Health Tips 10/2016
Physical exercise is good to your health, and also helps to prevent chronic diseases. Some common
misconceptions about physical exercise are introduced in this health tips.
Question 1: Resistance exercises (such as fitness training in the
gym) will cause the muscles to grow. Won’t this affect ladies’ slim
figures?
Truth: Although resistance exercises are aimed at increasing
muscle mass and muscular endurance, muscle growth requires
the male hormone testosterone for facilitation. As the level of
testosterone in a male’s body is 20 to 30 times the level in a
female’s body, the training effect on men is much more obvious
than it is on women. Therefore, ladies should not be concerned
that muscle training will build up an unsightly muscle mass.
Question 2: Once you stop resistance training, won’t the muscle
gained turn into fat?
Truth: Muscle and fat are two completely different body tissues.
With resistance training, the body’s muscle mass and strength
will increase accordingly. When you halt the resistance training,
your physiological response will gradually diminish and muscle
atrophy will appear in place of the muscle mass previously built
up, but it will not become fat.
Question 3: Shouldn’t a lot of sweat be produced for exercise to
be effective?
Truth: Sweat is produced in a physiological response to the need
to lower the body’s temperature, and is not directly related to the
effects of exercise. The amount of sweat produced during
exercise depends on several factors, including exercise
intensity, duration, environmental temperature, relative humidity,
gender, etc. We cannot measure the effect of exercise by the
amount of sweat produced.
Question 4: if you eat immediately after exercise, won’t it cause
fat?
Truth: there is no scientific evidence that eating immediately
after exercise will cause fat. Consumption of mainly
carbohydrate food together with adequate proteins shortly after
exercising (about 30 minutes) can serve to restore body energy
and repair muscle tissues, thus helping to meet one’s needs for
a daily workload and other physical activities.
Source: [email protected] Project, Department of Health, Government of the H.K.S.A.R.
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