Muscle "Myths" article - this can't be right

[Ibizan]

There was an article in this morning's edition of the Washington Post that stated several myths about weight training. I'm a big fan of Venuto, Ellis, et al but these "myths" tend to contradict a lot of what they preach and what I've been told. What's everyone's take on this?

If you expect more muscle mass to give a big boost to your daily metabolism, as is often claimed, think again. "Add two pounds of muscle, and you burn about 24 calories of extra metabolism per day," said David Nieman, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. "If it's four pounds of muscle, you get on the order of an extra 50 calories burned per day."

That adds up to 350 calories in a week -- or about the energy contained in a tenth of a pound of fat. "You would have to go for 70 days before that would translate to burning a pound of fat," Nieman said. Sure, over the course of a year, Nieman said, these calories could add up. "But keep it in context with everything else," including other daily activities and a healthy diet.

Here are some other myths about strength training:

Added protein is needed to build muscle. Most Americans already eat about 90 grams of protein per day, "enough protein to meet the needs of a professional bodybuilder," Nieman said. "To take in a protein supplement is just crazy. It's not needed."

Pumping iron burns a lot of calories. It feels like weight training should translate to a big calorie burn, but brisk walking eats up far more calories than weight training sessions. Even heavy lifting generally burns "just 15 to 55 calories per workout," said Kraemer. "It's very low when you calculate it. People do a lot of resting between sets, and the sets are usually very short." Circuit training, where you rev your heart rate by moving rapidly from weight machine to weight machine, could help burn a few more calories.

Dietary supplements can help build muscle. Creatine and L-carnitine are two popular dietary supplements purported to help build muscle. In healthy, high-functioning athletes, creatine, which is made by muscle cells, will bulk muscle a little, "but it's primarily due to water retention," Nieman said. Creatine may help elite athletes do a few more reps in weight training, he said, but " it's not for the average person ." As for L-carnitine, "there's no good data there to support" the claim that it builds muscle in anyone, Nieman said.

Muscles bulk up fast. Studies show that it takes a minimum of 12 to 15 weeks to build muscle, provided that you do three to four sessions per week. The typical workout is six to 15 repetitions--or sets--of eight to 12 different exercises. Few people stick with the regimen long enough to build significant muscle. Those who do typically gain "only on the order of three to five pounds of fat-free muscle mass and water," Nieman said.

Using heavy weight provides the most benefit. Too much, too soon is a recipe for injury . "Start small," said registered dietitian Leslie Bonci, Director of Sports Nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Spend the money to learn the technique. Not everyone does well with an instructional video. The goal is not to do one rep with maximum weight."

Better to pick free weights or a piece of weight equipment at the gym "where you can do the exercises comfortably, you're not in agony and you like it enough that you can go back" to do it again, she said. Progress slowly and expect modest gains.

 

[MyK]

sounds like a reporter who has never stepped foot in the gym wrote that!! And they just threw together some quotes in a sequential way! keep in mind that the target market for a news paper is probably older adults who are not into working out!!!

 

[turbine5]

Added protein is needed to build muscle. Most Americans already eat about 90 grams of protein per day, "enough protein to meet the needs of a professional bodybuilder," Nieman said. "To take in a protein supplement is just crazy. It's not needed."

I am still struggling with this one, I don't know if its true or not...

Pumping iron burns a lot of calories. It feels like weight training should translate to a big calorie burn, but brisk walking eats up far more calories than weight training sessions. Even heavy lifting generally burns "just 15 to 55 calories per workout," said Kraemer. "It's very low when you calculate it. People do a lot of resting between sets, and the sets are usually very short." Circuit training, where you rev your heart rate by moving rapidly from weight machine to weight machine, could help burn a few more calories.

I'm not sure I know anyone who thought that the actual act of lifting weights burned enough calories to matter...but thought that unlike cardio the calorie burn did continue after your workout, and depending on the intensity, you are still burning calories at a higher rate than normal a couple days later.

Dietary supplements can help build muscle. Creatine and L-carnitine are two popular dietary supplements purported to help build muscle. In healthy, high-functioning athletes, creatine, which is made by muscle cells, will bulk muscle a little, "but it's primarily due to water retention," Nieman said. Creatine may help elite athletes do a few more reps in weight training, he said, but " it's not for the average person ." As for L-carnitine, "there's no good data there to support" the claim that it builds muscle in anyone, Nieman said.

didnt think this was a myth, thought the point of creatine was to let you get those extra reps in, gives you the opportunity to build some strength while on it, so that you can go harder when you are off of it...

