Six Resistance Training Myths That Just Won't Die

1) High Reps Gets You Toned While Heavy Weight and Low Reps Makes You Bulky

There is no such thing as “toning” muscle.  It doesn’t exist; please drop it from your vocabulary immediately.  The toned look that most people desire comes from a combination of muscle growth and a reduction in body fat.  To understand why this is the case, one must first understand how muscle growth works. 

Building muscle is a product of hypertrophy, a process where the muscle is under load for a period of time that forces microscopic tears in the muscle, which must be repaired by the body, causing growth as the body prepares itself so that the tearing of the muscle, (considered trauma by the brain) doesn’t occur again.  Therefore, in order to continue building muscle, you must increase the load on the muscle in order to force the body to repair it and grow.  Doing the same or less weight over and over will be unsuccessful because the body will adapt to the stimulus (weight being used) and the gains you saw initially will no longer occur. 

According to the National Strength and Conditioning Association, the ideal number of repetitions to achieve muscular hypertrophy is between seven and 15.  This amount of time under tension, when progressively overloaded (more weight is added over time) will result in the most muscular growth.  There is a ceiling.  Past 15 reps, muscular endurance becomes the main training result, and because the load being lifted is not great enough, there will be little muscular growth achieved. 

So, now that we’ve established that the ideal rep range for building muscle is between seven and 15 reps per set with moderate to heavy weights, where do low rep sets with heavy weight fit in?  Well, compound movements like squats, deadlifts and overhead presses, done between one and six reps with heavy loads, are ideal for building muscular and neurological strength, while releasing natural growth hormones in the body charged with helping the body prepare for future work.  The upshot, heavy loads handled between one and six reps in a set help to build pure strength.  If you build strength, you will be able to handle heavier loads when performing exercises for the purpose of building muscle.  As was discussed earlier, the more weight you are able to handle between seven and 15 reps, the greater the adaptation in muscle growth will be.

Therefore, low reps and heavy weight will not make you bulky, but rather will help you build the strength necessary to overload muscles to a greater extent with more weight when training to build muscle.  The “bulky” look that some people get is due to improper nutrition and over-eating while in conjunction with resistance training.  In order to look “toned” or “ripped” it is necessary to build strength by training with compound exercises and heavy weight between 1-6 reps, achieve hypertrophy by training moderate to heavy weights between 7-15 reps, and finally, eat properly so you do not add excess body fat. 

The Main Point—Build strength with heavy weights and reps between 1-6, build muscle with moderate to heavy weights and reps between 7-15, and eat properly.  Sets above 15 reps will result in improvements in muscular endurance NOT muscle growth.

Christmas Abbott

2) Heavy Weightlifting Will Make Women Big and Bulky

Ladies, you cannot get big and bulky.  I repeat, it is not possible for lifting weights to make you big and bulky or jacked without the use of steroids.  The only things that will happen when you lift weights are as follows:

1) Increased strength

2) Fat loss, YES FAT LOSS from lifting heavy weights

3) Decrease in the occurrence of osteoporosis later in life due to increased bone density from resistance training, in addition to a decrease in other chronic illnesses associated with a sedentary lifestyle, age, and/or obesity

4) Muscle growth, which in turn causes the body to burn fat even after the weight training session is done

5) Increase in self-esteem through gains in strength and muscle, while fat is reduced, and as a result of the body’s positive hormone response to resistance training

6) Injury prevention and improvement of long-term health.  Do you want to be the 60 or 70-year-old woman who can’t stand up out of your seat?  Can’t walk up the steps?  Can’t leave your home because your body is failing you?  The older you get the MORE you should use resistance training to keep your body functioning properly!

The jacked or bulky look that women are afraid of is actually physically possible for the average woman to achieve regardless of how heavy they lift.  The main hormone responsible for muscle growth is testosterone, the dominant hormone in men.  Fortunately for women, they don’t have nearly as much testosterone as they do estrogen, the dominant female hormone.  Without testosterone, muscle growth on a large scale won’t occur. 

Female powerlifters and bodybuilders, who look masculine and jacked, don’t get that way from lifting weights.  They get that way by taking performance-enhancing drugs that block their natural hormones and introduce synthetic testosterone into their bodies.

The upshot--don’t worry about getting big from weight lifting ladies, but if you want to burn fat, build SOME muscle and strength, decrease the chances of serious health problems as you age, and just build overall self-confidence, lifting weights, HEAVY weights, is the way to go.

Main Point—There are numerous health benefits to heavy weightlifting for women.  While most women are afraid of building an unattractive and bulky physique, there is no real danger of this occurring.  Weight training helps to build strength, muscle, bone density, ligament strength, burn fat and decreases the chances of serious chronic diseases associated with obesity and sedentary lifestyles.  Straight up if you are a female looking for ways to change your body composition and lose unwanted body fat, you need to include resistance training in your workouts.  

