The 3 most common myths I hear from my years of coaching women is:
1) My workout/exercise has to be at least an hour or it doesn’t count.
2) Sweating is a sign of a great workout.
3) I should feel some muscle soreness after my workout (if not my workout wasn’t hard enough/effective).
The quality or effectiveness of your workout is not measured by the time you spend exercising, your level of sweat stains, or the inability to lift your arms to blow dry your hair!
Why do we often think this way? Probably because we feel we have accomplished something by exercising for a longer period. We feel good when we sweat, and being sore makes us feel like the exercise is ‘working.’
But what really matters?
Working hard or hardly working?
The quality of your workout is much more important than the quantity of your workout. Are you able to push yourself to lift heavier? Have you progressed from knee push-up to a full push-up? Has your form improved with your squats? Can you get through 3 sets of lunges without being too winded? Are you seeing results in your strength gains, endurance levels, or body composition changes?
Chances are if you are doing 18 different exercises and trying to fit in a 20-minute cardio session all within one workout you aren’t going to have the energy to push yourself with each lift.