 

[Phred]

I suggest one research the science behind the article. Oh, there is no science to support the article, then why give the article any credibility?

 

[grant]

I think the idea behind increased protein intake with body builders is not that the body necessarily requires more protein to build muscle but rather that it depends upon it more as an energy source--harder to burn increasing the effort and caloric expenditure to actually digest it than a carb

 

[DimebagDarrell]

Pumping iron burns a lot of calories. It feels like weight training should translate to a big calorie burn, but brisk walking eats up far more calories than weight training sessions. Even heavy lifting generally burns "just 15 to 55 calories per workout," said Kraemer. "It's very low when you calculate it. People do a lot of resting between sets, and the sets are usually very short." Circuit training, where you rev your heart rate by moving rapidly from weight machine to weight machine, could help burn a few more calories.

True, a 60-minute weightlifting session will burn not a TON of calories, but for a 154 lb person, a light workout will burn about 200 calories, whereas a vigorous workout (leg day) will burn over 400. But the benefits don't stop there. Lifting weights speeds up the metabolism for up to 48 hours. In fact, this is more than cardio does; cardio tends to speed up the metabolism for only about 24 hours. So you may only burn 400 calories during your workout, but you may burn an extra 1000 over the next 2 days due to the increased metabolism.

The idiot here is converting foot-lbs to nutritional calories directly. Doing this, bench pressing 225 lbs for 8 reps for 5 sets equates to only about 5 nutritional calories (kcal). But this would be saying that if there was a big block and you pushed on it without moving it because it was too heavy for four hours until you were so tired you passed out, since you didn't move anything, you did zero work and burned zero calories. The guy is full of shit.

Dietary supplements can help build muscle. Creatine and L-carnitine are two popular dietary supplements purported to help build muscle. In healthy, high-functioning athletes, creatine, which is made by muscle cells, will bulk muscle a little, "but it's primarily due to water retention," Nieman said. Creatine may help elite athletes do a few more reps in weight training, he said, but " it's not for the average person ." As for L-carnitine, "there's no good data there to support" the claim that it builds muscle in anyone, Nieman said.

The point of creatine is not to put on weight directly. The point is to increase ATP production, therefore increasing the ability of the body to perform above and beyond normal. Once the body can do that, it responds by adapting to the new stresses it is encountering. It just enhances your ability to increase muscle. And studies have proved it, including studies in the military, completely separate from any idiots like the muscle tech guys to get in the way.

Muscles bulk up fast. Studies show that it takes a minimum of 12 to 15 weeks to build muscle, provided that you do three to four sessions per week. The typical workout is six to 15 repetitions--or sets--of eight to 12 different exercises. Few people stick with the regimen long enough to build significant muscle. Those who do typically gain "only on the order of three to five pounds of fat-free muscle mass and water," Nieman said.

First off, the idiot doesn't know the difference between reps and sets. He equates the two. Second, I can give him a "study" that showed that I put on 20 pounds of lean mass in 15 weeks (put on 35 lbs and cut 15 of fat).

Using heavy weight provides the most benefit. Too much, too soon is a recipe for injury . "Start small," said registered dietitian Leslie Bonci, Director of Sports Nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Spend the money to learn the technique. Not everyone does well with an instructional video. The goal is not to do one rep with maximum weight."

True, beginners should not use heavy weight. But heavy weight IS required later on to stimulate hypertrophy.




Dime - 1 ; Washington Post - 0

 

[GFR]

Excrement like that is why I laugh at people who pay to read a newspaper.

 

[chunky34]

You're right...
It is not right! This guy is ... is... damn who is this guy anyway ?

 

[maxpro2]

Nice post Dime, you should email all that to the author of the article and see if he responds.

Although, is there a reason you did not address the protein part of the article?

 

[Squaggleboggin]

I just feel bad for people who actually believe things like this when they read them. This is a supposedly accredited source and it's giving completely inaccurate information. People don't know where to turn, and unless they think to look on a forum with hundreds or thousands of opinions, they'll continute to do things in the wrong way and injure themselves in the process. There should be some sort of American Administration to monitor what people are saying about exercising (heck, they have one for everything else, don't they?).

 

[Cowbell]

Keep one major thing in mind....this was posted in a NEWSPAPER. People must assume that people who lift weights are all meat heads. It would be a bigger deal if it was in a major fitness mag.