Dmitry Klokov Push Pressing Over 400 pounds
The push press is a great overhead variation for building strength
that will translate to the bench press

3) The Best Way to Increase Your Bench Press is to Bench Press All The Time 

I will admit I used to think this way.  I used to bench press three times a week.  My bench would stall out and id wonder why I wasn’t seeing gains anymore.  I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve flat benched in the last two years.  Not only do I hate the bench press, but I also found that my bench press went up even though I was never doing it.

This past fall, I finally had a concrete example of exactly what I’m talking about.  After not bench-pressing once all summer, I came back to football and sustained a knee injury the first game of the season.  Part of my rehab was upper body training.  However, not once did I perform a flat bench press.  My training consisted of incline presses, overhead presses like military presses and push presses, and jerks, in addition to direct triceps work and upper back work through pushups, dips, pull ups and rows.

At the end of the season after a couple months of heavy overhead work and heavy incline pressing, in addition to upper back work, my buddy Dimi challenged me to max out my flat bench press the last Sunday workout of the season.  After not having flat benched even once in SEVEN MONTHS, I hit a lifetime personal record of 345 pounds for 3 easy reps.  Since then, I have never used the flat bench in my programming or the programming of other athletes, and so far, everyone’s flat bench has increased as a result.  Another example is Dimi Artale, who hit 375 for an easy single on flat bench after months of my programming that included no flat benching.

The reason is this:  most people think that the pectorals (chest muscles) are the prime movers in the bench press.  They set up entire days devoted to the chest muscles, spending hours working their chest from every angle with every exercise imaginable.  Then they are in shock when their bench press stalls or even decreases.  Not only are they over-working their chest muscles, but even more important than the chest muscles in the bench press are the shoulders, upper back, and triceps. 

Simply put, if you want to press big weight, you need to build strength and power in your shoulders, upper back, and triceps.  There is an old saying, a big overhead press can build a big bench, but a big bench won’t build a big overhead press.  All of my athletes do a ton of overhead work including military presses, push presses and heavy jerks, as well as incline presses, heavy rows, pull ups, and direct triceps work.  Building these muscles and movements directly improves the athlete’s bench press, without ever getting on a flat bench. 

Main Point—Building the shoulders, upper back and triceps through heavy overhead presses, incline presses, pull ups, rows, and triceps work like dips and pushups has shown to improve the bench press strength of myself and other athletes I’ve worked with, without ever actually performing a flat bench press.  Direct chest work like chest flies and constant, repeated flat bench presses will not improve bench press strength as effectively.

4) Deadlifting is Bad for Your Back

There are few exercises better than the
deadlift for adding strength and muscle to the whole
body while burning fat

The deadlift and its variations are some of the best ways to build strength and muscle in the entire body.   The deadlift allows for the handling of extremely heavy loads while utilizing nearly every muscle in the body.  Because the deadlift includes so many muscles and motor patterns in one movement, the hormonal and neurological response to heavy deadlifting is among the greatest of any movement in all of resistance training.  Most people don’t realize this, but strength and muscle growth are as much a product of the brain as anything else.  Heavy loads that utilize a large number of muscles groups at once create a tremendous neurological response, including the release of growth hormones like testosterone in the blood to help build muscle.  Additionally, the neurological response to having to coordinate so many muscles to move a heavy load like is often lifted in the deadlift forces the brain to adapt and learn to coordinate your muscles efficiently in order to complete the lift.  Through training, without even building muscle, this neurological adaptation will on its own lead to strength gains.  Another advantage to the deadlift is that when large muscle groups are coordinated and used simultaneously in one movement, more calories are burned because the body is doing more work.  The work needed to perform a deadlift is MUCH greater then that needed to perform a bicep curl due to the deadlift requiring more muscle action and allowing for the use of heavier weight.  Therefore, those looking to lose weight or burn fat should also be deadlifting heavy, because the movement will use more calories and energy then most other resistance training movements.

Safe to say, regardless of your goal in the gym, you should be deadlifting.  Some believe that deadlifting is bad for your back.  Simply put, any movement you do in the gym or with resistance can be dangerous if performed improperly.  The deadlift is only dangerous if it is not practiced or performed with proper technique using loads that allow for proper technique.  When done properly, the deadlift will actually build the spinal erectors and stabilizers, which are the muscles responsible for stabilizing and protecting the spine and for the natural human movement of standing up.  Most times, back injuries occur when people deadlift with a rounded lumbar spine or over-extended spine, or with weights that is too heavy for them to maintain the positions necessary to do the lift properly.  The muscles primarily responsible for moving the weight in the deadlift are the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and hips.  While there are many other muscles involved, those other muscles are accessory muscles, and serve to stabilize the rest of the body while the primary movers do the work of moving the bar.  If you find yourself feeling like your back is incredibly sore from deadlifting, the likelihood is that you are using your lower back to move the bar that is improper and dangerous.  Check your ego at the door, lower the weight, and learn how to do the movement properly by utilizing your legs, which are made up of the strongest muscles in the human body   If you are capable of doing it properly, regardless of your goals, you should be deadlifting, or at the very least, doing movements that involve you lifting a loaded bar off the ground. 

