Women's Fitness Myths Debunked #4

     Remember these from post #1, post #2, post #3 on this topic?

"7 ways to tone your inner thighs... You won't be able to walk the day after, but your legs will look great!"

"waist trimming workout"

"7 best exercises to blast leg fat"

"4 exercises to lose your love handles"

"erase arm flab fast!"

"exercises to fix the arm pit pooch"

"3 day military diet. apparently you can lose up to 10 lbs in 3 days, with this special diet. take a four day break and do it again until you've achieved your goal... pinner checked it with her medic hub and he said its good to try."

"7 day cleanse= lose 10-17 lbs. This is an amazing 7 day meal plan/guide to lose pounds and totally cleanse your body"

"website run by 2 professional trainers and nutritionists..."

"best exercises to get rid of saddle bags"

"8 moves to perk up your boobs"

"get rid of muffin top"

"remove fat deposits from inner thigh, above the knee, and inner knee"

If any of the above pin quotes sound familiar to you, please do yourself a favor and go delete them from your boards and brain now. I'll wait...

These sound great, but all have hidden in them somewhere an exercise myth aimed at unsuspecting women. Let's kick some more exercise myth butt.

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     4) Exercises for bigger boobs/ditch the arm pit fat-- These are my pet peeve, simply because I'm a physical therapist. All of these exercises are generally going to focus on pecs or anterior deltoids-- push ups, flys, front straight arm raises. Yup, they sure will make your boobs bigger, but they'll also make your posture worse and actually make your arm pit flab worse too as well as make that terrible pain in your neck/upper back you get after a long day at the office worse. Instead, work on your posture. Remove your shirt, then stand in front of a mirror like you usually stand. Oh come on, you're way more slouchy looking than that! Now stand up straight like your mama told you. See? I'm sure you've gained a cup size and those silly pooches are gone! The posture muscles you want to emphasize are your middle and lower traps, rhomboids and shoulder external rotators. See the pics below for examples. You may also want to talk to a personal trainer about this, so you can get some good variety in your work toward this goal. 

Lower traps emphasis.

Middle traps and rhomboids-- any kind of rowing action. 

Shoulder external rotation

     If you only have time or room to put in one of these exercise in your routine, do the first one. It will get just about everything pretty good if you make sure you do two things: 1) squeeze your shoulders blades together and 2) make a thumbs up sign with both hands when doing it. 


In case you're new here: Who do I think I am?! My name's Bria PT, DPT (Physical Therapist, Doctor of Physical Therapy.) Prior to the PT gig, I was one of those uncredentialed personal trainers with a science degree.