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| Employee Health & Wellness |
| Want to get the most out of your fitness efforts? |
Want to get the most out of your fitness efforts? Start with reliable information. Health Magazine reports that many of us still fall prey to fitness myths that prevent us from getting ourselves in shape. For example, many women avoid weight training because they fear building unsightly, bulky muscles. Fact is, women develop lean, sleek muscles from weight training. Weight training is vital to a great fitness regimen. Have you fallen prey to any other fitness myths related to weight training?:
Fitness myth #1: Aerobic workouts help you lose weight by boosting your metabolism.
If you want to improve your body’s ability to burn fat all day, you’ll have to include some weight training in your regimen. While aerobics increases your body’s calorie-burning power for the duration of the workout, plus during a brief “cool-down” period, the only way to boost calorie burn all day (and while you sleep) is to put on additional muscle. A pound of muscle will burn up to 40 extra calories daily.
Fitness myth #2: For a flat stomach, do crunches
Sorry. You can’t specify a certain area of your body for fat loss. Instead, continue doing your crunches about three times a week, along with other weight training and aerobic exercises, then adopt a diet that lets you take in fewer calories than you burn. In time, the fat around your middle will disappear, and your newly-toned tummy muscles will start to show through. The great thing about this is that you’ll lose fat around your thighs, your arms, your rear…
Fitness myth #3: If you stop lifting weights, your muscles will turn to fat.
Nope. “Muscle cells are muscle cells. Fat cells are fat cells.” It’s impossible for one to “morph” into the other. If you fatten up after you stop weight training, it’s because your need for calories decreased, but your diet didn’t. Experts agree that weight lifting is an important part of any life-long fitness regimen.
Take on a new fitness regimen for yourself, then encourage your employees to do likewise.
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