Fact or Fiction? Answers to Weight Training Questions

Can You Believe That Weight Training Advice?

Consider this list of weight training recommendations for accuracy and relevance.

You should never lock out the joints on extension. Partly true. This refers to the act of straightening the legs or elbows during the extension part of an exercise such as the leg press, bench press or overhead press. The reasoning is that joints can be overextended resulting in injury.

While you can read this recommendation on many general fitness sites, you see it less on the more professional bodybuilding, powerlifting and Olympic lifting sources. The reason is that in exercises like the overhead press and specialist forms such as the snatch and clean and jerk, and the bench press, the arms are required to be locked out for good form and also exercise completion in competition.

On the other hand, for beginners, until form, strength and joint conditioning advances, the advice to not explosively lock out joints seems to be fair advice.

However, the joints are not going to suddenly explode if the arms or legs are straightened under load.

Cardio workouts will make you lose muscle. False -- up to a point. This is a matter of quantity and quality. Three of four cardio sessions a week of about 50 minutes duration will do wonders for your heart and lungs -- and managed correctly will not affect a muscle building program. If you are training for a marathon though, don't expect to be able to build muscle bulk as well.

For further discussion, see Cardio Before or After Weights?

Pulldowns or presses behind the neck are dangerous. Partly true. With the shoulder joint externally rotated, pulling or pushing behind the head with the joint in rearward rotation is easier for some than others because of shoulder flexibility and natural biomechanical structure. The rotator cuff complex of muscles and tendons that controls the shoulder joint may not take kindly to this type of exercise.

Leg (knee) extensions will damage your knees. Mostly not true. The leg extension machine is not favored by some trainers because the particular movement of the kneecap in relation to the tibia and femur, the lower and upper leg bones, may cause tendonitis and ligament damage according to this theory.

My view is that this is another 'absolutist' position similar to 'you should never lock out the joints'. I like to keep leg extension weights low enough to allow, say, 8-12 repetitions but nowhere near 'failure', which is the point where you really struggle to perform the movement. A personal best or 1RM should never be attempted on the leg extension machine unless you are really sure of your capabilities. Go easy with the weight on this exercise and stop if pain is felt.

Leg presses may damage the vertebral discs in the back. Mostly not true. See the response above to leg extensions. A similar approach applies to leg presses. Don't try to push too heavy. As soon as you feel extraordinary pressure in the lower back, lighten up the weight and stop if pain is felt.

Children should never do weight training. False. I've answered this one in Children Benefit From Weight Training Too.

Women build big muscles and look too brawny. False. Similarly, see Why Women Should do Strength Training.

You need a lot of protein to build and maintain muscle. Mostly not true. You do need more protein than sedentary people but not as much as many bodybuilders and weight trainers recommend. More than 2 grams protein/kilogram body weight each day or equal to around 1 gram/pound of bodyweight is the maximum that can be recommended based on the latest scientific research. You will do quite well with less than this for lower-intensity training as long as you eat the required calories. See the Weight Trainer's Bodybuilding Diet for more information.

Doing incline chest presses will firm the breasts. Probably false. I'm not sure where this one came from, but I guess because the incline chest press works the upper pectoral chest muscles someone decided that this could affect the tone of breast tissue, which is mainly fat. I can't see it happening.

You can spot remove fat from one part of the body. False. This just does not occur. When you lose fat it tends to disappear from the body in a fashion that is genetically determined. Some of us may be lucky enough to lose it from the abs first and others will see it hang in there on the stomach even when we start to shed from other areas. Exercising one part of the body may build muscle there, but it won't tend to show through until the fat is lost. You just need to be patient and wait and work it out.

High intensity weight training will keep you fit. Generally false. It depends on how you define 'fitness', but even intense weight training will not produce much aerobic or cardiovascular fitness as measured by the amount of oxygen you can process per given time and a lowered heart rate. This is defined by the VO2 maximum or milliliters of oxygen consumed per minute per kilogram of bodyweight.

To get aerobically fit, and this has many health benefits, you need to perform aerobic training in which the major muscle groups, particularly the legs, move constantly and regularly -- running, walking cycling are good examples.

Super slow weight training is the best way to build muscle. Not yet known. Superslow weight training is a method in which deliberately slow movements are encouraged for the purpose of muscle building. Proponents claim this method is superior to other systems that use faster exercise execution.

The few scientific studies conducted of this type of training have not reached a definite conclusion. Superslow seems to benefit some weight trainers and for others it appears to be less effective. See a good review of Superslow training by Jeff Nelson and Len Kravitz.

Summing up: you can see that I tend not to take absolute positions on many of these topical yet arguable weight training recommendations. It's not because I am 'sitting on the fence', but because the variables are many and not every person will respond the same to a given situation or training recommendation depending on their age, gender, existing fitness and genetic endowment. Feel free to discuss any of these issues further with me.