The DEBUNKING thread.........myths that need to be trashed

TrainingWithTonya

So my question is this: what are some good exercises to get out of the darn water retention phase?

Depends on why you are retaining water. If you are talking about the water stored with glycogen in the muscles, you don't want to get out of that phase as it increases your strength and abilities when lifting. If you are talking about water retention from things like sodium (because water follows sodium), then you have to focus on cutting sodium from your diet to lose the bloat. The water retention from glycogen storage is good, but the water retention from sodium is bad. The sodium one actually increases blood volume, which in turn increases blood pressure, and can be difficult on the organs. The glycogen one is actually helping provide the necessary components for cellular respiration to convert fat to fuel.

ninerbuff

So my question is this: what are some good exercises to get out of the darn water retention phase?

Water retention is regulated by your what your body wants to do. No exercises will change this. Rest, recovery and good nutrition will speed up the process though.

kylakesgal

Wow a lot of good information here. Thanks for posting.

TrishJimenez

So you are saying that since I am in a calorie deficit I am not going to build muscles or get stronger even if I lift weights?

Yes, you will get stronger and yes you will gain lean tissue. It just won't be actual muscle fiber growth (either in size of the existing fibers or in adding additional fibers) until you are providing adequate nutrition and have been training for a long period of time. The first strength gains you will experience are actually neural adaptations in the muscles. They are strong enough now to lift more then they think they can but the nervous system doesn't allow it because of lack of use. Think of it as your muscles are currently the Little Engine That Could. They haven't climbed the mountain yet, so they don't think they can make it. After attempting little hills first, they realize that yes, they can climb that mountain. Each lift with a small weight is an "I think I can" toward that bigger weight. The first one, you only use a few of the available muscle fibers, and on the second effort, you'll use a few more muscle fibers and so on and so on, until you are using all the muscle fibers that are available. So, when you first start a weight training program, you will notice strength gains rather rapidly, because the nervous systems start to engage and allow for more muscle fiber recruitment and therefore more weight and reps with your lifts. During this time your body will also adapt to needing more glycogen in the muscle to fuel the lifts because weight lifting is anaerobic, which is primarily using carbs as fuel for the movements. That first time you lift, there's not much glycogen stored in the muscles. The second time you lift, though, they will be ready and have a little extra glycogen in there for when you lift so that they don't fatigue as fast. If you keep it up, they will keep storing more glycogen (in 3 times as much water) so that they are ready for you to do your toughest workout. This is what confuses a lot of people, because they feel the glycogen and water in their muscles as firmer muscles and when they do a body composition analysis, it comes up as lean body mass since it isn't fat being stored. Since it appears as lean tissue on the body comp and the muscles feel firmer, it was believed for years to be muscle growth. Some trainers, due to lack of knowledge, will still tell their clients they are building muscle. Others will tell their clients that so that they don't confuse them with the science or scare them into thinking they need to avoid water retention. We actually want this type of water retention as it is best for performance. The storage of glycogen and water will plateau after 3-6 months usually, when the muscles get to their set point of maximum glycogen storage. At this point in time, then the neuromuscular system goes to work again and tells the brain that we can't get any stronger (via recruiting more fibers or storing more fuel) without the current muscle fibers growing or adding more muscle fibers. At this point, then the protein in the foods we eat is not only needed for the repair of any damage in the muscles caused by exercise, but also for the added muscle. Unfortunately, too many people are scared by the added weight of the glycogen and water and think they have to cut weight and may opt not to eat adequate carbohydrates to get to this point. If there aren't enough carbs in the diet, then this stage doesn't get reached. Then instead of having adequate glycogen in the muscles, the body has to break down protein to convert to glucose to use to fuel the lifts, so that protein isn't available to build more muscle. It's kind of a double whammy to muscle building because the neuromuscular stimulus isn't there and neither is the extra protein to build the muscle fibers. But if you eat enough carbs to replenish your glycogen stores, train heavy with your weights, and eat adequate protein to have it available, you can build muscle even on a calorie deficit. But the deficit has to be small and the training has to be targeted to use what is being consumed properly to pull from fat stores in the body for any weight loss.

