The Gym And The Myths

You ask an overweight dude a simple question, why does he go to the gym, he would answer, to lose weight. You put forward the same question to an underweight and frail guy, to gain some mass, you get the answer. Confusing, eh? How does the same thing work unalike for both? Board this train of text and before this post reaches it's end you shall be well acquainted with the facts. 

This post is going to cover what actually happens in the gym and more importantly what doesn't happen in there at all. You would have often seen gym-goers who are underweight or who appear small getting trolled for exercising and lifting weights. Onlookers who choose to mock them are under an impression that working out in the gym could worsen the situation making them lose more weight. Here, they need to know what exactly happens inside the gym. Do you lose weight when you go to the gym, do you gain weight? Why is it so unclear?

What Does Exercise Do To You?

Everyone knows that exercising is good for health. When asked how and why, some people would relate it to weight management and others would find it connected to bodybuilding. I do not deny the many more advantages of physical exercises but this is what most of you would guess in the first place. Let me tell you how does it work in the gyms. No, it's not different from that outside the gym, but when I talk of inside the gym, I am trying to refer to weight training.

You know you have muscles, but do you know that the muscle cells, also called myocytes are tubular in shape and behave like fibers extending and contracting to enable motion in your body? When you curl up the dumbbell using your biceps, what you may not be knowing is that you compress your bicep muscle tissues hence shortening the muscle fiber.

Now when you release your arm back slowly, the bicep muscle fiber experiences a stretch or pull. This compression and elongation creates a continuous tension that results in damaged or torn muscle fibers. You can imagine pulling and releasing an elastic rubber band multiple times. You could easily see the band being torn slowly. Same is the case with your muscles. Now to repair your torn muscles you need to feed yourself with enough protein. When you add in your diet eggs, pulses, milk, yogurt, powdered whey or any protein source for that matter, you gain protein that helps to repair and build back your muscles and this time bigger and stronger than before. 

This enlargement of the existing muscle fibers through the process of protein synthesis and cellular repair is also called Hypertrophy. This is what happens in the gym. You tear your muscles by working them out so that they grow when they get repaired. If you ever thought working out in a gym causes weight loss, you wouldn't be totally wrong. Fat loss comes as an added advantage to exercising besides building muscles. Even when you are working with weights, you are burning some calories off your body. 

The Myths

Gyms are nothing new. They have been here for centuries now and of course as old as something gets, more myths does it accumulate around it. There have been floating around innumerable misconceptions regarding these as well, all by virtue of stories based on gossips and unexplained hearsay. Let's crush them one at a time.

Spot reduction

Despite this myth being addressed multiple times, some people still think that they can get rid of fat from specific problem areas in their body. This belief is as impractical and pointless as to believe someone who tells you that you can decide where to store fat after you have eaten a handful of fried snack. When you lose fat, be it as a consequence of caloric deficit from diet alone or diet coupled with workout, you lose fat from all over your body. Which part of your body gives up it's fat deposit first can not be chosen by selecting different exercises. Certain things are only better determined by your genetics.

Crunches for abdominal fat

This myth has already been busted in the previous one. You can not do crunches and other abdominal exercises and expect to spot burn the fat off your belly. This can only strengthen your abdominal muscle and do only a little or nothing for your fat loss goal. You can also see our post on Belly Fat and Crunches to know more.

Sweat is fat crying

This quote is quite popular and I strongly advise to take it just for the sake of motivation (the only purpose for designing such quotes). Please do not understand from this that only when you sweat in the gym, you burn fat. Sweat is a heat regulator. Your body sweats to release the heat and maintain your body temperature whenever it gets heated up. Though sweating may indicate over exertion but this may not be the case every time. It is obviously not a recommended way to estimate fat loss. Always consider re-hydrating yourself with electrolyte solutions when you sweat.

Girls and Muscles

The is perhaps the biggest myth of all times. Today, when being fit is the biggest concern around the globe, many girls are afraid to hit the gym due to the unreasonable fear of getting musular like men. Simply put, to build big muscles you need to put alot of things in place and something that is unavoidable is 'Testosterone', a male hormone. Girls and Ladies can not look masculine no matter how hard they train in the gym provided they do not jab themselves with artificial testosterone.

Cardio and fat loss

This is a completely different story. A lot of people go to the gym to run on treadmills and when they get exhausted they simply walk out of the gym under an impression that justice has been done to their fat loss goal. Don't be surprised when I tell you that you burn more calories outside the gym than you burn running on the treadmill for half an hour. Your body spends a lot of energy just to keep you walking, talking, eating, digesting and above all breathing. This energy need of the body considerably increases with the increase in your muscle mass. So, instead of running hard on the treadmills, also try to weight train and gain some muscle mass which would help you burn fat even outside the gym.