 

[Squaggleboggin]

That's true, but it's a paper that many, many people trust to be accurate. Besides, major fitness magazines usually just promote supplements and workouts that only people taking supplements could handle. So, in a way, they're just as bad anyways.

 

[CowPimp]

If you expect more muscle mass to give a big boost to your daily metabolism, as is often claimed, think again. "Add two pounds of muscle, and you burn about 24 calories of extra metabolism per day," said David Nieman, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. "If it's four pounds of muscle, you get on the order of an extra 50 calories burned per day."

I have heard this before. It may be true, but they never clarify how active the people are from which they derive these numbers. I think activity levels have a lot to do with how much more energy you actually require.

Also, are they taking into account the fact that when you have additional mass on your body, it requires more energy to perform any activity, even if that weight were fat or a backpack? Or, is this purely the number of calories required to maintain that muscle mass itself?

Their statement requires clarification in my opinion. Furthermore, it becomes more significant when you gain 20+ pounds of muscle as many of us have.

That adds up to 350 calories in a week -- or about the energy contained in a tenth of a pound of fat. "You would have to go for 70 days before that would translate to burning a pound of fat," Nieman said. Sure, over the course of a year, Nieman said, these calories could add up. "But keep it in context with everything else," including other daily activities and a healthy diet.

True enough. Most people who are overweight don't reach their desired level of body fat by weight training alone. Proper diet is key, and additional exercise/activity helps.

Here are some other myths about strength training:

Added protein is needed to build muscle. Most Americans already eat about 90 grams of protein per day, "enough protein to meet the needs of a professional bodybuilder," Nieman said. "To take in a protein supplement is just crazy. It's not needed."

This is a highly debateable topic. I found an awesome debate between two PhD's on www.t-nation.com about the protein requirements for bodybuilders and atheletes. The conclusion I have come to is that high protein diets have been proven time and time again. As well, protein is extremely important during cutting phases as it somehow aids in the retention of existing muscle mass.

Furthermore, whey protein has many other benefits besides merely adding protein to one's diet. Concentrate (The variant which contains a small, but still significant, amount of fat) contains various hormones that positively affect growth (IGF-1 comes to mind). Also, whey protein has the benefit of increasing insulin levels (Good after a workout) without the need to ingest starchy, refined, carbohydrates.

Pumping iron burns a lot of calories. It feels like weight training should translate to a big calorie burn, but brisk walking eats up far more calories than weight training sessions. Even heavy lifting generally burns "just 15 to 55 calories per workout," said Kraemer. "It's very low when you calculate it. People do a lot of resting between sets, and the sets are usually very short." Circuit training, where you rev your heart rate by moving rapidly from weight machine to weight machine, could help burn a few more calories.

I wonder if they are taking into consideration the metabolism boost that remains hours after you are finished working out? They aren't clear on that one.

However, it is probably true that traditional cardio and circuit training burn more calories.

Dietary supplements can help build muscle. Creatine and L-carnitine are two popular dietary supplements purported to help build muscle. In healthy, high-functioning athletes, creatine, which is made by muscle cells, will bulk muscle a little, "but it's primarily due to water retention," Nieman said. Creatine may help elite athletes do a few more reps in weight training, he said, but " it's not for the average person ." As for L-carnitine, "there's no good data there to support" the claim that it builds muscle in anyone, Nieman said.

Well, they pretty much just reiterated what everyone already knows about creatine. I know nothing about carnitine. I do, however, disagree that creatine is not for the average person. They don't really say why.

Muscles bulk up fast. Studies show that it takes a minimum of 12 to 15 weeks to build muscle, provided that you do three to four sessions per week. The typical workout is six to 15 repetitions--or sets--of eight to 12 different exercises. Few people stick with the regimen long enough to build significant muscle. Those who do typically gain "only on the order of three to five pounds of fat-free muscle mass and water," Nieman said.

I like this one. People think that touching a barbell is going to turn them into Ronnie Coleman, and don't realize it takes years of hard work, dieting, and drugs to come anywhere near that level. I believe that's the crowd being addressed here. However, at the same time, it's all relative. My gain of about 15 pounds of muscle in my first 6 months of lifting felt fast.

I also believe that the average pussy that goes to the gym only gains a few pounds of muscle. That doesn't mean humans aren't capable of much more. I've gone from 160 to 185, and my body fat levels are as low as ever. I may even have less fat on me than when I began lifting.