Ok i think all this is making sense, it is kind of like muscle memory? So for 3-6 months continue what I am doing with half cardio like swimming and half my work outs being circuit training with weights and by then I will be at my goal weight and "feeling stronger and be more toned. Then if I want to add on a little muscle I can by going out of a calorie deficit? Should I be making sure I have enough carbs for my work outs? or continue to make sure I am getting enough protein?

TrainingWithTonya

Just recently I fit into clothes that I wore when I was about 10-15 pounds lighter than I am now. I am in the obese range but 27 pounds lighter than when I started however not quite as light as I was when I was wearing these clothes last. I have been exercising alot while losing weight. I have periods where I was in a weight loss plateau and continued to lose inches I thought because I was exercising. My only explanation is that I am as slim now as I was when I weighed less. I would expect that it is because I am fitter and have a greater % muscle than I did when I was lighter. I could definitely be wrong but how would you explain it. I am not talking about the size but the actual clothes I wore so it isn't the brand or style. I do not think that it is rare to find obese people on MFP. I think your post is great but now I have no explanation for this. Do you?

You have a greater percentage of lean mass which may or may not be muscle. Depends on how long and how hard you've been training and the nutrients you're taking in. Another effect is that when you work and strengthen muscles, they have kind of a girdle like effect on the fat underneath them. When muscles aren't worked, they tend to be softer and have less of that girdle effect. Plus you may be burning fat and storing glycogen and water in the muscles (what is causing them to feel tighter/stronger) so you probably have a lower body fat percentage this time then you did previously in that same size. This is why I weigh 40-50 pounds more then my sister but am 5 sizes smaller. I lift and have less body fat and more lean tissue, so I take up less physical space. You'll hear people talking about muscle weighing more then fat and lots of arguments about a pound being a pound regardless of whether it is fat or lean, but lean takes up less space then fat. A cubic inch of muscle will weigh more then a cubic inch of fat because it is more dense. So, you can very well take up less space with a lower body fat but be at a higher weight because you are mostly lean (muscle, bones, organs, water, glycogen, etc.).

ninerbuff

So you are saying that since I am in a calorie deficit I am not going to build muscles or get stronger even if I lift weights?

You can get stronger. Proper training will increase strength to a point. Building muscle is improbable though.

LadyOfOceanBreeze

I this thread!

ninerbuff

Oh well I dont want to build bigger muscles. I just want to get toned and stronger and have maybe some definition. So I look good in a strapless dress? That is attainable on a calorie deficit?

Definition comes from low body fat. You "harden" muscle and make it stronger with weight lifting. So keep it up.

Dmax12

This has been a pretty cool read, thanks to all who added and thanks to niner for starting it up.

TrainingWithTonya

"Stretching prevents injuries."

... Warming up prior to exercise and increasing blood flow to the muscles is actually more conducive to injury prevention. I'm not suggesting that you eliminate stretching. ...

That's interesting, and it's something I've read from time to time. I guess my question is: what does a "warmup" look like? Is it basically a slower or easier version of the activity we're warming up for, or what?

Thanks in advance for your answer.

A warm up is designed to get the blood pumping stronger to all the areas of the body. Primarily warm up and cool down are for your heart so it can handle the changes in rate, stroke volume, total peripheral resistance, blood pressure, etc. Before you go into super intense activities with certain muscles, they need to be primed kind of like you prime your lawn mower before starting it. Get the blood pumping there to provide all the necessary components to the individual cells for producing the ATP needed to fuel the movements. Personally, I like a dynamic warm-up, where you get all the areas of the body moving through a full range of motion. It looks kind of silly and will get you stared at in some gyms, but here is my favorite sequence of dynamic warm up exercises. If the whole picture doesn't show up here, just right click and save as (it's a jpg picture file) so you can open it in your photo program to see the whole thing.

ninerbuff

Ok i think all this is making sense, it is kind of like muscle memory? So for 3-6 months continue what I am doing with half cardio like swimming and half my work outs being circuit training with weights and by then I will be at my goal weight and "feeling stronger and be more toned. Then if I want to add on a little muscle I can by going out of a calorie deficit? Should I be making sure I have enough carbs for my work outs? or continue to make sure I am getting enough protein?

