Fitness Introduction

Everything you know about fitness is wrong. All those lessons in nutrition at school, those info-mercials on TV selling you ab products, any diet book you have ever read, are all wrong. If you are serious about changing your body composition then you must forget all that you have learned and teach yourself. The internet is packed with a lot of good information, hopefully this is just a starting point.

Misconceptions

My personal trainer knows what they are talking about

Most personal trainers know less than you will after reading a little bit about fitness in general. Personal Trainers go through very little actual training and only know as much as they are willing to learn. If a personal trainer ever recommends using machines before moving to free weights, walk away. If a personal trainer is not willing to show you how to deadlift, walk away.

You may find a personal trainer who knows what they're talking about. You'll have found one in a million, they do exist, but they are hard to find. If you get a free session with a personal trainer and they are not willing to show you particular excersizes, or contradict what you have taught yourself about nutrition, excersize or general fitness, walk away, they'll be wasting your time and if you start paying them, sucking away your money.

Machines are better than free weights

Almost without exception, this is not true. Machines are not built for the individual, they are built to cater to one percieved 'normal' body shape. If you are slightly taller, slightly shorter, female, slightly longer arms, slightly longer legs and so forth the machine will not fit your body. As a result it will force your body to move unnaturally, which is often called 'bad form' in freeweights. This leads to injury and poor results.

Machines also remove stalbilizer muscles from the equation, while you may want big broad pectorials, you're forgetting all the other muscles that surround these areas and help support and move your body during resistance training. Machines rarely engage stabilizer muscles because the machine guides the path of the excersize.