Are you in Canada? Click here to proceed to the HK Canada website.

For all other locations, click here to continue to the HK US website.

Human Kinetics Logo

Purchase Courses or Access Digital Products

If you are looking to purchase online videos, online courses or to access previously purchased digital products please press continue.

Mare Nostrum Logo

Purchase Print Products or eBooks

Human Kinetics print books and eBooks are now distributed by Mare Nostrum, throughout the UK, Europe, Africa and Middle East, delivered to you from their warehouse. Please visit our new UK website to purchase Human Kinetics printed or eBooks.

Feedback Icon Feedback Get $15 Off

The Human Kinetics Canada office will be closed for the holidays beginning December 24 at 12pm EST and will reopen Thu January 2 at 9am.

FREE SHIPPING!

Free shipping for orders over $100

Common fallacies in fitness training

This is an excerpt from Fitness Illustrated by Brian Sharkey.

You may come across other so-called facts about training, but you should be aware that some of them are actually fallacies or misconceptions. These oft-quoted statements are not true and have no basis in medical or scientific research.

Fallacy 1: No Pain, No Gain

Although serious training is often difficult and sometimes unpleasant, it shouldn't actually hurt. Here is an important distinction: Pain is not a natural consequence of exercise or training; it signals a problem that you need to address. In fact, well-prepared athletes sometimes perform in a state of euphoria, free of pain and oblivious to discomfort. Think about it: You've probably seen the end of a long-distance race where the winner finishes full of life even though the rest of the field appears wasted. This is made possible by the fact that when you exercise, your body produces natural opiates (endorphins) that can mask discomfort of the effort. But if you suffer real pain while training, back off. And if the pain persists, get it evaluated.

All of this notwithstanding, discomfort can accompany difficult training such as heavy lifting, intense interval training, and long-distance work. This discomfort (as distinct from pain) results naturally from the lactic acid that accompanies the anaerobic effort of lifting or doing intense intervals—and of the muscle fatigue, microscopic muscle damage, and soreness that come with long-distance training. Thus, whereas I reject the "no pain, no gain" mantra, I accept the following statement: No discomfort, no excellence. Overload is necessary for adaptation, and it sometimes requires you to work at your limit of strength, intensity, or endurance, which certainly can be uncomfortable. But if your exercise results in outright pain, it is probably excessive.

Fallacy 2: You Must Break Down Muscle to Improve

Neither pain nor injury is a normal result of training—whether for muscular endurance or for strength—and you can avoid both of these outcomes. Weightlifters can traumatize their muscles by using excessive weight or doing excessive repetitions, but such trauma is not a necessary stage in the development of strength. Similarly, some people who train and compete vigorously experience microtrauma in their muscles, but this too is an unnecessary (and undesirable!) outcome of training. Some runners, for example, experience microtrauma at the end of a marathon that includes long downhill stretches requiring eccentric muscular contractions (i.e., contractions of a lengthening muscle). Such contractions are a major cause of muscle soreness, which is associated with muscle trauma, reduced force output, and a protracted recovery period (4 to 6 weeks). Thus, "breaking down" muscle does not help you train. It brings your training to a standstill.

Read more about Fitness Illustrated.

More Excerpts From Fitness Illustrated