Going For A Run A Hot Day?

Going for a run on a hot day? Whatever you do, don't carry any water. Instead, take along some salt pills, and pop a few when, you feel thirsty. Twenty or so years ago, that was standard training advice, espoused by coaches hoping to help their athletes better withstand the heat. That's a severely cracked notion, but don't laugh too hard. Talk to fitness researchers as we did and you'll find that there are still plenty of exercise myths to debunk. You may even subscribe to a few yourself. For exam-ple, taking ibuprofen to ease sore muscles is a waste of money. As studies clearly show, the pill does nothing for the pain, and it won't speed your recovery. But you already knew that, right?


FITNESS MYTH NUMBER ONE Aerobic workouts help you lose weight by boosting your metabolism. A KERNEL OF TRUTH lies hidden in this alluring tale. As you exercise, your muscles and organs work harder, need more fuel, and generally demand that your metabolism the rate at which you burn calories speeds up. After you finish, it takes a while for your internal machinery to slow down, so you get a little after-burn effect. A one-hour walk will leave your metabolism chew-ing through calories at a higher rate for a few more minutes.
    And that's the end of it. People hoping to burn more calories in their sleep will be let down by doing aerobic exercise only. Striding, running, and their ilk have almost no effect on your resting metabolism. You must add muscle to boost your body's 24-hour calorie burn. It uses about four times as much energy as fat does. A program of lifting weights two to three times a week will tack on a pound of muscle every month or two. A pound of muscle devours 35 to 40 extra calories daily.

FITNESS MYTH NUMBER TWO For flat- stomach, do crunches. CRUNCHES WILL TONE the muscles in your belly, but they won't put a dent in the fat obscuring those muscles. "Try as you might, you simply can't direct your body to lose pounds in a specific area," says Miriam Nelson, an exercise scientist and author of Strong Women Stay Slim. It's been said before: If socalled "spot reduction" worked, people who eat too much would have thin faces.
    The only-way to shed fat is to expend more fuel than you swallow. That forces your body to burn fat held in deep storage—the hips, buttocks, and stomach, among other places. Which of these areas shrinks first is genetically determined, but one thing is sure: The first regions to bulge are the last to slim down. The silver lining here is that women tend to lose fat from the stomach first. Create a calorie debt by using more fuel than you eat, and your tummy will begin to look better.
    Try achieving that calorie debt by doing crunches and you'll get very tired. Fifty sit-ups burns a measly 10 to 15 calories. On the other hand, a brisk half-hour stroll will leave you 200 calo-ries lighter. But don't give up on crunches. They're just the ticket for shaping those newly visible stomach muscles and helping you maintain good posture. Standing up straight, say experts, makes you look 10 pounds lighter.


FITNESS MYTH NUMBER THREE Slow,  steady workouts are the best way to burn fat. WANT EVIDENCE OF the undying appeal of this myth? Just take a look at the exercise machines at your local gym. Nearly every type, from treadmill to stair stepper, has a setting for "fatburning zone."
    This program calls for a slower pace than other options such as the "cardio-zone." In fact, at a slow pace say, striding at about 3 to 4 miles per hour yourbody burns a fifty-fifty mixture of fat and carbohydrates. Speed up to a 4- to 5-mph pace, and your body starts to burn more carbohydrates; fat makes up only about 33 percent of your fuel.
    But the difference is an illusion. Sports physiologist Jack Wilmore at the University of Texas says cyclists spinning at a slower pace for a half hour use an average of 220 calories, 110 of them fat. If they ride at a faster pace for 30 minutes, they burn 330 calories 110 of them fat. The harder-working group uses up the same amount of fat but burns an additional 110 calories.
    Sure, if the slow cyclists had ridden another 15 minutes, they would have used the same number of calories as the fast group, and more from fat. But their odds stay the same in the weight-loss sweepstakes. When you sit down to a meal following a workout, your body replaces lost carbohydrates first. If you don't burn many, the tank is quickly filled, and most of the rest of your meal gets stored as you guessed it fat. Do yourself and your tight schedule a favor by speeding up.
FITNESS MYTH NUMBER FOUR You have to do high-intensity exercise to get a "runner's high." YOU'VE HEARD ABOUT endorphins those magical moodboosting chemicals released when athletes push past mortal limits. The endorphin theory grew from the discovery that a hormone called beta-endorphin rises when people exercise hard. The hormone is the body's natural painkiller; it's released during childbirth, for instance. Researchers believed this could
explain why people report feeling great after a workout.
    In an underpublicized follow-up study, that notion was
proven wrong. Scientists gave test subjects a drug that blocked the endorphin's effects, and the exercisers went right on grinning. The theory took another hit when surveys showed that people routinely report a mood lift from workouts far too gentle to raise endorphins. "No one really knows why exercise makes people feel so good," says Jack Raglin, an exercise scientist at Indiana University. "It just does." Run a marathon or walk around the neighborhood; either way you'll feel better.

