common desire for many people starting out with fitness), these compound exercises are still very useful for building muscle; it’s just that you would perform less of these exercises and do more cardiovascular exercises. Building muscle is a slow process, and it is very difficult for anyone to “accidentally” become bulky.
The second problem is that for most women (and, in fact, some men as well), it is physically impossible to become bulky, since the process for muscle regrowth involves a high amount of testosterone. There is an upper physical limit for how much muscle women can naturally grow. Even with men, it takes a significant amount of time for muscles to grow to any reasonable amount, considering that, under exceptionally optimistic conditions, it will take around a year to grow just ten pounds of muscle.
Different exercise regiments can be used to build muscle in different ways.
Image Source: Mike Harrington
So what about those female bodybuilders who look like they could out-wrestle the Terminator with both hands tied behind her back?
Chances are, many of these bodybuilders are using anabolic steroids to accomplish that physique; it is generally impossible for women to form an extremely well developed trapezius and upper chest muscles due to skeletal structure and a lack of testosterone. Coupled with the low body fat on most female bodybuilders (much lower than normal and what is considered safe), the extremely refined musculature is almost certainly due to steroid abuse.
The spot-reduction myth
Another misconception I hear fairly often is the idea of spot-reduction, or removing fat off a single spot off the body. This is typically done by doing some x number of calisthenic exercises, usually sit-ups or pushups of some sort. The problem with this myth is that fat storage does not work in that manner; the only process that will remove fat from a specific area is liposuction, which is the surgical removal of fat. A study was done in which participants performed lightweight (10% of normal maximum weight) exercises for around 1,000 repetitions, which is far more than most of us will do. In the end, the measured fat loss across the targeted area was, while measurable, overall very trivial.
This misconception comes about as a result of muscular hypertrophy, which is basically the building of muscle. As you build more muscle, the muscle will grow and become more prominent. Many people will attribute this as a sign of spot-targeting, when in fact very little fat is being lost; most of it is muscular development.