Yes you would need to be in calorie surplus to gain lean muscle tissue. Just understand that adding muscle means adding weight. This is where some people freak out and don't understand how you can't build muscle without increasing your weight.

ninerbuff

This has been a pretty cool read, thanks to all who added and thanks to niner for starting it up.

It's been good for me to. James (physics teacher) made me reassess and had me realize that distance traveled isn't always relevant since you could run/hop in place and burn calories equivalent to walking a mile in distance. Didn't even take it into consideration till then.

ninerbuff

A warm up is designed to get the blood pumping stronger to all the areas of the body. Primarily warm up and cool down are for your heart so it can handle the changes in rate, stroke volume, total peripheral resistance, blood pressure, etc. Before you go into super intense activities with certain muscles, they need to be primed kind of like you prime your lawn mower before starting it. Get the blood pumping there to provide all the necessary components to the individual cells for producing the ATP needed to fuel the movements. Personally, I like a dynamic warm-up, where you get all the areas of the body moving through a full range of motion. It looks kind of silly and will get you stared at in some gyms, but here is my favorite sequence of dynamic warm up exercises. If the whole picture doesn't show up here, just right click and save as (it's a jpg picture file) so you can open it in your photo program to see the whole thing.

Nice Tonya. Like the warm-up.

TrainingWithTonya

So you are saying that since I am in a calorie deficit I am not going to build muscles or get stronger even if I lift weights?

Yes, you will get stronger and yes you will gain lean tissue. It just won't be actual muscle fiber growth (either in size of the existing fibers or in adding additional fibers) until you are providing adequate nutrition and have been training for a long period of time. The first strength gains you will experience are actually neural adaptations in the muscles. They are strong enough now to lift more then they think they can but the nervous system doesn't allow it because of lack of use. Think of it as your muscles are currently the Little Engine That Could. They haven't climbed the mountain yet, so they don't think they can make it. After attempting little hills first, they realize that yes, they can climb that mountain. Each lift with a small weight is an "I think I can" toward that bigger weight. The first one, you only use a few of the available muscle fibers, and on the second effort, you'll use a few more muscle fibers and so on and so on, until you are using all the muscle fibers that are available. So, when you first start a weight training program, you will notice strength gains rather rapidly, because the nervous systems start to engage and allow for more muscle fiber recruitment and therefore more weight and reps with your lifts. During this time your body will also adapt to needing more glycogen in the muscle to fuel the lifts because weight lifting is anaerobic, which is primarily using carbs as fuel for the movements. That first time you lift, there's not much glycogen stored in the muscles. The second time you lift, though, they will be ready and have a little extra glycogen in there for when you lift so that they don't fatigue as fast. If you keep it up, they will keep storing more glycogen (in 3 times as much water) so that they are ready for you to do your toughest workout. This is what confuses a lot of people, because they feel the glycogen and water in their muscles as firmer muscles and when they do a body composition analysis, it comes up as lean body mass since it isn't fat being stored. Since it appears as lean tissue on the body comp and the muscles feel firmer, it was believed for years to be muscle growth. Some trainers, due to lack of knowledge, will still tell their clients they are building muscle. Others will tell their clients that so that they don't confuse them with the science or scare them into thinking they need to avoid water retention. We actually want this type of water retention as it is best for performance. The storage of glycogen and water will plateau after 3-6 months usually, when the muscles get to their set point of maximum glycogen storage. At this point in time, then the neuromuscular system goes to work again and tells the brain that we can't get any stronger (via recruiting more fibers or storing more fuel) without the current muscle fibers growing or adding more muscle fibers. At this point, then the protein in the foods we eat is not only needed for the repair of any damage in the muscles caused by exercise, but also for the added muscle. Unfortunately, too many people are scared by the added weight of the glycogen and water and think they have to cut weight and may opt not to eat adequate carbohydrates to get to this point. If there aren't enough carbs in the diet, then this stage doesn't get reached. Then instead of having adequate glycogen in the muscles, the body has to break down protein to convert to glucose to use to fuel the lifts, so that protein isn't available to build more muscle. It's kind of a double whammy to muscle building because the neuromuscular stimulus isn't there and neither is the extra protein to build the muscle fibers. But if you eat enough carbs to replenish your glycogen stores, train heavy with your weights, and eat adequate protein to have it available, you can build muscle even on a calorie deficit. But the deficit has to be small and the training has to be targeted to use what is being consumed properly to pull from fat stores in the body for any weight loss.

