Muscle Building Myths Exposed

"Warning: You've Been Lied To! Learn The Truth About These Common Muscle-Building Myths..."

If you're truly serious about making a solid commitment to a muscle-building program, you need to be very careful of who you take advice from. Bodybuilding and fitness is literally a multi-billion dollar industry with new websites popping up every single day.

Many of the so-called “experts” out there really don't have a clue of what they're talking about and are only motivated by pushing expensive pills, powders and “miracle programs” on you that you don't really need in order to make a quick overnight buck.

If you don't watch your step you may end up falling for some fatal muscle-building pitfalls that will literally destroy your gains and prevent you from ever achieving the impressive, muscular physique you desire.

In this installment I'm going to cut through the hype and expose 5 very common muscle-building myths in order to keep you on the proper path to the mind-blowing muscle and strength gains you deserve...

Myth #1: In order to build muscle, you must achieve a "pump" during your workout. The greater the pump you achieve, the more muscle you will build.

For those of you who are just starting out, a “pump” is the feeling that you get as blood becomes trapped inside the muscle tissue when you train with weights. The muscles will swell up, increase in both size and vascularity and will leave your body feeling bigger, tighter, stronger and more powerful.

While a pump does feel fantastic, the truth is that it has very little, if anything to do with properly stimulating your muscles to grow. A pump is simply the result of increased bloodflow to the muscle tissue and is certainly not indicative of a successful workout.



A huge pump in the gym does NOT mean that you've had a successful workout, and a small pump does NOT mean that you haven't had a successful workout.

A successful workout should only be gauged by the concept of progression. If you were able to lift more weight or perform more reps than you did in the previous week, you did your job.

Myth #2: If you want your muscles to grow you must “feel the burn!”

This is another huge misconception in the gym. The “burning” sensation that results from intense weight training is simply the result of lactic acid (a metabolic waste product) that is secreted inside the muscle tissue as you exercise.

Increased levels of lactic acid have very little to do with muscle growth and may actually slow down your gains rather than speed them up. You can limit lactic acid production by training using lower reps rather than the traditional range of 10 and above.

Myth #3: You must always use perfect, textbook form on all exercises. 

While using good form in the gym is always important, obsessing over perfect form is an entirely different matter. If you're always attempting to perform every exercise using flawless, textbook form, you will actually increase your chances of injury and simultaneously decrease the total amount of muscle stimulation you can achieve.

Remember, we are not robots!

It's very important that you always move naturally when you exercise. This could mean adding a very slight sway in your back when you perform bicep curls, or using a tiny bit of body momentum when executing barbell rows.

Loosen yourself up a bit and move the way your body was meant to be moved. Obsessing over perfect form will actually work against you rather than for you.

Myth #4: Building muscle will cause you to become slower and less flexible.

This one goes back to the old days when people described bodybuilders as being “muscle bound” and “bulky”. Contrary to what you may think, building a significant amount of lean muscle mass will actually speed you up rather than slow you down.

Muscles are responsible for every movement that your body makes, from running to jumping to throwing. The bottom line is that the stronger a muscle is, the more force it can apply.

Having stronger, more muscular legs means increased foot speed, just as having stronger and more muscular shoulders means the ability to throw farther.

Strong muscles are able muscles, not the other way around.

Myth #5: In order to achieve an impressive physique, you should use the same techniques as the "buff" guys at the gym or the bodybuilders in the magazines.

It's very important for you to realize that just because a fellow lifter at the gym is strong and muscular does not necessarily mean that they are highly knowledgable and are doing things "correctly". Genetics play a very large role in the muscle-building process, and some people can develop an impressive physique no matter how they train.

I've seen guys train 2 days a week, pay very little attention to their diets, get drunk every weekend and still have a muscular, rock-solid build. These are simply the people who were lucky enough to be blessed with superior muscle-building genetics.

As for professional bodybuilders, that's a completely different story. Virtually every single bodybuilder that you see posted across the pages of your favourite muscle magazine has enhanced their recovery ability using various steroids and hormones, and in very high amounts.

For natural trainees with average genetics, following the routines of pro bodybuilders would be, quite simply, muscle-building suicide.

For the rest of us mere mortals, a sensible, logical, rational routine just like I've been outlining in this email course is by far the best approach.

Wrapping It Up

I hope this installment has cleared up some of the confusion you may have previously had, but the reality is that these 5 myths are just the tip of the iceberg.

There is so much bogus and downright counterproductive muscle-building information floating around out there that it literally scares me sometimes.