What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
You've all heard of them.
Hopefully you haven't listened to them.
I want to go through today the top 10 biggest fitness myths, or
the worst training advice that you could ever get or really, Jeff Cavaliere's pet peeves,
today in one video so that I can help you
to make sure that you stay on path and to avoid all the bullshit when it comes to fitness.
So, without further ado, let's get this list rolling.
Ok.
Number 1 and most near and dear to my heart, you've probably heard it, 'You can't build
muscle and burn fat at the same time.'
Guys, anybody that tells you this doesn't understand the basics of nitrogen balance.
They don't understand how the body actually works.
I've done a complete video dispelling this myth on how to bulk and cut at the same time.
Guys, yes.
We're not talking about adding 30 pounds of muscle in the next 2 months because
frankly that's an impossibility for most people.
So those guys that want to expound on that and tell you you should be adding 30 pounds
of muscle,
you're not adding 30 pounds of muscle.
You're likely adding 30 pounds of bulk of which maybe 4 to 5 pounds of that is muscle.
And at the end of the day, you're wasting a whole heck of a lot of time.
If you want to see that video,
make sure you click on this and go take a bigger look in depth at what I'm talking about.
But that is right at the top of my list.
Number 2.
Crunches are a good way to get a 6-pack.
The key word here, guys, is get a 6-pack.
Now, I'm not one of those that actually thinks Crunches aren't a good thing.
I'm a physical therapist.
I actually do believe in the value of Crunches.
That said, the way to 'get' a 6-pack is not going to be through doing 6-pack ab exercises.
Guys, the way to get a 6-pack is to get your nutrition in check first and foremost.
I've done videos on how to get a 6-pack.
I've talked about the best 6-pack ab exercises.
None of that matters if you're going to sit there and eat Twinkies all day long.
It's not going to help.
You're still going to have a lot of fat covering up that covered 6-pack.
So, guys, if you want to get a 6-pack, yes, Crunches are part of the equation, but not
the first part.
Get that diet of yours in check first.
Next up, Number 3.
'The fastest way for you to lose fat is with Cardio.'
No guys.
The fastest way for you to stay fat is to think that the fastest way to lose fat is
with cardio because
you can never outrun a bad diet.
Once again, if your diet's not in check, you're going nowhere fast.
As you can see in my example, if you want to eat a bacon double cheeseburger, that's
going to cost you 1240 calories.
You're going to have to run on a treadmill for 2 hours and 12 minutes just to get back
down to baseline.
We all know that in order to lose some weight, you're going to have to create a lower deficit.
You're not going to do it, guys, if you're just getting yourself back to baseline here.
You might even run out of hours of the day to get yourself there.
So, first and foremost, guys, nutrition, nutrition, nutrition.
Number 4.
'Stretching before a workout is important to preventing injuries.'
No.
Stretching before a workout might cause an injury.
Guys, we've talked about this in depth, again in other videos on our channel.
There's a different goal here.
Stretching is about increasing the tissue length.
Trying to increase tissue length before training is actually something that could disturb the
motor patterns stored for the movement you're about to perform.
That's not a good thing especially if you're trying to step underneath a heavy squat rack,
into the squat rack for a heavy squat.
You might want to start thinking about changing the mobility of your tissue before you go
into a heavy squat.
That's a whole different story.
Mobility and stretching are 2 different things.
Mobility before a workout, good.
Stretching before a workout, static stretching before a workout, not very good.
Next up, Number 5.
'If you're not sweating, or puking, or fill in your word here, you're not training hard
enough.'
Guys, that's straight old-school BS.
First of all, sweating is a measure of our body's regulation of our own tissue temperature.
Some guys will have a naturally higher body temperature.
And those guys are more susceptible to sweating when they elevate their body temperature through
exercise.
I happen to never, ever, ever sweat in my workouts.
Once in a rare occasion will I sweat.
And anybody that owns the ATHLEAN XERO Program has seen me sweat.
That being said, puking, another thing guys, as dictated by things really out of our control.
Our VO2 max is in our control.
It's one thing that we can do to help our body improve the efficiency with which we
use oxygen.
That is a much better reason, if you want to go back to one of our other myths, for
working on your conditioning or cardio.
Improving your cardiovascular health with conditioning and cardio is a great thing to
do.
Relying on it to burn body fat is not the best thing to do.
Improving your body's ability to use oxygen will leave you less susceptible to feeling
like you want to puke
because you'll have adequate oxygen to still deliver to your stomach when it's trying to
be directed through the blood flow to your working muscles when you're training.
If you don't have good VO2 capabilities, you're going to have a redirection of that blood
from your stomach to your working muscles
leaving very little to your stomach making you feel nauseous and wanting to puke.
So, again, these are things that aren't really necessarily a gauge of
how hard you're training for the effectiveness of those for your workouts, it's just a matter
of either how well-conditioned you are here, or what your natural body temperature is.
Number 6 and another favorite of mine, 'More is better when it comes to working out.'
ie.
'Overtraining is a good thing.'
Well, it depends on who you want to listen to.
I've done plenty of videos talking about how overtraining is the worst thing that a natural
lifter could do.
If you haven't seen those videos, guys, you have to watch them.
I'll put them both up over here for you.
In my world, overtraining is always a bad thing because in my world, we're putting the
science back in strength and defining overtraining the way it's supposed to be defined.
We're using the scientific definition of overtraining.
We're using the 36,000 studies that document overtraining in real athletes.
Not those that want to make you believe that it only occurs in a very, very, very, very
small percentage of people that train.
That's not true.
We're talking about common conditions going past that threshold of what's necessary to
cause a positive change,
and bludgeoning it to death until you make that a negative change.