Using heavy weight provides the most benefit. Too much, too soon is a recipe for injury . "Start small," said registered dietitian Leslie Bonci, Director of Sports Nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Spend the money to learn the technique. Not everyone does well with an instructional video. The goal is not to do one rep with maximum weight."

This depends highly on the individual and their inherent fiber types in various muscles, as well as factors related to one's central nervous system. They are trying to discourage all those fools who max out with bench press on day one, but that doesn't mean lifting heavy doesn't have it's place.

Maximum attempts are an advanced technique, and totally unecessary for beginners. However, maximum attempts are a must, at least periodically, for lifters purely concerned with strength. I also believe them to be beneficial for the pure bodybuilding crowd as well.

Better to pick free weights or a piece of weight equipment at the gym "where you can do the exercises comfortably, you're not in agony and you like it enough that you can go back" to do it again, she said. Progress slowly and expect modest gains.

True true. Don't perform a lift that hurts you...

 

[lpz213]

its probably an overweight researcher using chimps or lab rats

 

[terezk4]

True, a 60-minute weightlifting session will burn not a TON of calories, but for a 154 lb person, a light workout will burn about 200 calories, whereas a vigorous workout (leg day) will burn over 400. But the benefits don't stop there. Lifting weights speeds up the metabolism for up to 48 hours. In fact, this is more than cardio does; cardio tends to speed up the metabolism for only about 24 hours. So you may only burn 400 calories during your workout, but you may burn an extra 1000 over the next 2 days due to the increased metabolism.

The idiot here is converting foot-lbs to nutritional calories directly. Doing this, bench pressing 225 lbs for 8 reps for 5 sets equates to only about 5 nutritional calories (kcal). But this would be saying that if there was a big block and you pushed on it without moving it because it was too heavy for four hours until you were so tired you passed out, since you didn't move anything, you did zero work and burned zero calories. The guy is full of shit.



The point of creatine is not to put on weight directly. The point is to increase ATP production, therefore increasing the ability of the body to perform above and beyond normal. Once the body can do that, it responds by adapting to the new stresses it is encountering. It just enhances your ability to increase muscle. And studies have proved it, including studies in the military, completely separate from any idiots like the muscle tech guys to get in the way.



First off, the idiot doesn't know the difference between reps and sets. He equates the two. Second, I can give him a "study" that showed that I put on 20 pounds of lean mass in 15 weeks (put on 35 lbs and cut 15 of fat).



True, beginners should not use heavy weight. But heavy weight IS required later on to stimulate hypertrophy.




Dime - 1 ; Washington Post - 0

You seem to me like a really experienced person, so I would like to ask you something for what I have been looking a long time and nearly everywhere. I am really interested how much calories I burn during my weight lifting workout or in other words how to count calories expenditure by weight lifting.
To sum up my typical workout. I do 5 sets od 8-10 reps and they are hard to finish. I do usually as many sets as I could during an hour and I rest about 1 minute. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I use excercises like bench press falt and incline, dumbell press flat and incline, dips, pull-ups, DB flyes, bent-over rows. Usually it takes me 30 secs to finish a set.
So should I count the total time weight lifting and count with that in some equation? An should I add some more calories for the rest time spend at the gym because my heart rate is elevated and count it as for example walking?
I would really appeciate some answers about this, thanks

PS: I am girl, 128 pounds, 5ft 10in, 18% bodyfat, 18 years old. hope thats all needed

 

[rockhardly]

You seem to me like a really experienced person, so I would like to ask you something for what I have been looking a long time and nearly everywhere. I am really interested how much calories I burn during my weight lifting workout or in other words how to count calories expenditure by weight lifting.
To sum up my typical workout. I do 5 sets od 8-10 reps and they are hard to finish. I do usually as many sets as I could during an hour and I rest about 1 minute. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I use excercises like bench press falt and incline, dumbell press flat and incline, dips, pull-ups, DB flyes, bent-over rows. Usually it takes me 30 secs to finish a set.
So should I count the total time weight lifting and count with that in some equation? An should I add some more calories for the rest time spend at the gym because my heart rate is elevated and count it as for example walking?
I would really appeciate some answers about this, thanks

PS: I am girl, 128 pounds, 5ft 10in, 18% bodyfat, 18 years old. hope thats all needed

Nope you need a time machine to go back 5 years!

 

[Gazhole]

Don't worry about the calories you burn doing any exercise. The calories in vs calories out thing is only a part of the equation. A lot of other physiological changes happen in your body as a result of weight training, and exercise in general.

