The 7 Biggest Muscle Myths
We deflate the lies and inflate your biceps
By: Scott Quill Photograph by: Darryl Estrine

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The guy lifting beside you looks like he should write the book on muscle. Talks like it, too. He's worked out since the seventh grade, he played D-1 football, and he's big. But that doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about. Starting now, ignore him.

The gym is infested with bad information. Lies that start with well-intentioned gym teachers trickle down to students who become coaches, trainers, or know-it-all gym-rat preachers. Lies morph into myths that endure because we don't ask questions, for fear of looking stupid.

Scientists, on the other hand, gladly look stupid—that's why they're so darn smart. Plus, they have cool human-performance laboratories where they can prove or disprove theories and myths. Here's what top exercise scientists and expert trainers have to say about the crap that's passed around in gyms. Listen up and learn. Then go ahead, question it.

MYTH #1

Lifting incredibly slowly builds incredibly big muscles. Lifting super slowly produces superlong workouts—and that's it. University of Alabama researchers recently studied two groups of lifters doing a 29-minute workout. One group performed exercises using a 5-second up phase and a 10-second down phase, the other a more traditional approach of 1 second up and 1 second down. The faster group burned 71 percent more calories and lifted 250 percent more weight than the superslow lifters.

The real expert says: "The best increases in strength are achieved by doing the up phase as rapidly as possible," says Gary Hunter, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., the lead study author. "Lower the weight more slowly and under control." There's greater potential for growth during the lowering phase, and when you lower with control, there's less chance of injury.

MYTH #2

If you eat more protein, you'll build more muscle. To a point, sure. But put down the shake for a sec. Protein promotes the muscle-building process, called protein synthesis, "but you don't need exorbitant amounts to do this," says John Ivy, Ph.D., coauthor of Nutrient Timing. If you're working out hard, consuming more than 0.9 to 1.25 grams of protein per pound of body weight is a waste. Excess protein breaks down into amino acids and nitrogen, which are either excreted or converted into carbohydrates and stored.

The real expert says: More important is when you consume protein, and that you have the right balance of carbohydrates with it. Have a postworkout shake of three parts carbohydrates and one part protein. Eat a meal several hours later, and then reverse that ratio in your snack after another few hours, says Ivy. "This will keep protein synthesis going by maintaining high amino acid concentrations in the blood."

MYTH #3

Leg extensions are safer for your knees than squats. And cotton swabs are dangerous when you push them too far into your ears. It's a matter of knowing what you're doing. A recent study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that "open-chain" exercises—those in which a single joint is activated, such as the leg extension—are potentially more dangerous than closed-chain moves—those that engage multiple joints, such as the squat and the leg press. The study found that leg extensions activate your quadriceps muscles slightly independently of each other, and just a 5-millisecond difference in activation causes uneven compression between the patella (kneecap) and thighbone, says Anki Stensdotter, the lead study author.

The real expert says: "The knee joint is controlled by the quadriceps and the hamstrings. Balanced muscle activity keeps the patella in place and appears to be more easily attained in closed-chain exercises," says Stensdotter. To squat safely, hold your back as upright as possible and lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor (or at least as far as you can go without discomfort in your knees). Try front squats if you find yourself leaning forward. Although it's a more advanced move, the weight rests on the fronts of your shoulders, helping to keep your back upright, Stensdotter says.

MYTH #4

Never exercise a sore muscle. Before you skip that workout, determine how sore you really are. "If your muscle is sore to the touch or the soreness limits your range of motion, it's best that you give the muscle at least another day of rest," says Alan Mikesky, Ph.D., director of the human performance and biomechanics laboratory at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. In less severe instances, an "active rest" involving light aerobic activity and stretching, and even light lifting, can help alleviate some of the soreness. "Light activity stimulates bloodflow through the muscles, which removes waste products to help in the repair process," says David Docherty, Ph.D., a professor of exercise science at the University of Victoria in Canada.

The real expert says: If you're not sore to the touch and you have your full range of motion, go to the gym. Start with 10 minutes of cycling, then exercise the achy muscle by performing no more than three sets of 10 to 15 repetitions using a weight that's no heavier than 30 percent of your one-rep maximum, says Docherty.

MYTH #5

Stretching prevents injuries. Maybe if you're a figure skater. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed more than 350 studies and articles examining the relationship between stretching and injuries and concluded that stretching during a warmup has little effect on injury prevention. "Stretching increases flexibility, but most injuries occur within the normal range of motion," says Julie Gilchrist, M.D., one of the study's researchers. "Stretching and warming up have just gone together for decades. It's simply what's done, and it hasn't been approached through rigorous science."

The real expert says: Warming up is what prevents injury, by slowly increasing your bloodflow and giving your muscles a chance to prepare for the upcoming activity. To this end, Dr. Gilchrist suggests a thorough warmup, as well as conditioning for your particular sport. Of course, flexibility is a good thing. If you need to increase yours so it's in the normal range (touching your toes without bending your knees, for instance), do your stretching when your muscles are already warm.

MYTH #6

You need a Swiss ball to build a stronger chest and shoulders. Don't abandon your trusty bench for exercises like the chest press and shoulder press if your goal is strength and size. "The reason people are using the ball and getting gains is because they're weak as kittens to begin with," says Craig Ballantyne, C.S.C.S. You have to reduce the weight in order to press on a Swiss ball, and this means you get less out of the exercise, he says.

