Exercise can be a real miracle drug. But if you follow the wrong advice, you could easily put yourself at risk of injury. One example is sit-ups: once considered the gold standard of core exercises, we now know they can make lower back pain worse.
Fitness culture is rife with these types of misconceptions.
Fitness experts shared the myths they hear most frequently and wish they could debunk once and for all.
Myth 1: You should stretch before exercising.
You've probably been told to spend a few minutes stretching before exercising. But recent research has found that stretching before exercise is not effective at preventing injuries and can actually work against you. This is because stretching a muscle for more than 90 seconds temporarily decreases its strength.
“You've just temporarily weakened all the muscle groups you're trying to train,” said Josh Goldman, associate director of the Center for Sports Medicine at UCLA Health. For effective workout preparation, try a dynamic warm-up—a series of active exercises that get your blood flowing and gently stress your muscles.
Save stretching for another time, Goldman said: “I like to tell people to do it before bed,” as it gives you time to recover before moving again.
Myth 2: Running ruins your knees.
Research has disproved the idea that running increases the risk of osteoarthritis and even suggests that it may protect the knees from the condition.
For years, experts thought that “our knees were like tires: When you drive the car too much, you run out of tires,” Goldman said. “That's not true, because our body is dynamic” and our joints can self-regenerate, especially when we are active.
That said, running can definitely lead to injuries if you train too aggressively, said Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine doctor at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NY. He called this “violating the rule of too many”—running too fast or too far too soon.
Myth 3: Walking is enough to stay fit as you get older.
Walking has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers, as well as the risk of premature death. And it's easy to do. But walking alone isn't enough to stay fit as you age, said Anne Brady, associate professor of exercise science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Starting at age 30, your muscle mass progressively decreases, she said, so you should also focus on strength training. Supplement walking with at least two 20-minute strength training sessions per week.
Myth 4: You need 10 thousand steps a day to be healthy.
The myth dates back to the 1960s, when a Japanese watch manufacturer made a pedometer whose name translated as “10,000 step meter.” Scientists debunked it years ago, but many people still see it as a benchmark of good health.
The most recent research suggests that the health benefits of walking appear to plateau at around 7,500 steps, but even as few as 4,000 can reduce the risk of dying from any cause.
Myth 5: Taking an ice bath after exercising helps recovery.
Soaking in an ice-cold tub after exercising may seem like protection against injury, as it helps reduce inflammation. But there is a problem with this.
“Not all inflammation is bad inflammation,” Goldman said. When you exercise, you create helpful inflammation by strategically stressing your muscles, and as the body heals, it builds strength, he said. If you want to address a specific injury after a workout, Goldman recommended applying ice to the injury or waiting a day before taking a cold bath, to give your muscles time to begin the repair process. For general recovery after a workout, research suggests that saunas may be more effective.
By: DANIELLE FRIEDMAN
The New York Times
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/7082416, IMPORTING DATE: 2024-01-23 19:22:03
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