MYTH 3: Women are afraid that they will gain large, masculine-like muscles from strength training/believe that cardio programs are the best way to burn fat.

Strength training serves many roles.  Muscles begin to shrink .5 – 1% every year after the age 25, and declining growth hormone production begins to surface.  Muscle dictates your metabolism.  The more you have, the more calories you’ll burn, even when you aren’t working out.  The primary goal of strength training for most is to maintain or regain muscle that has been lost.  Any body builder will tell you that packing on muscle is a lot like a part time job.  It takes a specific eating plan, scheduled rest and workouts that support the biggest gains possible.  Unless you are part of a small population of the body type known as a mesomorph, the type that grows muscle very easily and appears to be thick and robust without even working out, then gaining large, masculine-like muscles from strength shouldn’t concern you.

MYTH 4: Confusing moderate activity with exercise (gardening, walking, taking the stairs, etc.)

An active lifestyle and exercise are necessary to maintain one’s health, but one does not replace the other.  An active lifestyle keeps you moving on a regular basis and burns more calories than a sedentary lifestyle (i.e. sitting for prolonged hours), and burning less calories than you consume leads to weight gain.  Exercise helps strengthen and / or maintain the body’s muscle (dictates metabolism), flexibility (a strong muscle is a flexible muscle) and cardiovascular system (the heart is a muscle that needs to be worked).  Without regular exercise, something that challenges each of these, they will decline in function, as the effects of aging don’t need a workout to keep declining.  Regular exercise should challenge the body in a way that maintains or enhances each of these as long as possible.  An active lifestyle helps the body burn more calories and helps the muscles and joints from becoming stiff and prone to injury from lack of use; however, this does not replace the body’s need for regular exercise.

List provided by Damien Woodson, certified personal trainer and president of The Personal Training Company.