Ok i think all this is making sense, it is kind of like muscle memory? So for 3-6 months continue what I am doing with half cardio like swimming and half my work outs being circuit training with weights and by then I will be at my goal weight and "feeling stronger and be more toned. Then if I want to add on a little muscle I can by going out of a calorie deficit? Should I be making sure I have enough carbs for my work outs? or continue to make sure I am getting enough protein?

Both. Carbs save protein for tissue repair, so you want the carbs to be able to use the protein for all of its other jobs instead of for energy. But you need protein for not just muscle repair and growth. It also provides all of your transport proteins for various things in the body, the enzymes for starting some of the chemical reactions of fat burning, and for regenerating all other tissues in the body. Cells are born and die each day and you have to have adequate protein for that to happen. Technically, we replace all of the cells in the gastrointestinal tract every 3-7 days, for example. If we don't have adequate protein for that, or if that protein is being used for energy because we don't have adequate carbs to fuel our activities, then these processes in the body will suffer because of it. The human body is the greatest machine ever invented and it takes the right balance of carbs, protein, and fat (yes, we need fat for our nervous system to function properly and to create the cell membranes for those new cells) to make it run like a well oiled one!

TrainingWithTonya

If you're warming up for a run, a light slow jog or fast walk to start is a good. If you're going to lift weights, you do the movement with light weights for about 15 to 20 reps to get the blood and recruitment of muscle active. Usually a 5-10 minutes of light cardio is a good way to warm up for just about any exercise activity.

Thanks! I'll try that.

One more question (and, if you don't feel like getting used as a free trainer-consultant, I understand): Most of what I do right now is cardio and all-lower-body (cycling and the elliptical). THis is because I've been troubled lately with some aching in the muscle on the outside of the upper arm (not the biceps, which is in front, and not the triceps, which is in back, but on the outside of the arm. It's the right arm only. I pretty much suspended my arm-related exercise, thinking that I need to rest it. But, after several weeks of resting it, it still aches. If this was you, would you go back to working it, do you think? (I'm 57 years old, and my whole musculo-skeletal is increasingly becoming a collection of minor aches and pains, which I mostly ignore unless they start feeling dangerous.)

Thanks again.

I'm thinking deltoid? Personally, I'd recommend seeing a doctor to make sure you haven't pulled or torn anything. Then if they say it is just the normal aches and pains of age and not an injury, I'd start training it. One of the key components of our exercise physiology program at school is the saying "Exercise Is Medicine" and I firmly believe it. With my laundry list of injuries and such over the years, doctors are always amazed to see me walk into their office. As in literally amazed to see me being able to walk! I've had scoliosis since childhood, a deformity in the low back/hip area, 2 herniated discs, a dislocation and narrowing of the space between the sacrum and iliac crest, and now arthritis in my spine from not believing anyone when they say I can't do something. That's on top of 2 knee surgeries and 2 other knee injuries where I broke the patella and tore the patella tendon. If I don't train my back and knees, I hurt. If I train, and specifically if I build up to lifting heavy, I don't hurt. Exercise, specifically weight training, is better for me then any pain medicine, arthritis medicine, or any other drug they want me to take. So, personally, if someone doesn't have a medical issue preventing them from lifting, I highly recommend it. Yes, it may be uncomfortable at first, but it will help in the long run.

minadeathclutch

this is all common sense.

