Unfortunately, the internet brought about a lot of opinions and myths that can be misleading to people genuinely wanting to educate themselves. I’m here to set this right and debunk some of the myths that I see on a weekly basis.
If you’re bodybuilding, you aren’t athletic
I’m not sure who thought of this one, but it doesn’t make sense. Building more muscle can actually help you get stronger. Being stronger means you are more powerful and able to move heavier things, faster. Think about it, is a few leg presses and hamstring curls added into a carefully thought out training program for a sprinter going to turn them into Mr Olympia? Of course not, just like a few sprints won’t turn a bodybuilder into a champion sprinter.
You will be fine just using compound lifts to build muscle
I’ll admit it, I was one of these guys. I used to love just doing compound lifts and getting strong as hell off them. I was even building an impressive amount of muscle from them too, so of course I didn’t think I needed anything else. I was wrong. Compounds will do you massive favours in terms of building you a foundation, but they won’t sculpt your body like isolation exercises can. By isolating parts of your body you can target specific muscles you want to grow that compounds just can’t. Building an impressive amount of muscle requires both compounds and isolation exercises.
You can’t build muscle in a calorie deficit (what?)
Yes, you read that right. The amount of muscle that a person gains is dependant on a few things; how long you have been training, how good your rest is, the amount of time you can train and what and how you eat. The most important factors are recovering properly, eating a healthy nutritious diet and training correctly. You can still make gains in small calorie deficit if you nail all the above factors consistently, which is the hard part.
Another good example of when this is possible is when an overweight newbie joins the gym and starts lifting weights. Most likely this person has no idea of their calorie intake but knows when they join the gym they have to start eating better (and less), therefore cleans up their diet and most likely eats in a deficit. But guess what? This person that now lifts weights and does cardio is suddenly losing fat and building muscle at the same time. This is because lifting weights is a new stimulus to this person’s body and it reacts accordingly by building muscle, and at an impressive rate as well.
Body part splits are the best
Chest, shoulders and arms, back and legs spread out across the week is a split I’m sure many of you are familiar with. I know I am, this was my first split when I started training. They do they have their place. However, depending on your training experience, these types of split may be hindering your progress. If you are weight training, the frequency you can train a muscle has the biggest impact on whether it will respond to growth. Training a muscle group 3 times a week has been found to be the sweet spot, how you programme this is up to you. Push, pull and legs repeated twice throughout the week is a good place to start. As is an upper lower split or a full body workout 3 times a week.
I hope this short read has busted a few of the most common muscle myths I hear flying around gyms and helps your muscle development. Just remember that you now hold the knowledge to bust any of these myths if you hear any fellow gym bro’s talking about them!
