Fitness tips come in all shapes and sizes. Some are clearly good,
supportive advice and others… not so much. Then there’s some that *sound* like good advice
but actually lack in any meaningful guidance. Hi, I’m PictureFit, and in this video,
we’re going to look at 3 helpful fitness tips that aren’t really all that helpful,
at least not without a bit of extra information. Let’s get right to it with the first
not-so-helpful helpful tip and that is to rest very little between your workout sets.
This idea is rooted from claims that muscle hypertrophy, or muscle growth,
is best achieved with short inter-set rest intervals of about 30 to 60 seconds.
The theory is that more metabolic stress accumulates in the muscle with less rest,
which leads to greater anabolic signaling, thus greater muscle hypertrophy.
Things do seem to check out when thinking about it this way, but like many other bro
science concepts that makes sense on the surface, the evidence seems to tell a different story.
When it comes to resting between sets, research shows that longer rest intervals
generally lead to greater strength gains and yes, even greater muscle gains.
And the reason is that by resting longer, your muscles have more time to recover,
which allows you to perform more reps in subsequent sets compared to resting very little.
In other words, you can do more work with longer rest, and the more work you do,
the better gains you achieve. As to how much rest, 3 minutes is
about the average in the research, but it can vary based on the exercise and effort of your training.
Compound exercises, like deadlifts and bench presses, likely require more rest between sets.
Isolation exercises, like bicep curls and cable raises, can be fine with less.
And the higher the effort, or closer you train to failure, the more rest you will need between sets.
It takes a bit of testing for yourself to see what works best for you, but the main
point is that resting longer is totally fine and actually better than resting too little.
Enjoy your rest! The next questionably helpful
tip is to just do exercises you like! This is one of those positive advice
that sounds well-intentioned but lack a lot of useful substance.
Yes, of course, everyone should be doing things they enjoy because if we don’t, we’re more likely
to quit, which is the last thing we want. But on the other hand, if what you enjoy
most does not get you closer to achieving your fitness goals, then that’s a problem.
Like, if I want to build up my upper body, which we all know doesn’t really need much more work,
what good is it if I just do deadlifts all day since deadlifts are my favorite?
So, it’s imperative that our training is fitting for our goals,
and sometimes that means doing things that we can tolerate but don’t exactly enjoy.
On top of that, you wouldn’t really know what you enjoy if you don’t try out different things
in the first place, especially things that might seem initially unappealing, but can
very well end up as your most favorite exercise. Instead of telling others to “just do exercise you
like,” I think a better tip would be, “First set a goal, then try out different exercises
that would achieve your goal, and then out of those, choose the ones you prefer the most.”
And the final helpful, not-so-helpful tip, which might shock some of you,
is: Just count your calories! If you watch my content enough,
you know that I’m a HUGE proponent of calories, which kind of sounds weird when I say it out loud.
But much like the previous tip, the problem here is substance,
or more so the lack of context. And it’s such a huge problem that
it resulted in anti-calorie movements and figureheads that seemingly swore an oath
to aggressively twitch their collective eyes whenever the word calorie is even mentioned.
And it bore witness to the illustrious and infamous argument of, “IF IT’S JUST ABOUT
CALORIES, THEN DOES THAT MEAN 1000 CALORIES OF SUGAR IS THE SAME AS 1000 CALORIES OF BROCOLLI?”
Ignoring the fact that no rational person is making that argument, the reason rhetoric like
this exists is, again, because of the lack of context that occurs when people discuss calories.
We have to remember that calories are simply a measurement of heat, which fits well in the
context of bodyweight because the weight we can effectively change in our bodies comes in the
form of available and stored energy, which creates heat when the energy is converted.
In other words, weight management is indeed primarily based on
calories in versus calories out. But… it will be a very bad idea to
eat solely based on calories, because it is true that the source of your calories
do matter, and it matters a lot. It’s the reason why I always stress
the importance of protein intake because it benefits many different aspects of fitness.
And “different aspects” is the context that’s missing.
Those aspects are things like muscle growth, which benefits from more protein.
Satiety, or feeling full after a meal, which increases with protein and less calorie-dense
foods with high fiber content like vegetables. Palatability, or your ability to tolerate
and enjoy the food you’re eating, which does come down to preference.
Micronutrient sufficiency, which getting enough micronutrients is important for general health,
and is best attained by eating more whole foods. And even the other half of the calorie equation,
calories out, where you can burn more calories based on the food you eat,
which again, is typically protein-rich foods. There are many other aspects that I can’t really
cover in a single video, but the point is, calories itself is not enough, even
if we relegate the context to general fitness. I think a better way to tailor this advice is
to say, “Nutritious whole foods and protein are key, so make sure to get enough of them while
fitting them into your calorie goals.” Rolls off the tongue just as good.
And that’s three helpful not helpful, maybe a bit helpful but needs context tips. Let me
know what you think about my take on these tips, and also share some tips you think aren’t as good
as we think they are in the comments below. Other than that, if you enjoyed this video,
please give it a helpful thumbs up and share it with your not-so-helpful
but helpful friends. Subscribe for more.
As always, thank you for watching and don’t forget to get your protein! Which
is super helpful… buuut might also need a bit of context. Check out my other videos for that!