3 Myths About the Gym — Busted!

July 28th, 2010 | Posted in Fitness tips | No Comments »

One of my main goals here on the site — and in everything I do — is to prove to women (and everyone) that you don’t have to go to a gym to get the kind of fitness model results I’ve got.

I’ve got nothing inherently against gyms, except that some people think it’s the only way to get a kick-ass body, and frankly that’s just not the case. Some of the reasons people keep thinking these crazy things is because there are a lot of myths that have built up around gyms — and almost of them are false! Including these three:

Myth: Only Those Machines Can Work Specific Muscles

No way. You can work pretty much every muscle that you can work in a gym at home, with minimal equipment. A few resistance bands and a sturdy chair are often all you need to get almost everything done. A few extra pieces of equipment will help here and there, but working your muscles is just that — working your muscles — no matter where you are.

Obviously some of the gym machines are much more specific, and let you work certain muscles faster or in a more targeted way — think of a leg crunch machine vs. squats, for example. One uses just your body weight, while the other uses stacked weights.

But too often, the difference between specific gym machines and what you can do at home has been painted as an all or nothing, black or white kind of difference — that working out at home is meaningless, when you could be at a gym. This is completely untrue — don’t fall for it!

Myth: You Really Need to Replicate the Gym At Home

Then there’s the idea of the ‘home gym.’ I’m all for that idea — provided you don’t try and replicate that exact same gym in your house, and get forced to move all your furniture and re-do your entire basement just to get all that stuff in there!

Working out at home is a mix of convenience and (small) compromises — instead of getting 40 different machines that work all your individual muscle groups, you need to do some combination exercises in a smarter way that keep you working multiple groups of muscles. And the time savings of not having to travel to the gym — you can’t beat that!

Myth: You Gotta Use the Gym’s Cardio Machines to Warm Up

This is another crazy one — just because a treadmill, elliptical, or stairclimber is there doesn’t mean it’s the only way to workout. You can get your heartrate up and start sweating, at home, by just doing power yoga, if you want.

Cardio machines are fun, full of info, and easy to hop on and hop off. But doing a series of cardio workouts in your living room, mixing a bunch of different styles and really moving? It’s basically the same thing. Don’t get fooled by the impressiveness of all those machines, all in a row. They exist for convenience — a gym is a convenient place to work out, provided you can make it there multiple times a week, and get a spot — but your home is almost always just as good!

More Gym Myths

Have any of your own myths about gyms that you’ve busted recently? Have you always put off exercising because you avoided a gym, and then discovered you could actually do it at home? Leave me some comments, and tell me all about it!