The more times the better? Debunking 3 Myths About Strength Training

If you want to have firm and perfect ideal curves, in addition to aerobic exercise, you must also combine strength training to increase muscle mass. But when doing strength training, do you also have the following questions: Can walking or jogging reduce body fat? Do I need to increase my training frequency if I want to grow muscle? As long as the body moves, it is effective training? Let Japan's super popular fitness coach debunk common myths about strength training one by one.

In his book "Train Muscle Strength at Home, Reduce Body Fat by 10%", Japan's super popular fitness coach Mori Toshihiro stated that if you want to have a slender figure while losing weight, you must do muscle strength training to increase muscle mass and reduce body fat. However, if you use incorrect posture or the wrong way to perform strength training, you may not see any results no matter how long you exercise. Here are 3 common myths about strength training:

Myth 1: If you want to grow muscles, you have to increase the number of training sessions?

Many people believe that the more times they do strength training such as push-ups or sit-ups, the better the effect. This is probably due to the misconception that "if you don't do strength training hard, you won't see any results." When you perform the same movement more than a certain number of times, your body will start training your muscles' endurance. For example, if you can do 100 push-ups repeatedly, it means that the intensity of this exercise is too low and you cannot achieve the goal of muscle building.

In addition, having good muscle endurance does not mean that the body has a high muscle mass. Instead of increasing the number of times of the same exercise, it is better to change the intensity of muscle training, increase the body load, let the body feel it, and the effect will be better.

Myth 2: Can walking or jogging help you lose body fat?

Although brisk walking does not require learning special skills and does not cause excessive physical strain, it is popular among people regardless of age or gender and can be participated in. However, brisk walking is a low-intensity exercise that requires a long period of time, otherwise it will be difficult to lose body fat as desired.

According to data from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, a person weighing 60 kg will consume about 93 calories by walking at a speed of 4 kilometers per hour for half an hour. To reduce 1 kg of body fat, one needs to consume about 7,700 kilocalories. If one wants to burn off the calories through brisk walking alone, one would have to walk for nearly 40 hours. For people who want to eliminate body fat, brisk walking is not the best exercise option.

It is better to do strength training first and then aerobic exercise to burn fat!

If brisk walking is not an option, are jogging or swimming more effective? Aerobic exercises such as brisk walking, jogging, or swimming are all exercises that only burn calories in proportion to the amount of movement. In other words, calories are only burned on days when you exercise, and they do not help to burn calories when you do not exercise. Although jogging can indeed increase calorie consumption by about 3 times, it still takes a long time to lose body fat.

On the contrary, people who grow muscles through strength training do not need to do a lot of calorie-burning exercises because their basal metabolic rate increases due to increased muscle mass, and their calorie consumption will also increase. Therefore, combining aerobic exercise with strength training is more effective in reducing body fat.

When actually exercising, you must first do strength training and then engage in aerobic exercise, which can effectively stimulate "growth hormone" and help burn body fat. If you do aerobic exercise first and then strength training, it may cause muscle fatigue and fail to effectively exercise the muscles.

Myth 3: As long as the body moves, it is effective training?

Those who think that "moving the body is enough" and use their own methods to do muscle strength training should be especially careful. If the posture of the movement is wrong, no matter how much training you do, it will be meaningless. Take squats as an example. Some people think that just squatting down with your knees bent is enough. However, if your knees extend beyond your toes or your back bends when you squat, although you will be sweating all over and feel a sense of accomplishment after the exercise, the wrong posture will not effectively achieve the exercise effect and may even cause physical injury. Therefore, you must do strength training with the correct posture to achieve the goal of gaining muscle and reducing fat.