TrainingWithTonya

Heres one I liked...
"I don't want to bulk up, I just want to tone up!"

Uh, flex.
Say hello to your muscle.
Now, you can either leave it as it is and simply burn fat via cardio. Or you can do strength training, build the muscle up a bit, and burn off less fat to get it to show through.

There is so such thing as toning. You either build muscle and burn fat, or you simply burn fat. Be happy with what you have under there or go build more.

hmm, I have read many different articles on this, though yes you can only build or burn, the way in which you build can be controlled. Lifting heavy weights at low reps will result in simple bulk, but by using lighter weights at higher reps with targeted moves will result in a specific muscle getting the bulk of the work Vs. the surronding/supporting muscles. This can be clearly seen when looking at an olympic weight lifter Vs. a professonal body sculptor.

Technically, the lower weight, higher reps will target the slow twitch muscle fibers which don't have the capacity for hypertrophy like the fast twitch muscle fibers that are targeted by the heavy weight with low reps. Whether you are capable of hypertrophy or not depends on your individual distribution of fiber types and your workouts help you target the specific type you want to emphasize. You will be building something, regardless of which method you choose to lift. It just may be building muscular endurance instead of muscular strength or hypertrophy.

LauraMarie37

"Stretching prevents injuries."

... Warming up prior to exercise and increasing blood flow to the muscles is actually more conducive to injury prevention. I'm not suggesting that you eliminate stretching. ...

That's interesting, and it's something I've read from time to time. I guess my question is: what does a "warmup" look like? Is it basically a slower or easier version of the activity we're warming up for, or what?

Thanks in advance for your answer.

A warm up is designed to get the blood pumping stronger to all the areas of the body. Primarily warm up and cool down are for your heart so it can handle the changes in rate, stroke volume, total peripheral resistance, blood pressure, etc. Before you go into super intense activities with certain muscles, they need to be primed kind of like you prime your lawn mower before starting it. Get the blood pumping there to provide all the necessary components to the individual cells for producing the ATP needed to fuel the movements. Personally, I like a dynamic warm-up, where you get all the areas of the body moving through a full range of motion. It looks kind of silly and will get you stared at in some gyms, but here is my favorite sequence of dynamic warm up exercises. If the whole picture doesn't show up here, just right click and save as (it's a jpg picture file) so you can open it in your photo program to see the whole thing.

I TOTALLY agree that dynamic stretching is the way to go (for me at least). I try to save my slower, gaining flexibility type stretching for the cool down.

But your number 1 motion makes me cry! You are putting so much pressure on the discs in your lumbar spine that way!!! If you have a very strong core (especially transverse abdominus and quadratus lumborum), you probably won't damage your lower back - but if you don't (like perhaps the person who asked the question about a good warmup routine), you could easily slip a disc!

I love stretch number 4, though - great for dynamically stretching the iliopsoas, especially the iliacus which is much harder to stretch and chronically tight on about 90% of the population. (Edit to add: by stretch 4, I mean the one titled "Lunge 3".)

mags2504

To make it clear, if a person walked 2 miles one day and ran 1 mile the next, they would have burned more calories on the walk than the run.
I can totally back this up. I do a five mile route. If I take my time I burn about 570 cals in 90 mins, if i jog most and do it in under 60 my cal burn is around 600 so very little difference in cals, just a quicker time.

LauraMarie37

As for the Calorie thing, I have to comment because this has been such a fun conversation so far. Exercise Physiologists don't use Physics equations. First of all, the calories that physicists use do not equal the Calories exercise physiologists use. Ours are Kilocalories and actually 1000 times larger then the physics calories. Second, physicists keep saying we aren't doing any work when we lift a weight and put it back down because the weight is in the same position at the end of the movement as at the beginning of the movement.

