Every January, fitness myths are everywhere we look. Some new propaganda is always surfacing, combined with old ideas that just don’t seem to go away. I know I can’t answer all the questions, or clear up all the confusion, but here are three fitness misconceptions I had conversations about last week:
Misconception 1 – “I’ll just train more, or train harder so I don’t have to think about what I’m eating.” If you’ve ever had that thought, you’re not alone. In fact, when I was in my younger days, I definitely succumbed to this idea. So, I can speak from experience when I say it doesn’t work.
Usually this line of thinking comes up when body composition changes are what we are seeking. We know we need to burn more calories than we take in if we want to lose weight. So it seems like it should work if we just exercise more, right? Unfortunately, humans tend to vastly overestimate the amount calories burned during a workout, and underestimate the amount of calories we take in. And often times when we start exercising more, we might feel more hungry, and unless we already have good nutrition habits in place we might not be aware that we are eating more, or choosing foods that are higher in calories. Even if your focus is purely on maintaining where you are and your goal isn’t fat loss, you simply cannot out-train nutrition issues. If you want to feel your best on all levels, training and nutrition have to go hand in hand.
Misconception 2 – “If I want to lose weight, I just need to do more cardio.” I’ve been hearing this for 16 years, and sadly it’s still lingering around causing confusion. Cardio is not the top priority for fat loss. Cardiovascular training is absolutely important for your heart heath and you should be doing it. But the calories burned are a lot less than a strength training session (done at the correct intensity). Unlike cardio, resistance training builds muscle tissue, with is more metabolically active than fatty tissue. This means that your body burns more calories maintaining and building muscle than maintaining adipose tissue. Not only does strength training super-charge your metabolism to help with fat loss, it also helps prevent the inevitable slow down of the metabolism as we get older – one of the main reasons this slow down occurs is loss of muscle mass as we age.
Cardio training might “feel” like it’s doing more for us because we get more out of breath and we get more sweaty. And if you use a basic fitness tracker or heart rate monitor, cardio sessions can look like they burn more calories. But this is a case where the feeling doesn’t exactly match up with what’s happening, and the technology hasn’t yet figured out how to predict EPOC. Strength training has a greater Excess Post-Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) than cardio training. Without getting too technical, strength training sessions done at the right level of intensity quickly use up the oxygen in your cells, creating an oxygen debt. The greater the EPOC, the more calories you continue to burn after the training session to replenish cellular oxygen.
Misconception 3 – “Mobility work is less important if my goals are strength or body composition.” – Whether you want to look good, or do impressive feats of strength, your ability to move through your best ranges of motion has a huge impact on your overall fitness. The more mobility we have, the more muscles we get to train. Think of doing a basic squat. If we squat deep with hips below knees, it’s pretty obvious we are getting more muscle activation than if we only squat a couple of inches down. We also have more options of cool things we can do with our bodies when we have more mobility. Say I have a shoulder that can’t flex overhead comfortably. I probably can’t hold on to a pull up bar or press a weight overhead comfortably either. When lack of mobility prevents us from moving in certain directions, or getting full range of motion in an exercise, it’s going to make our other fitness goals harder to accomplish. Please don’t misinterpret this as advice to push through pain and force a range of motion that hurts. Do your best to maintain and improve the pain-free mobility you have, and seek medical attention when something hurts.
Here’s to leaving behind misconceptions in 2026, and feeling our absolute best!