The Main Point—Deadlifts are among the best resistance training movements for building muscle, strength and power of the entire body, as well as burning body fat.  Deadlifts are only unsafe when performed incorrectly under loads that don’t allow the individual to maintain proper technique. 

5) You Can Spot Reduce Fat

This is one of my favorites.  Guys and girls who want to get rid of their love handles stand in the mirror at the gym with a weight bending back and forth.  Let me be clear, you cannot, CANNOT decide what fat you get rid of.  Whether it’s your arms, your love handles, belly fat, or your hips and butt if you’re a girl, you don’t get to decide what fat you burn.  Each person stores body fat in different amounts and different locations depending sex, age, genetics, etc.  No matter how hard you try, those pesky love handles won’t go away no matter how many weighted side bends you do.

“Toning” as it is often referred to, is simply building muscle and burning fat so that the muscle is defined and visible.  Unfortunately, you have no control over where your body stores its fat or where you burn it first.  All you can do is lift heavy weight and eat properly, adding in some cardio or circuit style resistance training to try to increase fat burning.  As much as I wish I could tell you that you can get rid of your love handles, fat on the back or your arm, hip or butt fat, that’s just not how it works.  Your body stores fat where it seems fit, and will burn fat from where it wants to.  Trying to do a movement that squeezes an area of unwanted fat will do absolutely nothing get rid of it.

The reality is, that if you really want to burn fat, the best way is a combination of heavy, moderate, and circuit style resistance training.  Heavy and moderate resistance training helps to build muscle and strength, which compliment each other.  Performing movements like squats, deadlifts, RDLs, overhead presses, and rows are great bang-for-your-buck exercises to build strength and muscle, as well as free more muscle building testosterone and growth hormones in your blood.  Additionally, as I’ve mentioned earlier, resistance training that results in muscle growth turns the body into a fat burning machine long after you leave the gym.

Main Point—You can’t choose where your body stores fat or where you burn it.  You also can’t get rid of specific fat storage sites by doing exercises that isolate the muscle or muscles in that area.  The best way to burn fat throughout the whole body is to build muscle throughout the whole body through heavy compound movements like squats, deadlifts, cleans and presses.

6) You Can Target and Build Different Parts of a Muscle Through Different Exercises at Various Angles.

I see it and hear it all the time.  Guys in the gym spending two hours or more on a single body part.  Stop and think about that.  A single, small muscle like the bicep, or the pectorals (chest), receives TWO HOURS OF YOUR TIME.  On “arms day” they’ll stand in the mirror and do hammer curls, dumbbell curls, preacher curls, lying curls, barbell curls, twisting curls, reverse curls, the list goes on and on.  When I finally crack and ask why they’re doing all of this they say something to the affect of, “I’m trying to hit all the parts of the bicep, right now I’m trying to build up my lower bicep…”

The reason that this is a huge waste of your time is the “All or None Principle.”  The simple explanation of the “all or none principle” of muscle action is that a muscle either contracts or it doesn’t.  This includes so-called “groups” of muscles like the abdominals.  Therefore, when you do ANY kind of curl at ANY angle, your bicep muscle is the prime mover.  You can’t isolate a certain part of the bicep or target it.  When you do a curl, your whole bicep contracts, it’s that simple.  When you do an abdominal exercise, like a sit up, straight leg raise, crunch, etc. your abdominals contract.  You cannot isolate your lower abdominals, upper abdominals, etc.  I know this flies in the face of so much of the horrendous information that is out there on fitness, but it is reality.  Seeing the “cuts” and “tone” of muscles that so many people are trying to achieve by isolating various parts of their body is done by building the muscle and cutting body fat through proper nutrition, weight training, and cardiovascular training.

Other examples of misunderstood exercises are the various bench press movements.  No, the incline bench press does not work the upper chest, the flat bench work the whole chest, and the decline work the lower chest.  The incline bench press, due to the angle at which you press, utilizes the shoulders to a greater extent then the flat bench, but regardless of the angle, the pectoral muscles either contract fully or they don’t.  The amount of force they produce is another matter, but the fact is changing the angle of the bench press has NOTHING to do with what part of the chest muscle is used because…drum roll please, when a muscle contracts THE WHOLE MUSCLE CONTRACTS. 

Main Point—Due to the “All or None Principle,” which states that a muscle or “muscle group” either contracts or it doesn’t, it is impossible to isolate one part of a muscle by changing the angle of the exercises.  Simply put, either the muscle contracts or it doesn’t.