1. You have to train for at least an hour, two or three times per week to ‘Get in Shape’
Not really.
Short, intense workouts can be just as effective.
In fact, many fitness professionals advocate workouts 30 minutes or less.
You can take this a step further –
Doing 4 minutes of exercise, twice a week, can improve markers of health & fitness significantly.
You can make drastic improvements in terms of health, fitness and body composition, with just 10 minutes of exercise per day.
The difficult part, is staying disciplined with your diet.
2. You Need Expensive Equipment to Build Muscle
Not true, in fact the trend at the moment, is functional, bodyweight exercise.
I personally like to use a door frame chin up bar, and some resistance bands – costing in total about £50.
These are not essential however, you can certainly make a start without them.
3. You Need Supplements to Look like the guys in the Magazines
Well, yea, kinda – you need lots of steroids, IGF-1 and HGH to look like the guys in the magazines and adverts.
That’s not me being cynical – ask any weightlifting veteran.
I’m not anti-supplements, but you need to ignore 90% of the claims and marketing jargon. e.g. “peptide bonded” and “micellar” even “anabolic” are often used to imply something that people assume is beyond there understanding.
In case you are wondering:
Peptide Bonds – “…proteins are chains of amino acids held together by peptide bonds, as is the backbone of PNA.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/peptide_bond.htm
Micellar (a term often used to sell “Micellar Casein” protein powder”)
All casein protein is ‘micellar’, it means it basically clumps together in a ball, releasing amino acids/nitrogen, bit by bit until the ball dissolves
https://www.uoguelph.ca/foodscience/book-page/structure-casein-micelle
I wouldn’t recommend any supplements to begin with.
If you are looking to build muscle, there is plenty of research around creatine, and whey protein too. I’d recommend, researching and perhaps including these in your diet, after 2 months of weight training.
Whole foods are generally largely superior. In fact, I would recommend a hemp smoothie instead of protein powder, but I’ve found that people just want to take supplements. So, if you do, research whey protein and creatine. But make sure 90% of your food, is actually food!
How much protein you need is an aggressively debated topic, which I’m not going to touch with yours (or with a bargepole).
