Just the other day I was explaining to someone the importance of understanding that building, or at least maintaining, muscle is the objective of exercise. Yes, training is certainly necessary to improve performance, but that involves mostly specific skill development and conditioning. Again, the best foundation is muscle. Exercise, after all, is mechanical work performed by muscles and the muscular system is the means by which all other bodily systems are accessed in order to produce beneficial adaptations. Now I know, to an ordinary person, my explanations can seem quite technical. Sometimes I lose people for that reason, but more often the difficulty is getting beyond their preconceived notions of exercise and its aims. Making the all-too-common error discussed in the video from the previous post, this person said that he did not want to be a bodybuilder. He expressed that he had no interest in larger muscles, but would prefer to have the long, lean body of a swimmer. He wondered why all his cruches weren't resulting in ripped abs. So many myths...I'll try again to make sense of this:(1) the goal of exercise is to produce positive adaptation, particularly in the muscular system
(2) positive adaptations are produced by overloading the muscles with high quality mechanical work
(3) this results in increased strength
(4) this results in larger muscles
(5) muscle growth is limited by genetics; growth response is affected by nutrition, hormonal responses, recovery potential, etc.
(6) good swimmers are good because they have swimmers' bodies; swimming does not make someone long and lean
(7) a long, lean swimmer who increased his strength and size would very likely perform better; the best in the world combine strength training with skill practice
(8) spot reduction is an absolute hoax - you DO NOT lose abdominal fat by performing crunches
Finally, anyone interested in avoiding their body breaking down should be very interested in learning how to build it up. If you want to improve your body, you are a body builder - or at least ought to be. The alternative is a gradual loss of lean tissue on the slippery slope toward frailty. Don't let the images and nonsense from fitness magazines and media confuse you.
Here's more from Dr. McGuff and Body by Science...