FITNESS MYTH NUMBER FIVE You don't need as much exercise if you're thin. FOR MOTIVATION, NOTHING beats the goal of dropping a few pounds. And with the experts so focused on the nation's everexpanding waistlines, the thin get off easy, dodging the fingerwagging scorn of public health campaigns.
    Yet there's a very compelling reason why the trim should work out even harder than their heftier brethren. Yes, exercise offers protection against ailments that strike the slim and the stocky alike, such as cancer, depression, and arthritis. But it's especially key in warding off osteoporosis, a disease that disproportionately strikes slim women. To prevent the wasting of bone and lessen the risk of a broken hip, women must do weightbearing workouts. For women on the heavy side, just about every step they take counts. If you're trim, you'll have to sched-ule plenty of walking, jogging, and resistance training. No one can afford to skip exercise.

FITNESS MYTH NUMBER SIX You have to train for months before you start getting benefits. NOPE. OH, SURE, it takes a month or two before aerobic workouts start to get noticeably easier. Your lung capacity has to increase so the lungs can deliver more oxygen, via the blood, to your limbs. Your muscles must learn to store more energy and build more mitochondria, microscopic fuel-producing factories.
    But not all the gratification is delayed. You'll start shaving pounds within a week. And your muscles will quickly snap to attention: Studies done at Ball State University in Indiana show that sinew responds to weight lifting after only four sessions.
    A further look at the research reveals that there are plenty of immediate pluses to exercise: Reduced stress, a rosier outlook, more confidence, better sex, sounder sleep all these benefits kick in with your first workout.

FITNESS MYTH NUMBER SEVEN Weight lifting will give you big, bulky muscles. ONE LOOK AT A Miss Universe contest can keep women out of the weight room for life. So picture a different type of bodybuilder: "Marilyn Monroe was an avid weight lifter, and I wouldn't call her bulky," says Miriam Nelson. "To develop big biceps, you'd have to spend hours doing very specific workouts with weights so heavy you could lift them only once or twice."
    Instead of bulking you up, weight lifting will make you leaner. The end result? A smaller you. That's because a pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat.
    "Fat is bulky and jiggly, but muscle is sleek and trim," says Nelson. Her studies show that women who lift weights, even those on vigorous programs, typically gain about 3 to 5 pounds of muscle and lose an equal number of fat pounds. Even if the scale doesn't budge, most women drop a dress size or two. And remember that a pound of muscle chews through some 40 calories when you're just lying around. Do the math: Those extra pounds can add up to 200 extra calories burned each day. That will make it easier to keep off unwanted weight.

FITNESS MYTH NUMBER EIGHT If you stop lifting weights, your muscles will turn to fat. THIS MYTH CAN LIKELY be traced to the plight of retired football players. Their chiseled muscles seem to transform into fat bags overnight. The lesson is clear: Once you start lifting, never stop. But this belief is physiologically speaking akin to spinning straw into gold. There is no way to morph a cell. Muscle cells are muscle cells, and fat cells are fat cells.
    Here's what really happens: When the players stop using the brawn they've built, their muscle fibers begin to shrink. That means these guys burn fewer calories at rest. If they don't compensate by eating less, they store that extra energy as fat.
    As for the rest of us, we're not likely to build a massive musculature, and we don't eat as much as these bruisers. Which means if you stop lifting, adjusting your diet to avoid weight gain won't be as daunting. There's another way around this worry: Follow the experts advice and make lifting a lifetime habit.
 
FITNESS MYTH NUMBER NINE The stair machine will give you a big butt. THIS MYTH, POPULARIZED by fitness infomercials, posits that you shouldn't exercise the body parts you want to shrink. Baloney, says exercise physiologist Edmund Burke: "It's ridiculous to specifically not target parts of your body." Infomercials maintain that stair climbing and bicycling only increase the size of your hips and derriere. While these regimens don't add much muscle, they're excellent for burning calories, which will reduce the size of your hips and rear. The whole notion of hipfree workouts overlooks an important fact: How many aerobic workouts don't involve the hips?

FITNESS MYTH NUMBER TEN Exercise cranks up your appetite. NOT TRUE. STUDY AFTER STUDY has confirmed a surprising truth: Unlike dieting, working out doesn't spur an automatic increase in appetite. What's more, intense exercise can actually blunt your appetite over the short term, says Neil King, an exercise scientist at the University of Leeds in England.
    Some research indicates that people who exercise actually have a better sense of how many calories they need than those who don't. As dietitians point out, we eat for a variety of reasons, and hunger is rarely one of them. By exercising, you put hunger back at the top of the list. There's another plus: You'll be burning more calories, so if you don't eat more, suddenly you're dieting and losing weight. Wasn't that easy?