222: FITNESS MYTH BUSTING

0:00Welcome back to that fitness couple podcast where we talk about lifting weights eating meat and today we are Busting Myths. We are Mike and Corey Bethelpowski, Founders of Pure physique, a boutique strength training franchise that helps busy adults get strong toned and lean with 30 minute trainer lead workouts two to three times per week. Well this comes off the back of a study that came out which we just wanted to share with you guys because we thought that it was so interesting. We are now finally in a day and age where people are seeking strength training. I mean, you tell me like every day you are talking with people who are reaching out to us and what are they saying to you? Well, let's back up inbound calls to our fitness studios from 2010 through 2024 were like tell me about strength training. Why do I need it? Why is it important and it would be a lot of explaining and during that time set calls

1:00would take 12 to 15 upwards of 25 minutes explaining to people why they need this 2025 came around and all of a sudden all of the inbound calls and outbound calls to leads were like I need strength training. My doctor said strength training. I'm an ozampic. I need strength training. I have bone density issues strength training. I want muscle strength training. I want to get toned strength training. I want to get strong. I mean, we don't have to explain what we do anymore and it is quite an exciting time in the world for strength training to not only be so mainstream, but for the general public to be so aware of its benefits. It also makes my job easier of just saying that. What's really fascinating also is at the end of or I should say at the beginning of each new year, I get one of these industry reports of trends for the upcoming year and you have consistently seen or I've consistently seen over the last 10 years strength training move from the number 10 spot all the way down to the number one spot and hold that spot

2:06for about the last two years, which is an indicator that people are starting to realize this is important and when it starts to cross over to that mainstream and you have doctors recommending to their patients, you need to go strength training like that's kind of when you know you've turned turn the mainstream corner so to speak, which really interesting though is with all of this knowledge now, the importance of strength training. How many myths are still out there and what I wanted to dive into today was a study that just came out last year and the name of the study was knowledge of gym goers on myths and truths in resistance training. This is going to be exciting. This was really, really interesting because for this study, they interviewed 721 gym goers out of Austria. It was a mix of very, very experienced gym goers.

3:09There were personal trainers mixed in there as well as some newbies and what they did is they surveyed 721 people and they asked them 14 myth related questions to resistance training and what was fascinating is of the 14 questions asked of the 14 asked only five of the statements were answered correctly by the majority of people. So of the 14 questions, nine were totally wrong, like people were believing myths. Yeah, like the majority of people were believing the myth and then of the ones that got right, I mean, wait until we go into the individual questions here. So here were the ones, I don't know, do you want the ones that people got right first? No, no, save those for the end. I want all the wrong ones. Okay, all right, so the statement was higher resistance training frequency is always superior. Take a guess at how many people believed that it is better or necessary to do more strength

4:15training in order to get a positive result. So just, I want to interpret this. So this is basically people saying it's better to train 7 days a week than 2 days a week. Like we recommend. Correct. Oh my god, it's probably a majority of people. People don't know. I'm going to guess like 75 to 80 percent. You're close, 90 percent. Oh my god. 90 percent of people believed that training more frequently is always superior. Now, why that's important is because the research shows us that it's not. Yeah. What does the research tell us? How many days per week in order to get optimal results? Two to three. That's it. Yeah, well, I just want to actually paint numbers. 721 people surveyed. So less than 100 people actually know they don't have to do more training. Correct. That's crazy. Yep. It's the more is better mindset is still in full effect today. Well, thank god if you're listening to this podcast, you know that that is a myth. The next one, resistance training is more effective in men than women.

5:16Wow. How many do you think believe this myth? Oh, man. I'm going to keep questioning you. 60 percent. Oh, that was really good. 65 percent believe this myth, despite evidence showing comparable relative improvements. Wow. So many men and women get pretty much the same results. Yeah. Despite. Do you think or do you have the data? Was it more men or more women or we're not sure who answered that? It didn't break that down. Okay, I'd be so intrigued to see if like the men or if it was the women thinking like all this is probably better for them. So what's interesting is that of the 721 people, I believe it was 456 in the survey were men. So there were a higher percentage of men. But I would venture to guess. I think it was the women. Exactly. They felt that training is more beneficial for men. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, that's exciting. Sure is. All right, these go into again, better percentages. Okay. So more people got these right. Okay. So the next question was low load or just we'll call it lightweight high volume resistance

6:20training is as effective as heavy weight resistance training for high hypertrophy. What do you think? What percentage would you give that? Half. You're right. 49% believed that the lightweight high volume resistance training is as effective as heavy weight resistance training. And I'll go into this just a little because we have talked about this in the past on this show that the belief had always been that you have to lift heavy if you want to build muscle. But over the last several years what's actually been demonstrated is that you can build muscle with a lighter weight as long as you do enough volume or more importantly, as long as you're doing your exercises to the point of momentary muscular fatigue. So you can do a set of five really heavy reps which will certainly help you build muscle and

7:23strength or you can do a set of lighter weight, 15 reps, but to fatigue and it'll also equally build just as much muscle as the heavy set. So people are getting smarter about that one. That's good to know. If you've been listening for a while and you love the pure physique approach, 30-minute trainer led during training workouts that actually fit real life, there's another level most people don't even know exists. Beyond being a client, you can own a pure physique studio. If you're a busy professional, a power couple, or a trainer who wants to build people up for a living and create a lean lifestyle-friendly business in the process, we've put together a short franchise overview just for our listeners. Go to purephysic.com forward slash franchise to watch the video and book a call with our team. We'll walk you through how the model works, the support you get, and whether opening a pure physique is the right next chapter for you. Training to muscular failure is necessary for hypertrophy, but your guess. Well, are we saying that that's true or that's false?

