Fitness Fads!
Fads are everywhere, people are often like sheep – latching onto ideologies and techniques that others use, even when they’re unsure of the benefits.
1. Following A Low Carb Diet
2. Eating Gluten Free When You’re Not Gluten Intolerant
If you’re gluten intolerant, not a problem.
In short, gluten free foods for those who are not gluten intolerant is a fad and is detremental to your health and your wallet because:
Gluten free foods are often more expensive
3. CrossFit
Pulled muscles, torn ligaments, sprains, strains and sore lower backs are all common amongst the CrossFit community.Now, this isn’t particularly surprising and there are a few likely causes:
When performing compound exercises like the squat, deadlift or even more advanced Olympic lifts such as the snatch it is essential that correct form is being utilized – CrossFit coaches NEED to teach all newbies the proper form and ensure they use it.
Individuals are encouraged to push A LOT more weight than they really should be during their WODs which leads to a compromise in form, resulting in a highly increased risk of injury.
- Workouts, referred to as ‘WODs’ can be downright dangerous when combing heavy lifting with high intensity cardio in a race against the clock
- There’s far too much reliance on momentum and kipping to complete exercises and sets, eliminating any tension on the muscle (which is required for both size and strength gains)
- Emphasis is placed on saving time, 12 minute workouts and the like will get you no-where (intensity isn’t everything, volume is required too!)
- You won’t be able to build an aesthetic physique solely relying on CrossFit, although many coaches and gyms will promise you that you indeed can
- It’s a big cash business, every gym must pay hefty fees to utilize the CrossFit name – bodybuilding, HIIT, plyometrics and cardio aren’t trademarked business names…
4. Eating Religiously Every 2 Hours
Eating every couple of hours means you’re going to be constantly digesting food, when you’re constantly digesting food you’ll find yourself feeling lethargic, lacking the energy and focus to get shit done.
5. Never Performing The Same Workout Twice
I’m sure you’ve heard it before, whether it was on a forum, from a personal trainer (don’t get me started) from your training buddy or even in an article on a popular fitness website.“You need to change up your routine every week to keep your muscles guessing”
“Shock the body and switch up your exercises often”
“You’ll stop making gains because the body will get used to the exercises you’re doing”
That my friends, for lack of a better word is a load of crap.
I’m not entirely sure how this myth came to fruition although I do suspect it was initially pushed out by fitness magazines, in an attempt to keep their readers coming back month after month to get new workouts so they can keep progressing… supposedly.
Last time I checked our muscles don’t have cognitive abilities…
Your body doesn’t know if you’re doing an incline dumbbell press or an incline barbell press, so why would it refuse to grow?
Because you’re not progressing…
Your muscles are forced to adapt (read: grow, become stronger) as the tension on the muscle increases. In order to increase tension on the muscle we need to apply progressive overload. Progressive overload can be achieved in a variety of ways including increasing the amount of reps you are performing, the weight you are lifting or the volume you are doing per workout.
If you’re performing different exercises on a weekly basis you won’t be able to track progression, are you applying the same tension to the muscle now that you are performing concentration curls as you were when you were performing preacher curls?
Who knows…
Thus progressive overload cannot be applied.
Ditch the muscle confusion myth with switching workout routines and focus on gaining size and strength via the no BS, time-tested progressive overload technique.