More exercise myths debunked

This week we continue with our look at exercise and fitness myths that don’t seem to go away.

Myth 8

One exercise is better at burning calories than another. This is not so much a myth as something that seems to needlessly hang people up. They often ask: is running better than cycling, or is an elliptical machine better than the ab-circle machine, or is racquetball better than soccer?

Generally, the harder you work, the more calories you burn. In other words, the higher your heart rate and oxygen consumption, the more energy you expend. So, not surprisingly, running at eight miles per hour burns more calories than running at five. But high intensity exercise is hard to sustain for very long. So ultimately it is achieving a high enough work-load over a long enough time period that burns the most calories. Now, stair-climbers, Nordic-tracks, ellipticals, bikes and treadmills (or outdoor running) all use a large muscle mass and are capable of burning a great deal of calories per minute. There are small differences between these exercises with cycling and running being slightly more efficient at calorie burning.

But if a half an hour of running burns more calories than half an hour of walking – just walk longer and you can burn the same as running. Don’t get caught up in sales gimmicks about differences in machines or how, for example, swimming and cycling don’t burn many calories because they are not weight-bearing.

Just ask Lance Armstrong and Michael Phelps about calorie-burning. Any exercise will burn the most calories for you in the long run if you like it, work at it and stay with it.

Myth 7

Doing crunches or sit-ups is the best way to strengthen your core and to protect your back. While this is a double-edged sword (and a complex issue), the ultimate answer is that there are better ways to strengthen your back than to do sit-ups. Doing sit-ups or crunches definitely will increase the strength of the abdominal muscles, but at a high penalty to the spinal structures.

Over time, and many hundreds and thousands of repetitions of curling up while doing sit-ups, and slouching while sitting and lifting with a rounded back, pressure is put on your spinal discs in a posterior direction. Given enough repetitive motion in this direction, the centre of the disc (called nucleus pulposus) gradually migrates backward and can eventually bulge through the outer rings of the disc (called annulus fibrosus) and cause a disc herniation. But this is exactly the opposite of what we want: To protect the back. There are many better exercises you can do including ones called planks and bridges. They strengthen the back with much less load on the spine. This is done by keeping the back in its normal, neutral lumbar and thoracic curves while tensing all of the core muscles (all four abdominal muscles along with the back, pelvic, hip and supporting muscles) and lifting your hips in the air from a supine, prone or side-lying position.

The stability ball can also be an effective tool used to strengthen the core if done properly. However, you should not attempt these exercises until you seek out a therapist or exercise specialist who can explain in more detail how these are done safely, especially if you have a current back problem.

Myth 6

I need supplements to improve my fitness. As far as building muscle goes, if you eat a well-balanced meal, you won’t need extra protein, amino acids or supplementation.

Even a professional bodybuilder can’t make use of ingested protein that exceeds 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight anyway. The excess gets stored as fat. And most of us mortals’ protein needs are down around 0.7 to 1.2 grams/kg. You also can’t rely on supplementation to counteract a poor diet. We evolved eating food and a healthy body depends on eating good food. We need everything from fibre to trace minerals to essential fats that come with foods. And supplementation is definitely no substitute for hot dogs, chips and beer. A sound nutrition program goes hand-in-hand with a sound exercise regimen. You can’t win any races putting low quality fuel into a finely-tuned dragster.

• Kerry Senchyna holds a bachelor of science degree in kinesiology and is owner of West Coast Kinesiology in Maple Ridge. For more visit, westcoastkinesiology.com

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