8:24Training to muscular failure. No, you tell me. No, no, no. My guess is that what percentage of people call that true or called that false? Yeah, which percentage believe that, which percentage believe that training to muscular failure is necessary for hypertrophy? 51 percent. 48. Okay. So what we know is that you actually don't need to go to failure. So closest proximity to failure is better. There has to be some degree of effort, but much of the evidence has shown that you can fold just shy of failure and still build strength of muscle. I feel like this is a trick survey. Really, it's not. It's very much, it's very much in- I think it's maybe because I'm not seeing it. So what's the next one? All right. Which percent believed that free weight resistance training is more effective than machine-based resistance training?

9:25That's a big argument. We had a great episode actually on this. You should definitely link 47 percent. All right, 45 percent. Okay. Honestly, I thought that more people would get this wrong. Yeah. Because at least I feel the whole gym bro mentality is still running wild where people think that free weight training is somehow superior. As if your muscles go, oh, you're doing barbell squats. Sure, you're going to be much stronger and more muscular as a result of doing this versus, oh, you're doing a leg press. Yeah. You mean you're using your hips, your thighs, your joints are moving the same exact way. Like, no, sorry, kid. You don't get more muscle. That's so funny. You don't get any strong. Right? People don't think about it like that. They're just movements that's all any exercises are. Whether it's free weights or machines, it's just movement.

10:27Your muscles don't know the difference. Okay. These are the ones where higher percentage of people actually got this right. I mean, this one to this group of people out here is going to sound ridiculous, but protein supplementation enhances strength and hypertrophy. Woo, woo, yes it does. Yeah. So 86 percent got that. Wow. Correct. That's pretty awesome. Oh, you're like this. You're like, who were the 14 people that didn't realize that? The vegans. Oh, no. You just fended somebody. That's what I do. Creatine supplementation boosts strength. Oh, I would hope that at least 70 percent of people got that right. 73 percent recognize creatine as an effective supplement for improving strength. I'm going to go play the lotto. Look at that. Thankfully, people got this one right. Full range of motion exercise is superior to partial range of motion. So think of doing your tiny little bicep curls. Do you hear two to three inches of range of motion versus taking it all the way down and all the way up? Probably only 65 percent of people.

11:27Oh, 70 percent. 70 percent got that right. Oh, here's a good one. All right. This is a myth that we've talked about before. Resistance training does not reduce flexibility. Oh, that's really good. Yeah. I just want to actually state. So for the person listening. Resistance training actually promotes flexibility so much so that there's been studies that have proven that resistance training is as effective as yoga in terms of increasing your flexibility, which is very exciting. So people getting that correct. That's probably a lower number. I'm going to guess like, well, I'm going to guess only like 40 percent of people got that correct. Okay, no. If 78 percent of people rejected the idea that resistance training will actually make you less flexible. That's crazy. Yeah. Okay. Last one. Can we just recap that because that could be confusing. The teacher brain in me is always like someone out there is confused by this. Let's please over explain it. So resistance training does not decrease flexibility. It does not decrease flexibility.

12:28In fact, it can enhance flexibility. Yeah, you're welcome to the one person out there in the car. Like, wait, what? What did that mean? Somebody's out there going to the question. I hope that person sends me an email. Corey about that peerphysic.com email me. Let me know. You were the person and you're welcome for the expert extra explanation. All right. Last one. Low load. Low weight. You want me to be explicit? Yeah. Okay. Kindergarten, this please for everyone. Yeah. I'm doing it for you. Thank God. This is the last episode of the day. Low load. Low, okay. So two pounds. Low weight. Yep. High volume. You'll get with that. I volume 20 laps at two pounds. Or lots of sets. Okay. Is less effective than high load. Heavy weight. Okay. For maximal strength. Are you lost to me? Maybe that's why people got little they did terrible on this. Well, they were confusing questions. No, I mean, it's just it's how it got broken down after words.

13:30I'm sure the question itself made more sense. So again, low weight, high volume resistance training is less effective than heavy weight resistance training for gaining strength. Yeah. Okay. So 68% got that correct. Yep. You're even having a hard time explaining these results. Wait. No, now I'm going to go back and reread that. Hold on. Well, I think the biggest takeaway here is there's so many myths about strength training and people will think things like, you know, bulky, bulkiness was not a question. That absolutely should have been a question. Maybe austrians are more savvy than we are here in America. But that's women's biggest fear, right? Like I don't want to look like a bodybuilder. You're not. You're not going to look like a bodybuilder. Strength training is going to make you tighter, more toned, more muscular, happier. That's anecdotal. I think you're going to be happier though. You're going to sleep better. You're going to have a better mood. You're going to feel better about yourself. Like you're just going to be better by function of strength training. So I'm very happy that it's made its way

14:31slowly into the mainstream. I'm happy that people are more savvy and that they're realizing how important protein consumption is alongside strength training along with creatine supplementation for male or female. You want me to clear up that last one? Yeah, yeah, please. I need it. Okay, I know. You're filling the gap. I was going to go to bed tonight thinking about this one. We'll put it this way. 68% of people realize that you can train with a lighter weight and do more volume. And it will be just as effective at building strength as using a heavy weight and maybe a lower volume or the same volume. Maybe you should have Austria in school. These people and all this stuff. That was great. That was very nice. There you go. Okay, so there you have it. We are at a point in time where the realization curve that resistance training is necessary is going up. However, we have not arrived at the place yet where we've been able to dispel all the myths around it.

15:32So that said, we're going to do our best to keep breaking down confusing stuff like this for you. So that, so that you won't be one of those confused people out there. And hopefully, we won't be either. Well, with that, continue to lift weights. Eat meat and give us a shout on social media. You can find us at that fitness couple podcast or pure dot physique and be sure to check out some of our new and soon-to-open locations across New York, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Tennessee. We'll catch you guys on the next episode.