The real expert says: A Swiss ball is great for variety, but center your chest and shoulder routines on exercises that are performed on a stable surface, Ballantyne says. Then use the ball to work your abs.

MYTH #7

Always work out with free weights. Sometimes machines can build muscle better—for instance, when you need to isolate specific muscles after an injury, or when you're too inexperienced to perform a free-weight exercise. If you can't complete a pullup, you won't build your back muscles. So do lat pulldowns to develop strength in this range of motion, says Greg Haff, Ph.D., director of the strength research laboratory at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.

The real expert says: "Initially, novice athletes will see benefits with either machines or free weights, but as you become more trained, free weights should make up the major portion of your training program," says Haff. Free-weight exercises mimic athletic moves and generally activate more muscle mass. If you're a seasoned lifter, free weights are your best tools to build strength or burn fat.

New Theory on Why Low-Carb Diets Work

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When researchers restricted carbs, dieters simply ate less
By E.J. Mundell, HealthDay Reporter

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MONDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) -- A new study involving obese individuals suggests the reason the Atkins, Zone and other low-carb regimens help people lose weight is that dieters don't substitute fatty or sugary foods for the carbohydrates they lack.

Instead, they simply eat less food.

"Take the carbohydrates away, and I expected the participants would just eat more of the other stuff," said researcher Dr. Guenther Boden, a professor of biochemistry at Temple University, in Philadelphia.

"But they didn't. In fact, it turned out they ate 1,000 calories less every day," he said.

The findings, published in the March 15 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, may help allay concerns these diets raise heart risks linked to increased fat consumption.

According to Boden, numerous theories have been floated as to how low-carbohydrate diets trigger weight loss.

"The possibilities were: People eat less, they expend more calories, they don't really lose body mass but instead they lose water, and a fourth possibility -- very popularly expressed -- that carbohydrate calories are somehow different from other calories," he said.

To help determine the correct answer, his team sequestered 10 obese patients, all diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, in a controlled, clinical environment where diets were strictly monitored for three weeks. Boden's team also used the very latest technology to assess weight-related outcomes such as body mass loss, water loss, and total calories expended.

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For the first week, participants ate their usual mixed diet. But during the last two weeks the researchers restricted their intake of carbohydrates from an average of 300 grams per day to just 20 grams a day.

At the same time, a tempting array of fatty, sugary and other foods was readily available to all.

"We told them 'Look, you can eat as much of anything else as you want, whenever you want,' " Boden said.

The result: By the end of the two-week low-carb regimen, patients lost an average of 1.65 kilograms (3.6 pounds) and reduced their daily caloric intake by nearly 1,000 calories -- from an average of 3,111 calories before they began the diet, to just 2,164 calories while on the low-carb regimen.

"In other words, they self-corrected their previously excessive appetites down to normal," Boden said.

And that magic number of around 2,100 calories per day "turned out to be exactly the amount of energy they should've been consuming to start with" to avoid weight gain, he added.

As happens naturally with weight loss, diabetes risk factors such as insulin and blood-glucose levels began to noticeably improve. So did levels of unhealthy blood fats called triglycerides -- a finding noted in previous studies that looked at the effects of low-carb diets on cardiovascular health.

The study, which was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association, still leaves unanswered the question of why carb-deprived individuals don't reach for sugars, proteins or fats.

"The only thing that makes sense to me is a drop in insulin," Boden said. "I've been treating diabetics for decades, and every time I start them on insulin they gain weight. So I am sure insulin has something to do with appetite."

"I can't prove it, of course," he added, "Because we still know so very little about appetite. Everyone's on thin ice there."

Dietitian Cathy Nonas is director of the obesity and diabetes program at North General Hospital, in New York City, and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. She said the study doesn't tell scientists much they didn't already know about low-carb diets.

"If you look at all of the Atkins data that's ever been done, including USDA White Papers and so forth, people lose weight on the Atkins diet because they eat lower amounts of calories," she said. "And that's true of most diets."

And Nonas said previous studies have suggested that cutting back on one type of food doesn't necessarily mean people are going to gorge on another.

She's also concerned that the Temple study didn't include a control group -- participants the researchers could have used for comparison purposes.

"The problem here," she said, "is that we don't have a study where you also looked at taking away meat, for example -- would we have seen similar, greater, or less change in weight?"

But another expert believes the new study "adds to the literature suggesting that low-carbohydrate diets may have a place in the treatment of obesity."

In his editorial comment, Dr. George A. Bray, of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, La., called the Temple research "nicely done."

Long-term studies focused on the Atkins diet have found short-term weight loss that often exceeds that seen in other diets, Bray writes, "but the differences vanished after 12 months." He believes low-carb regimens should be simply added to a growing list of relatively safe weight-loss options for America's overweight and obese.

Nonas remains skeptical that any diet that excludes a whole food group can be healthy -- or sustainable -- over the very long term, however. And she believes Americans need only look abroad to find an ideal dietary model for life.

"All of the societies with low levels of the kinds of diseases [that plague us] have diets with lots of vegetables and fruits, a small amount of whole grains, portion-control, and a much higher fiber intake," she said. "And fiber isn't something that's been high on the list in any of these studies."

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