Overtraining.
You can't go into a doctor's office and have them tell you, 'You have cancer.
And by cancer, I'm saying you have a cold.'
It doesn't work.
It doesn't sound right, and we know that's going to make you flip out because the 2 are
not the same.
Saying overtraining is a good thing is not responsible.
Overtraining is never good.
Overtraining meaning that you're pushing yourself hard and you're working hard and you're doing
more than you did the last time?
Great!
But that's not the definition of overtraining.
So, make sure that if anybody gives you this advice, you run fast the other direction.
Number 7.
'Your metabolism slows to a crawl after the age of 45 making it very hard for you to build
muscle or get rid of fat.'
I feel bad for any 45-year-old and up who's ever listened to this advice because you know
what they most likely did when they heard it?
They stopped training.
And guess what?
The number 1 contributor to this having any semblance of truth is the fact that you lose
some lean muscle as you get older.
And you know why most guys lose lean muscle?
Because they stop working out because they've heard this kind of bullshit before in the
gym.
And if they'd continue to work out, they likely would be able to counteract that muscle loss
and not just that, but gain lean muscle.
There are plenty of guys, you've seen them, you know them, who've added lean muscle at
any age.
We've got a guy on our Team ATHLEAN, Phil Schluter, I've talked about him before.
I'll even put his picture up here.
The guy completely transformed his body.
Yes, he lost a lot of fat, but you can clearly see that he gained plenty of lean muscle at
the age of 63.
So, before you use your age as an excuse , don't ever listen to these guys ever again, ok?
Make sure that you understand lean muscle can be built at any age.
Your metabolism does not have to decline so fast
if you're actually keeping and building the muscle and working hard each and every time
you hit that gym.
Keeping with that same theme, Number 8.
'Your genetics determine everything.'
So, you've heard it before.
It doesn't matter how hard you're working, it's all going to come down to your genetics
at the end of the day.
If you believe that, then you're doing yourself a disservice and most likely cutting your
chances short of ever looking as best as you can.
Look, we know if you want to go back to the old-time bodybuilders, Frank Zane versus Tom
Plast.
Two completely different structures.
Franco Columbo if you want to throw him in there as well.
Short, stocky, tall, thin, lean.
Guys, yes, genetics can have an impact on your muscle bellies, how wide they are.
They can have an impact on your bone length.
They can have an impact on your bone width.
Yes, I've been cursed with skinny wrists.
But it doesn't mean that my arms have to be small because of it.
We've got the impact of our attachments, where they attach.
Sometimes in a slightly different position than others giving some better leverage than
others.
But at the end of the day, work with what you've got.
If you've been blessed with a body with 2 arms and 2 legs and strength to be able to
move that bar, whatever it is, even if it's just the bar,
then you can push until you're adding plates.
You can push until you're adding more plates.
You can push your body to limits you never thought you could by working within your own
genetics.
So, yes, you'll have some differences.
Maybe your 6-pack isn't perfectly lined up like this, but guess what?
You've still got a 6-pack.
So who cares whether it's got this perfect symmetry or it doesn't.
Don't let that be a cop-out for why you're not going to train or train hard.
Genetics don't mean everything, guys.
Working your ass off every time you train.
That does.
Moving right along.
Number 9.
'Use machines for increasing muscle definition and free weights for bulking up.'
Now, you guys know I'm not a big advocate of machines.
As a guy who likes to train athletes functionally, and uses our own body and space and ground-based
movements,
machines are not my favorite.
But to say this is perpetuating one of the biggest myths in the fitness industry.
Your body doesn't know whether you're laying down on a Bench Press free weights or whether
you are sitting at a Seated Bench Press machine.
What it knows is tension.
What it knows is overload.
If you're loading that Seated Bench Press machine up with 350 pounds and that's an overload
for you,
you can best believe you are going to build muscle using that movement.
So before we shit on these machines and say,
'Guys, don't ever use them anymore because they are only going to allow you to build
muscle definition.'
You've kind of got to get it straight first, muscle physiology.
You can build as long as there's adequate tension and it's causing overload.
Last but not least, my favorite.
'There are shortcuts to 6-pack abs.'
Guys, at ATHLEANX, we put the science back in strength and we train our asses off each
and every day to get what we earn.
Do I even need to talk about this?
So, there you have it guys.
My 10 biggest fitness myths.
Yes, it did turn into a little bit of a 'Jeff Rant' video.
But for some of you, you always claim those happen to be your favorites.
The fact of the matter is, guys, I value your viewership.
I value the fact that you follow me for your fitness information.
And I take that seriously.
As a fitness professional and a health professional,
remember, as a physical therapist, a health professional makes sure that the information
that he gets out to his viewers is accurate.
Because I want at the end of the day, guys, for you guys to be able to be on that right
path without all the nonsense,
without all the BS, without all the shortcuts, without all that other nonsense, to get you
guys the right information,
to get you where you want to be which is a better version of you tomorrow than you are
today.
And if you're looking for a training program to help you get there, guys, I put my heart
and soul into that as well.
You'll find that at ATHLEANX.COM.
The ATHLEANX Training Program, step-by-step.
Nutrition's covered.
Supplementation's covered.
The training is covered.
Training you like an athlete, getting you back to basics and moving you the way your
body is meant to be moved all along,
then head to ATHLEANX.COM and grab our 90-Day Training Program.
If you found these helpful, or if you've heard, I'm sure a bunch of fitness myths yourself,
make sure you leave them down below and a thumb's up and I"ll make sure to keep on bringing
these videos here for you.
Thanks guys I'll see you back here soon.