Weight lifting and high intensity cardio has a sort of "afterburn" effect on the body, which is called Excessive Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption which can actually keep your metabolism ticking over faster hours after you leave the gym. Not only that, but exercise in general makes your body better at utilizing fat as a fuel source which is good for obvious reasons.

If you really want a ball-park figure for calories you can use the Schofield equations for metabolic rate (for an 18 year old woman only):

(14.8 x Weight in Kilograms) + 487

Then divide all that by 24 hours to get your baseline metabolic calorie burn per hour.

So for you:

14.8 x 58.2kg + 487 = 1348 / 24 Hours = 56kcal per hour.

Now all you do is multiply this by the PAR for the activity you're doing and the length of time you did it:

Sleeping is about 1.0 - 1.4
Sitting down is about 1.5 - 1.8
Standing doing something is about 1.9 - 2.4
Walking around or doing house/job work is 2.5 - 3.3
Tough chores or manual work is 3.4 - 4.4
Heavy manual work and weight lifting is 4.5 - 5.9
Really intense cardio and most sports is 6.0 - 7.0

So 56 x 4.8 x 1 Hour workout = 269 calories

I use 4.8 - 5.2 for most weightlifting. Rarely would you use the upper limit because it's not a constant activity like say, bricklaying or using a road drill for an hour.

Don't take this wrong though, even though it appears weights burns less calories than sprints (and that is true actually) it has the benefit of building up lean tissue which raises the metabolic rate slightly, increasing strength, and also relevant to women reduces osteoporosis risk because it's weight bearing.

Anyway, hope that was useful.

Also, if anybody wants the Schofield equations for different ages/men i can give them. It's interesting to work out how many calories you burn in a day by doing a daily activity diary and doing those calculations for each activity. I did it recently and got a maintenance figure of 3270 calories per day. Fun!

 

[terezk4]

Don't worry about the calories you burn doing any exercise. The calories in vs calories out thing is only a part of the equation. A lot of other physiological changes happen in your body as a result of weight training, and exercise in general.

Weight lifting and high intensity cardio has a sort of "afterburn" effect on the body, which is called Excessive Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption which can actually keep your metabolism ticking over faster hours after you leave the gym. Not only that, but exercise in general makes your body better at utilizing fat as a fuel source which is good for obvious reasons.

If you really want a ball-park figure for calories you can use the Schofield equations for metabolic rate (for an 18 year old woman only):

(14.8 x Weight in Kilograms) + 487

Then divide all that by 24 hours to get your baseline metabolic calorie burn per hour.

So for you:

14.8 x 58.2kg + 487 = 1348 / 24 Hours = 56kcal per hour.

Now all you do is multiply this by the PAR for the activity you're doing and the length of time you did it:

Sleeping is about 1.0 - 1.4
Sitting down is about 1.5 - 1.8
Standing doing something is about 1.9 - 2.4
Walking around or doing house/job work is 2.5 - 3.3
Tough chores or manual work is 3.4 - 4.4
Heavy manual work and weight lifting is 4.5 - 5.9
Really intense cardio and most sports is 6.0 - 7.0

So 56 x 4.8 x 1 Hour workout = 269 calories

I use 4.8 - 5.2 for most weightlifting. Rarely would you use the upper limit because it's not a constant activity like say, bricklaying or using a road drill for an hour.

Don't take this wrong though, even though it appears weights burns less calories than sprints (and that is true actually) it has the benefit of building up lean tissue which raises the metabolic rate slightly, increasing strength, and also relevant to women reduces osteoporosis risk because it's weight bearing.

Anyway, hope that was useful.

Also, if anybody wants the Schofield equations for different ages/men i can give them. It's interesting to work out how many calories you burn in a day by doing a daily activity diary and doing those calculations for each activity. I did it recently and got a maintenance figure of 3270 calories per day. Fun!

Thanks a lot! It it is just exactly what I was loking for - the advice to count with a a whole workout time, not to separate it on sets and resting between sets. You made my counting much easier

 

[Gazhole]

Thanks a lot! It it is just exactly what I was loking for - the advice to count with a a whole workout time, not to separate it on sets and resting between sets. You made my counting much easier

No problems, but i really do mean it when i say that the calories exercise burns largely don't matter. The physiological adaptation to exercise has far more impact on health and body composition than calories in vs calories out.

If you're worried about calories, the kitchen is the place to address that.

 

[PushAndPull]

I just repped DimebagDarrell.