An Updated Guide on Training Truths and Muscle Myths

1. Constant Tension vs Mechanical Tension

The research on building muscle says mechanical tension is king. But you’ve probably heard you needed “constant tension” to grow muscle. Myth claims that pausing and resting at the top of a bench or shoulder press would interfere with your constant tension and therefore mess with your progress.

Good news, there’s no evidence to support the idea you must keep the tension constant on your muscles. The myth of constant tension functions more as an excuse to avoid training through full range of motion and to justify ego lifting. If you allow brief rest points at the top of a squat, you get more reps with more weight, creating more mechanical tension, the true driver of muscle growth. By chasing “constant tension” you might feel an intense burn, but you’re selling yourself short on results. This is magnified if you avoid training through full range of motion, leaving portions of the range poorly trained and not stimulating all muscle fibers.

According to Dan Feldman, RD and CPT, “performing enough total sets per muscle group per week is critical for muscle growth as is range-of-motion. If constant tension training results in a fewer number of sets performed per week, or prevents you from training through a full range of motion, you’ll sacrifice your gains.

Verdict: Ignore constant tension. Instead maximize mechanical tension.

2. Muscle Confusion vs Training Consistency

We once believed we wouldn’t progress if we didn’t confuse our muscles with frequent variations in our exercises. Our muscles were smart and could anticipate and adapt to the program, and then fail to grow.

Some classic era bodybuilders also smoked and drank beers for lunch between workouts too. Often the genetic elites of bodybuilding were successful not because of certain practices, but in spite of them. These guys also trained hard, ate well, slept enough, and overall did enough smart things to cover for some ineffective strategies.

We now know our muscles don’t need to be confused. They don’t anticipate how you’ll train, they just adapt to perform better against what you’ve done before. We want to progressively overload muscles with more of what has worked before. High level athletes of all sports now work within the same program for months to develop mastery of their movements and layer progress upon progress. Periodic shifts in training can keep workouts mentally fresh and reduce the likelihood of repetitive overuse injuries, but random frequent workout changes are at best unnecessary and at worst interfering with your progress. Choose a program and stick to it for at least three months before making changes.

According to Feldman, “arbitrarily changing exercises session-to-session won’t make you gain more muscle. In fact, it tends to reduce strength gains as compared to keeping exercises the same each week.”

Verdict: Your muscles don’t need to be confused. Focus on consistency within your program.

3. Eating Every 3 Hours to Stoke the Metabolic Furnace vs Optimal Protein and Calorie Intake

Eating small frequent meals was, for decades, the prevailing logic for producing lean physiques. Personal training clients were told to “stoke the metabolic furnace” with upwards of 6-7 small meals a day. Until research suggested that meal frequency didn’t matter when total food intake was equated for protein, fiber, and calories. The calories needed to metabolize the meals proved the same no matter how many meals those calories were spread across.

According to Feldman, “after accounting for total calorie intake, meal frequency doesn’t directly affect fat loss.”

Scheduling these extra meals into your day isn’t easy. Preparing and carting them around isn’t convenient. We now know that you can schedule your meals whenever they best suit your life and provide energy for your day. While optimal intake of protein points to four evenly spaced and sized meals across your day, the timing and distribution of your energy calories (carbs and fats) don’t matter for the everyday person focused on staying strong and lean.

Verdict: Don’t worry about meal frequency, focus on calories and macros for body composition goals.

4. Limit Workouts to One Hour vs Take the Time Needed to Complete Your Training

You may have heard you need to keep your workouts to a maximum of an hour or your cortisol will spike and you’ll become catabolic. This myth dates back to an Olympic strength coach who wanted more control over his athletes. It also fits the common commercial gym personal training hour session model, further preserving the myth.

Were this myth based in truth, farmers, construction workers, and anyone who’s work meant long days of physical labor wouldn’t be some of the strongest people to walk around in society.

Cortisol is neither the catabolic boogeyman it’s portrayed to be in acute post workout doses (chronically elevated stress hormones can be detrimental to our health), nor should we limit our training sessions to under an hour if our training needs and schedules require more.

According to Feldman, “Cortisol briefly increases after workouts, as hard workouts put stress on the body. Increases in cortisol after exercise won’t hamper your muscle or strength gains. In addition, taking more time to rest between sets (which leads to longer training sessions) is better for getting bigger and stronger muscles.

More important to consider when choosing a workout length is balancing how it best fits into our work and family lives, our overall training needs to optimize progress, and our ability to recover from training. We risk injury and poor progress if we don’t sleep, fuel, and recover enough from our training.

Verdict: Don’t arbitrarily limit your workouts to one hour.

The old ways are rich with training wisdom. They’re also a minefield of pointless practices. Challenging old beliefs while continually seeking knowledge will help you make the best progress in your training.