Youth Health foundation

Throughout the last few months, my friends and parents have started asking me to become their personal trainer for resistance training. As I’ve taught my clients, I’ve asked them about why they avoided lifting before they were more educated. As I accumulated answers, I realized that there were two main reasons that people avoid resistance training. In this article, I plan to address both reasons and argue that (excluding extreme outliers) everyone should be resistance training.

Many people shy away from lifting weights due to two primary misconceptions: the fear of injury and the concern that they will become “too big.” These fears often lead individuals to focus solely on cardio exercises, missing out on the significant benefits of resistance training. Let’s address these concerns and shed light on the importance of incorporating both cardio and lifting into a balanced fitness routine.

Misconception 1: Fear of Becoming “Too Big”

The fear of becoming excessively muscular is a common reason people avoid lifting. However, this worry is simply the result of not understanding the difficulties of muscle hypertrophy, or growth. Many people equate resistance training to becoming one of those big bulky bodybuilders who weigh 250 pounds and are extremely lean. But, they don’t realize that those professional bodybuilders are on copious amounts of steroids, have rigorous diets, almost perfect sleep, train extremely consistently for decades, and when they do train, they often exert themselves beyond their limits each time. The human body is actually quite proficient at not building muscle–we literally possess a protein called myostatin that limits muscle growth. Finally, if all that wasn’t enough, women, in particular, have lower levels of testosterone, which makes it significantly harder to gain large amounts of muscle mass compared to men. For almost everyone, lifting weights will never result in a “bulky” or “too big” physique. What it will result in is a stronger, fitter, and healthier body that looks athletic. 

Misconception 2: Fear of Injury

This fear is definitely a more rational worry than the first one, and I would even say that always being aware of the possibility of injury is a useful skill to possess. But, many people let their fear of injury prevent them from getting in the gym in the first place. These fears typically stem from the perception that lifting weights is inherently dangerous. However, with proper technique and gradual progression, resistance training is no more dangerous than other forms of exercise. For example, no one tries to run a marathon the first time they run. You would get horribly injured for possibly months. The same idea applies to resistance training. The key is to start with weights that are appropriate for your current fitness level and to increase the load gradually. Working with a trainer or following a well-structured program can also minimize the risk of injury by ensuring that exercises are performed correctly. Form and consistency are by far the most important aspects to perfect when beginning to train; weight can always be increased later. If you adopt this mindset before training, your injury risk will immensely decrease.

If you held any of these fears before reading this, I hope that I helped to quell them. If you have any questions, you can always comment them and I will respond! In addition, if you have any other worries, I’d love for you to share them down below. Now that I’ve cleared up the so-called “negatives” of resistance training, I want to address the positive effects. There are a vast number of them, and this article is getting a little long, so my next post will be about the importance of resistance training in an exercise program. In the meantime, thank you so much for reading! Have a wonderful day.