Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis
Even though your mother cringes at your cracking knuckles, you keep doing it, right? Even though it may sound damaging, you’re not doing any harm to your joints, muscles or bones - unless you feel pain when you crack them. When a chiropractor adjusts your spine, you may hear the same sounds. Any of those painless noises your joints make are caused by the high-pressure suction of gas being expelled when your joints move apart. Sometimes, it’s a much-needed release to your joints. Don’t go over-do it but be reminded that its actually not cracking joints, but rather, releasing pressure! So yeah…it’s a definite myth.
Muscle turns into fat
This is a good one. Do your bones turn into muscle? No.
Lying down will accelerate the recovery from back pain
If you’ve ever strained your back, you know that the pain is excruciating. It can be paralyzing - making it difficult to walk, to sit, to get up of to even sleep. All you want to do is lie down and flick on sitcom re-runs and remain still. Statistically speaking, it has been shown that staying in bed for longer than 48 hours can weaken your back muscles- and increase your risk of further injury. In order to recover from a strain, your muscles need to grow stronger and stay active, and the only way they’ll do that is by working, even if its just a little bit. The best method: Walk around the house. Keep moving.
Doing crunches will save your back
It’s true. Not only will abdominal exercises strengthen your bones and the muscle of the back, but they will also strengthen your midsection - which takes weight and pressure off your back. Think of your midsection as a corset. The tighter you adjust it, the more it will affect the tightness and posture all around the band of your torso.
Training for marathons is healthy on your joints
Finishing a marathon will earn you a medal, a great physique and increased cardiovascular stamina. While we respect marathoners and admire their passion, dedication and athleticism, we can’t endorse the training it takes to complete a race like that. Constant pounding on your joints and over-training increases the likelihood that you’ll suffer from joint problems and osteoarthritis down the road. Constant pounding on your joints can actually reverse the health of your knee joints. Sure we’d love to see you cross the finish line but we’d also like to maintain your knees. To live long and young you need to be physically active. But there is such a thing called overtraining and its important that you know where it becomes an issue on your bone structure.
You’re too overweight to exercise
I have had people literally tell me ‘Maybe it’s too late for me to exercise because I am so overweight’. Are you serious? Saying you are too fat to exercise is like saying you’re too skinny to eat. Your body needs to expend energy just as much as you consume energy. No matter how fat you think you are, you can do something to start the process of losing fat, strengthen your bones and relieving your joints of the load that they’re carrying. If you are scared to jump into an exercise program because its been too long since you have lifted a dumbbell, then see a doctor first but other than that, you don’t really have an excuse. Start small: Walk five minutes a day and increase by one or two minutes every few days. Soon you’ll be fit enough to walk a whole hour. Doing simple exercises in the comfort of your own home will be enough to begin the process of kick-staring your metabolism so your body can burn fat. If you want to live longer, start today. Everyday of procratination can put you into health jeopardy. Remember: the longer you wait, the harder its going to be to start off. So start today.
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For Questions/Advise and interest in personal training: ns@theartofbody.com / 08123 89 09 99
