10 Most Searched Fitness Questions On The Internet, Answered

When you’re starting your fitness journey or deciding to embark on one, it can be daunting to figure out where to start. What exercises should you do? What workout regime should you follow? Or even what goals should you set and what time frame should be enough to achieve them?

To settle the flying butterfly in your stomach and help you understand basic things about fitness, we’ve come up with a list of the 10 most asked fitness questions on the internet.

By the time you’re done with this, I hope you have a better understanding of how you should approach training and how to maximize your time in the gym.

Before we start, remember everybody in the gym is trying to get better. Don’t be scared when you walk into the gym. Be confident!

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Fitness Question No.1: “What’s the best workout split?”

There are a lot of workout splits in the fitness industry. But no split is best for everyone. It varies from individual to individual. The set of exercises that you need to do and their order depends on your goals. Hypertrophy, strength, or endurance, could be any of them.

There’s more to getting the right workout routine. You have to shape it progressively so that you don’t hit a plateau easily. Push-pull-legs, upper-lower, and full-body have a few good workout splits. Depending on your goal and time, you can adjust these splits to work 3-days or more for you.

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Fitness Question No.2: “The best and easy way to get six-packs?”

Building six-packs requires very basic things. However, gym-goers are led to believe that they only need to do cardio and ab exercises. Sure, you need to do these things, but they alone aren’t going to get you a six-pack. Compound exercises, cardio, and a good nutrition plan are crucial as well.

You have to do these 3 things to get abs. You can’t see abs till you lose the layer of fat that’s covering them. And, you can’t spot reduce it. So, get yourself a calorie deficit plan. Include compound exercises in your workout plan and do cardio 2-3 times a week. Don’t rush things. Take it slow.

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Fitness Question No.3: “Does lifting weights stunt a child’s growth?”

There’s no better thing than starting to lift weights from an early age. It does so many things for children; however, what it doesn’t do is stunt their growth. Growth can be stunted mainly due to two reasons: Lack of good nutrition or if the growth hormone is recessive in a child’s genes.

So, lifting weights won’t make children dwarf. What it’d do for them is strengthen their bones, joints, and muscles. Along with this, it’ll boost their confidence and self-esteem. It’ll help them attain a sense of achievement and make them feel good.

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Fitness Question No.4: “Does working out on an empty stomach boost fat loss?”

Working out on an empty stomach to boost fat loss isn’t a good idea at all. Firstly, your body is already running low on glycogen reserves. If you don’t refill yourself and decide to go lift weights, your body is going to burn muscle and not fat for energy.

Secondly, it isn’t safe at all. If you do it for just one day, you can get by easily. However, if you make it a practice, you’re going to start feeling fatigued, dizzy, light-headed, nauseous, and have cramps in your stomach during your workouts. And that’s not good.

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Fitness Question No.5: “Can’t I just do cardio and lose fat?”

In general, cardio is good for the health of the heart. But if you use it as the sole tool to lose fat, that could end up in a very bad way for you. Let’s see it this way. If you were to do an hour of cardio with low intensity, you’ll burn around 350 calories.

Whereas if you do strength training for the same amount of time you’re going to burn the same no. of calories. However, you won’t end up exhausted and with no energy like you would after hour-long cardio. So, pair strength training with cardio to lose fat and get strong, while staying healthy and safe.

Since, if you don’t and continue doing cardio sessions alone for fat loss, you’ll get to a point where your body will burn muscle for energy instead of fat. And that’s not a healthy thing for the human body.

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Fitness Question No.6: “How long should your workout last?”

The length of your workout depends on two things: your fitness level and your goal. Once these things are clear to you, you can proceed to determine the timing of your workout. Usually, your gym session, which is of moderate intensity, should last somewhere between 45 and 90-minutes.

Now I’m not saying that anything below or above these marks isn’t good, since it varies from individual to individual. To make sure you’re making the most of your time while training, write down the exercises you’re going to do that day, along with the no. of warm-ups and working sets for each lift.

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Fit. Question No.7: “Do exercises vary if you want to lose fat or gain muscle?”

Let’s save everyone’s time and establish this right now: the set of exercises remains the same if you want to lose fat or gain muscle.

Now, come to what kind of exercises you should do to achieve one of these two goals – compound movements. They’re the ones that put the maximum amount of stress on your body. They challenge your limits. They burn a great no. of calories and help you get stronger at the same time. And that’s great.

With compound movements, pair a few isolation lifts. However, don’t go fancy and do movements no one has ever seen before. Just stick to the basics and make the most of your time and save your pride.

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Fit. Question No.8: I didn’t have very sore muscles the day after my workout. Did I do something wrong?

Working out and feeling sore the next day, these two things are proportional to each other; however not absolutely. You can work out and not have sore muscles the next day but still reap the benefits.

According to research, when you work out, you create micro-injury in your muscles, which makes you feel sore. The soreness usually goes away usually in 2-3 days after the muscles are repaired, mainly through nutrition and sleep. The scale of soreness shifts down when you follow the same workout regime for back-to-back months.

But, that doesn’t mean you aren’t making any progress. You still are, but just not the most. A few more reasons for not feeling much sore after working out are – your body’s ability to recover is excellent, you’re doing warm-up and stretching just right, or you aren’t just challenging yourself enough.

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Fit. Question No.9: “Does drinking alcohol mess with my gains?”

Drinking alcohol has its benefits and drawbacks. It’s up to you which one you weigh more: the company of an adult beverage to feel good for some time or get healthier and stay in shape for a long time.

When you consume alcohol of any kind, your body’s ability to build muscle and/or lose fat gets disturbed. The presence of alcohol in your blood reduces the rate of muscle protein synthesis and slows down your metabolism. Your body also prioritizes breaking down alcohol before excess fat.

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Fit. Question No.10: “Do I need to warm up before my workout?”

Warming up before training is absolutely necessary! We’re all tempted to jump straight to work out and lift heavy. However, you can’t train for a long period of your life if you keep skipping your warm-up. It not only boosts your performance but also reduces the risk of you getting injured.

Also Read: 5 Exercises You Need To Start Doing ASAP!

You don’t need to do a warm-up for half an hour. A 5-minute long is just enough. All you need to do is perform some cardio movements, such as walking on a treadmill for 2-3 minutes to bring your heart rate up and increase your body’s temperature and then perform some dynamic stretching.