We all have different reasons for exercising – we do it to lose weight, to have a bikini-ready body, or to have the energy needed to perform our day-to-day activities. However, a large percentage of exercise buffs don’t get the most out of their exercise routines because of some wrong beliefs in exercising. Let’s try to look at these exercise myths one by one and get the lowdown on each of them:

Exercise Myth No. 1: No pain, no gain. This may be true to some extent, but blindly believing this credo may cause injuries especially to beginners. When you feel a burning pain while exercising, this means that lactic acid is building up, making it difficult to go on with your routine. This buildup has not proven beneficial and beginners may mistake a sprain or injury for it, putting them at the risk of sustaining further injuries. It’s true that if you don’t increase frequencies or durations, you won’t get far, but there are also instances when pain isn’t needed for results. Swimming, for instance, is a very enjoyable and often painless activity, but it doesn’t mean you’re not burning off calories and building muscle tissue.

Exercise Myth No. 2: Discontinuing strength training will turn muscle into fat. Muscle cells are different from muscle cells, and one can’t transform to the other. When you stop strength training, your muscle cells begin to catabolize and shrivel. In the same vein, stopping exercise but eating the same amount of food will result in excess fat, making it seem that the muscle has “turned” to fat.

Exercise Myth No. 3: Warming up is necessary; cooling down isn’t. When you warm up prior to any exercise routine, you’re actually preparing your body for some heightened aerobic activity. Stretching, breathing, and light exercises gradually prepare your heart rate for it to meet the coming need for more oxygen. Warm-up exercises are also needed to deliver blood to your extremities where the muscles would need added oxygen.

Many of us have the habit of working out rigorously up to the last minute and failing to cool down. Cooling down is needed to help the heart gradually return to a lower rate. Stretching during cooling down is also needed to give you that needed longer-lasting flexibility. Without cooling down, you’ll risk blood collecting in your extremities or feeling extremely lightheaded after your workout.

Exercise Myth No. 4: Perform spot-reduction exercises to deal with problem areas. Thousands of exercisers have been misled by this myth, causing unspeakable frustration to many. The myth revolves around the idea that if you have a paunch, you need only to exercise that area and it will soon turn into impressive washboard abs.

The truth is you can’t burn fat from this area, but you can burn calories. When you want a sculpted body, you have to get involved with a total routine such as aerobics, weight training, or yoga. Performing crunches could help improve your endurance but to flatten it, you must reduce fat in the abdominal region, and this can only be achieved when you combine strength and cardio training with a balanced diet.

Exercise Myth No. 5: Thin people don’t need to exercise. Exercising is for everyone. It keeps all the organs healthy, improves strength and endurance, and sculpts the body. It also helps get rid of the toxins when we sweat. If thin people do away with exercise, they’ll be prone to diseases such as osteoporosis. Depending on their gender, height, weight, body type, and degree of fitness, ebem thin people should have an appropriate regular exercise routine.