Sh@t My Trainer Says…..

“Fitness Professionals” usually aren’t all that professional…

I mean, you can buy a Living Social coupon to save on getting certified…

That’s certainly not the case all of the time but there are far too many people in this business who really don’t know what’s going on.

But they pretend toooo….

And this time of year LOTS of people are trying to get into shape and have hired trainers or got As Seen on TV products or started going to Bootcamps or whatever.

They don’t know what the hell is going on, it’s not their job, they’re paying the fitness Yoda for that.

So they only know what the jackass Yoda in front of them says which usually is about as logical as when people used to get upset when I would say there was NO WAY  Lance Armstrong was clean….

Remember that? That was fun.

This is just a little collection of some of the crap I’ve heard so far this year.

 

“You need to eat a Caveman diet to lose weight. People eat too much crap, that’s why they can’t lose weight”

That would be true except;

It’s NOT..

Calories in versus calories out, for the most part.

• eat more than you burn= gain weight
• eat less than you burn= lose weight

Is the “Caveman diet” healthy?…yeah

Would it be good for most people?…yeah

Is not following it the reason people are fat?…Hell No…..

You can even eat like total sh@t and lose weight…this guy did.

“For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.

His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food.

The premise held up: On his “convenience store diet,” he shed 27 pounds in two months.”

Eating like garbage isn’t the best, or even an advisable, way to lose weight but if someone tells you have to eat this way or that, unless you are very lean or have some type of medical condition, is full of crap.

 

“You MUST do cardio to lose fat”

See the above….

Now actually THINK about that….then think about this.

Endurance training (over time) teaches the body to be a more efficient engine…

Fat is the most efficient fuel source…

Protein the least efficient fuel source……

Therefore:

The body will preferentially store fat and sacrifice muscle to enhance this efficiency.

This is the heart of adaptation.

Will some cardio help you burn some extra calories? Yes

Can that lead to fat reduction? Yes

Can it lead to muscle reduction? Yes

It all depends on the dose, intensity, genetic factors and LOTS of other variables…

But in and of its self cardiovascular training alone is a poor fat loss plan.

It’s essentially a complete misunderstanding of how fat loss even occurs. Ask a trainer how to burn fat and they’ll reply with “aerobics”. They have been brainwashed to think that aerobic exercise = fat loss. It doesn’t. It simply means that your energy needs are being met by the aerobic energy system.

If you look at the research, you’ll be struggling to come up with much research that shows aerobic training to be effective, and NONE that shows it to be more effective than intervals or resistance training.- Alwyn Cosgrove

 

“Women Shouldn’t lift heavy weights because they’ll get bulky”

This is just stupid…

Guys have trouble adding weight and they tend to:

• lift more volume
• Lift more weight
• train more often
• eat more food
• have more testosterone
• have more growth hormone

Let this old myth die its rightful death….

Lift weights, lift heavy, work hard….you’ll be just fine.

 

“It’s important to work on  balance training”

Balance training?

Like on a tightrope? Or a balance beam?

This is shorthand for,

“I don’t know what I’m doing but you’ll struggle at this and I’ll look smart”.

Balance is surface and movement specific…

Balance is a skill and is learned….yes, as you stand on the Bosu you get better at it.

Your skill at Standing on  Bosu improved.

Not your balance…..

Balance in the real world IE where the surface is flat, hard and not moving..is really the interplay of internal and external rotators much like the guy-wires on a tower.

They, internal and external rotators, have to act with equal force in unison to keep the bone centered in the joint…hence maintaining balance.

 

“Why do one repetition of something when you can’t do 10?”

Maybe because the qualities you’re training with a single are different from those trained with 10 reps.

Very Simplified Explanation:

• High Rep/ Low Weight= Muscle Endurance, Hypertrophy of Type I Fibers.
• Low Rep/ High Weight= Muscular Strength, Muscular Power, Stimulation of Type II Fibers, Activation of High Threshold Motor Units.
• Moderate Reps/ Moderate Weight= Hypertrophy primarily of the Type II Fibers.

In general, at some point in their program everyone should be training in each of these rep ranges.

As per my personal experience with this question:

Older people especially should be training, at least occasionally, with heavy weights for low reps because as you age you WILL naturally lose strength and power due to a lack of stimulation of High Threshold Motor Units which leads to a conversion of Type II Fibers to Type I.

Endurance is NOT what most, especially aging (50yrs+), people need….

They need STRENGTH and POWER.

Grandma didn’t stop doing things in her garden because her Vo2 Max was poor, it became poor because she stopped moving and doing.

And you will too if you LOSE THE STRENGTH to be able to walk, pick things up, carry things, get down to the ground and get up off the ground confidently, swiftly and easily.

 Loss of muscle mass among the aged directly results in diminished muscle function. Decreased strength and power contribute to the high incidence of accidental falls observed among the elderly and can compromise quality of life.- Deschenes MR.

 

“You don’t need any more protein” and “Too much protein will destroy your kidneys”

Logic says: Protein is the building block of EVERY structure in the human body.

Exercise, especially resistance training, sends the signal to tear down and rebuild existing structures heavier, thicker and more resilient than before.

So you wouldn’t need more when you send those signals to your body?

Ohh,  hey,

The current recommended level of protein intake (0.8 g/kg/day) is estimated to be sufficient to meet the need of nearly all (97.5%) healthy men and women age 19 years and older. This amount of protein intake may be appropriate for non-exercising individuals, but it is likely not sufficient to offset the oxidation of protein/amino acids during exercise (approximately 1–5% of the total energy cost of exercise) nor is it sufficient to provide substrate for lean tissue accretion or for the repair of exercise induced muscle damage [3,4].

it is the position of the International Society of Sport Nutrition that exercising individuals ingest protein ranging from 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg/day.- ISSN Position Paper

So, yeah,

• o.8 g/kg/day for non-exercisers.
• 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg/day for exercisers

……..See, the thing is; that’s more.

From the same paper:

It is often erroneously reported by popular media that a chronically high protein intake is unhealthy and may result in unnecessary metabolic strain on the kidneys leading to impaired renal function.

One of the main points of debate relative to protein intake and kidney function is the belief that habitual protein consumption in excess of the RDA promotes chronic renal disease through increased glomerular pressure and hyperfiltration [19,20].

the extension of this relationship to healthy individuals with normal renal function is inappropriate [21].- ISSN 

 

That’s just a snippet of the un-wisdom that some of these Yoda’s are throwing around these days.

Easy ways to guard against fitness based intellectual jackassery:

• Use Logic: Think critically about things
• Ask Questions: Most Yoda’s don’t like to explain things (cause they have no answer)
• DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH….don’t just believe things, check, double-check and cross-reference.

It sucks, but if you don’t want to be taken for a ride in this game you have to do some fact checking, research and thinking on your own.

Don’t be a lemming…use your gray matter..