Tonya, I love you to death and am not trying to be a pain -- really! But we physicists -- modern ones, at least -- don't use "calories" at all if we can avoid it. We work in the SI ("Le Systeme International d'Unites"), where energy is measured in joules (J). And, of course, you're correct: the calorie is the energy required to increase the temperature of one gram of water by one Celsius degree, while in the nutritional world, what's commonly referred to as the "calorie" is actually a thousand times as much, and will warm up a kilogram of water by 1 C°.

Also, I would never tell you that you don't do work when you raise a weight and then lower it to its starting position. On the contrary -- if you lift a mass m through a height h, you do m·g·h of work in raising it, and another m·g·h of work in lowering it, assuming constant velocity. It is true that the first work has a positive sign and the second is negative, but that doesn't matter to your muscles -- they neither know nor care whether you're doing negative or positive work. That matters only to the weight -- it's had zero total work done on it, and its final state is the same as its initial one. Your muscles still did the work, however.

As a physicist, if I want to really tick you off, here's how I'll do it: please stand with your arms stretched straight out to both sides, level, holding a 15-pound dumbbell in each hand. Don't move. Just stand there, perfectly still ... with your arms starting to tremble ... and then shake ... you're gritting your teeth ... sweat's starting to run down your forehead ... hold it ... hold it ... until you finally throw the weights at me and say, "What do you mean, I didn't do any work???!!?" Well, in the physical definition of work, sorry: no displacement, no work. But that just shows that physical work and muscle effort aren't the same thing.

Anyway, thanks for your patience. Just look at your picture, and then at mine. One thing's clear: exercise physiologists may not use physics equations, but they're a hell of a lot better-looking than physicists are! And the physicists appreciate it, too. I mean, we're not blind. :-)

Thank you for bringing in actual laboratory physics to this discussion - amd more clearly than I was going to try to explain it!

However, in regards to your "As a physicist, if I really wanted to tick you off...." paragraph - I think physics would say it IS work. Here's why (and how it was explained to me in my kinesiology classes):
1) As you said, for work done, we care about *vertical* distance traveled, not horizontal. This isn't because we have some arbitrary hatred towards air hockey pucks sliding across the table, but because there is only one force acting against most exercising bodies: gravity, which acts in the vertical plane (ie, pulls down, not pulls forward or backwards or right or left). (There is also minor friction and air resistance, but we'll ignore that for now.) So vertical work is important because that is when we are *working against a force*.
2) The human body does virtually no work while standing upright in alignment. (Think of those giant classroom skeletons hung by one wire at the top of the skull. It doesn't require any other forces besides the tension of the wires connecting the bones - done in living humans by ligaments, muscles, and skin - to hold it in a position that is basically the same as a standing human.)
3) It is when we move out of standing alignment that we work against gravity. For example, taking a step: if you exaggerate one step so it looks like a march, you are lifting your femur (thigh bone) out of normal standing position against gravity. Therefore, the work to take one step is done in the muscles that move the femur - the quads, the psoas, etc.
4) If we were to hold our arms straight out in front of us, the muscles that hold up our arms must be working against gravity. They have a constant downward force exerted on them because they are out of standing alignment. The "work" is measured in potential energy - the amount of energy that builds up to maintain the work against gravity.
5) (Here my physics may be slightly shaky - please correct me if necessary.) The work gets harder and harder because the potential energy must increase in order to maintain the resistance to gravitational forces - in the same way the potential energy along a fault line builds and builds as the resistance between the opposite motions of the tetonic plates rises - just to maintain zero motion.

So, because your muscles have to constantly and actively work against a force, potential energy constantly increases, and *work* (in the physics sense) is done. (This is also why it's hard to hold a yoga "plank" pose for a long period of time, or a squat for a long period of time, or whatever.)

I hope that was somewhat clear and scientifically valid.