Frequently Asked Questions and Answers about Fitness
Reference: Jason Karp, PhD, Apr 01, 2002; http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-expert/jason-karp)
Here’s how to answer the questions members or clients most often ask fitness professionals. Every day, fitness professionals are faced with a multitude of questions—on topics ranging from losing weight to rehabilitating injuries. While it is difficult to know all the answers, providing clients with ready responses can be a testament to your professional credibility. This article addresses some of the more popular questions clients ask and provides the information you need to answer them quickly.
1: If I Lift Weights, Will I Get Bigger Muscles?
Whether or not your clients will get bigger muscles (hypertrophy) depends on three basic factors: genetics, gender and training intensity. Genetics is mostly manifested as muscle fiber type; people with predominantly fast-twitch fibers acquire larger muscles more easily than people with predominantly slow-twitch fibers. In relation to gender, males acquire larger muscles than females do, because males have greater amounts of testosterone and other sex hormones that influence protein metabolism (Tipton 2001). Thus, females experience less muscle hypertrophy with strength improvement than males do (Lewis et al. 1986). Training intensity is the only factor you can control. Hypertrophy results from an increase in the number of contractile proteins (actin and myosin, produced by the body in response to training), which in turn increases the size of the muscle fibers. If the training goal is hypertrophy, the load lifted should be at least 80 percent of the onerepetition maximum (1 RM), as a general guideline (Zatsiorsky 1995). If your clients are not interested in developing larger muscles, keep the load less than 80 percent of 1 RM. However, hypertrophy can be stimulated any time the training intensity is high enough to overload the muscle. Thus, in an unfit client who has never lifted weights before, 60 percent of 1 RM may be enough to cause slight hypertrophy, especially if the client is predisposed to hypertrophy by having a large proportion of fast-twitch fibers.
2: How Do I Get a Flat Stomach?
Genetics also plays a role in whether or not your clients can obtain a flat stomach or a “sixpack” look to their abdominals. Having said that, two types of exercise can help: strength training and cardiovascular exercise. The abdominals are just like any other muscle group: For their definition to become visible, they must grow larger and the fat that lies over them must decrease. What makes the definition of the abdominals so difficult to see is that they are situated in the area of the body that contains the most fat. Strength training the abdominals is only half the story. Your clients will get a flat stomach only if they combine strength training with cardiovascular exercise to get rid of the fat. Most clients do not do nearly enough cardiovascular exercise to decrease their body fat percentage to a point where they would see their abdominals. Even when the aerobic exercise stimulus is adequate, the role of diet must not be underestimated. All people with a flat stomach or six-pack have a very low percentage of body fat.
Abdominal crunches are just as effective as any piece of equipment to train the rectus abdominis muscle, the main muscle in the abdominal region (Demont et al. 1999; Vaz et al. 1999). As your clients improve their abdominal strength, they can make crunches more demanding by performing them on a movable surface, such as a resistance ball (Vera-Garcia et al. 2000).
3: Do I Need to Take Dietary Supplements?
Your clients do not need dietary supplements unless they have a documented vitamin deficiency or they do not eat a balanced diet. Using supplements as an alternative to a sound diet can lead to serious deficits in the consumption of other nutrients (Benardot et al. 2001). It is always healthier to acquire vitamins and minerals from food than to obtain them from a pill. However, serious vitamin deficiencies do occur in a small proportion of the population (Benardot et al. 2001), and supplements are useful for making sudden improvements in vitamin status.
Supplements for losing fat or building muscle are rapidly becoming popular. Claims that “fatburning” supplements will decrease body fat by increasing either mobilization or oxidation of free fatty acids (FFAs) are faulty at best. Untrained individuals have a greater ability to mobilize FFAs than they do to oxidize them. Therefore, supplements that increase FFA mobilization are not of any value for untrained people. For supplements to directly enhance FFA oxidation, the insulin response to the carbohydrates in those supplements would need to be eliminated (since insulin inhibits fat oxidation), and this is unlikely to happen (Coyle 1995).
Exercise alone increases the muscles’ capacity to oxidize FFAs. For those who eat a balanced diet, there is no evidence that muscle-building supplements, including protein powders and amino acids, build muscle mass (Clarkson 1998; Eichner et al. 1999). The few supplements whose muscle-building potential is supported by research (e.g., creatine) are effective mostly in elite athletes who have undergone many years of training (Eichner et al. 1999).
4: How Often Should I Work Out/Lift Weights?
According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), your clients should exercise 20 to 60 minutes, three to five days a week for health/fitness promotion (ACSM 1995). Exercising only three days a week may be enough for previously sedentary clients to improve their fitness, but it will take more exercise to see further improvements. Improvements in aerobic power (VO2 max), cholesterol levels, body composition and cardiovascular health are all augmented the more often you exercise (Duncan et al. 1991; Gettman et al. 1976; Milesis et 1976). However, it is important that your clients do not progress too soon or exercise excessively, since both these behaviors can lead to overuse injuries.
Clients are often told they should not lift weights on consecutive days, whereas they are encouraged to do cardiovascular exercise as often as they can. However, there is nothing wrong with lifting weights every day, just as there is nothing wrong with running every day. Muscles do not know the difference between lifting weights or running; the only thing muscles know how to do is to contract to overcome a resistance. Whether your clients need to lift weights every day depends on their fitness goals. For basic gains in strength, your clients need to lift weights only two to three times a week. For more advanced clients, lifting weights more often is fine, and the training program can be organized using easy and hard days, just as with ardiovascular workouts. Keep in mind that some experts recommend not working the same muscle groups two days in succession, in order to give the muscles time to adapt.
5: Why Are My Muscles Sore After a Workout?
Soreness results from high force production when an exercise is new or a load is greater than normal. Furthermore, eccentric muscle contractions (in which the muscle lengthens, as when lowering a weight) cause more soreness in the days following the workout than either isometric contractions (in which the muscle does not change length, as when holding a weight) or concentric contractions (in which the muscle shortens, as when lifting a weight). This soreness in the days after exertion is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) (Armstrong 1984; Clarkson & Sayers 1999).
Although many people think that lactic acid is the cause of muscle soreness, the fact is that lactic acid (lactate) is removed from the muscles within 30 to 60 minutes after exercise, so it is long gone by the time soreness develops. Muscle soreness results from an immediate mechanical injury and a biochemical injury occurring a few days after the workout (Faulkner et al. 1993). The mechanical injury is caused when the myosin heads pull away from the actin filament, causing microtears in the muscle fibers. The biochemical injury is characterized by increased plasma enzyme activity and a leaking of enzymes (e.g., creatine kinase) out of the muscle. Soreness typically increases in intensity during the first 24 hours post exercise, peaks in the next 48 hours, then subsides within five to seven days after the workout.
6: How Do I Get a Flat Stomach?
Genetics also plays a role in whether or not your clients can obtain a flat stomach or a “sixpack” look to their abdominals. Having said that, two types of exercise can help: strength training and cardiovascular exercise. The abdominals are just like any other muscle group: For their definition to become visible, they must grow larger and the fat that lies over them must decrease. What makes the definition of the abdominals so difficult to see is that they are situated in the area of the body that contains the most fat. Strength training the abdominals is only half the story. Your clients will get a flat stomach only if they combine strength training with cardiovascular exercise to get rid of the fat.
Most clients do not do nearly enough cardiovascular exercise to decrease their body fat percentage to a point where they would see their abdominals. Even when the aerobic exercise stimulus is adequate, the role of diet must not be underestimated. All people with a flat stomach or six-pack have a very low percentage of body fat. Abdominal crunches are just as effective as any piece of equipment to train the rectus abdominis muscle, the main muscle in the abdominal region (Demont et al. 1999; Vaz et al. 1999). As your clients improve their abdominal strength, they can make crunches more demanding by performing them on a movable surface, such as a resistance ball (Vera-Garcia et al. 2000).