Bodybuilding Myths

Myth 1 : Ectomoprhs have a hard time building muscle.

Ectomorphs do not exists to begin with. Building muscle is the same for everyone. Hovewer, not everyone has the same potential to build muscle. Some will have more type II fibers than others. Those will build more muscle in the long run, but not faster...

Myth 2 : Bodybuilding is 85% nutrition

Vince Gironda did not lie when he said this. Its 100% true. Hovewer, what he meant was that the drugs and steroids actually makes 85% of your work when you are a bodybuilder. For the natural trainer, it's will be more like 85% training.

Myth 3 : You should confuse the muscles to make them grow

This one is a bit confusing. It begins with the idea that the muscles will adapt to a new stress and when they have adapted, will stop adapting. So to keep them adapting (growing), you need to confuse them by changing exercises or the order you do the exercises. This is 100% true, hovewer, it does not mean that you should not push yourself with heavier weights and can only change exercises but keep the same weight in order for your muscles to grow. This is where people fail and don't realize that you have to keep pushing with the weigths in order to have your muscle to keep growing.

Myth 4 : You shoud not change your exercises at all but only the weights for your muscles to grow.

Actually, this is true but you can add changes for another reason than making your muscles grow : boredom. Since doing always the same thing in the same order can be quite boring, you should change the order of your exercises once in a while in order to avoid boredom. Also it will make your muscles rest a bit from the same repetitive motions, which can leads otherwise to some injuries.

Myth 5 : Squats will build your arms and calves

I have a hard time understanding why squats would build either you calves or arms, since they are not involved in the motion.

Myth 6 : Deadlifts will make your arms big

Not true. Arms are not doing any work at all in the lift. If you still believe that they do, go look for Bob Peoples Pics. His arms shows clearly how involved they are in the deadlift.

Myth 7 : Biceps Curls won't make your arms big

True. To make your arms bigger, you have to train your biceps as well as your triceps. Both muscles need to be worked. And of course, if you don't go for performance, your muscles will not grow bigger.
But biceps curls is a great way to work your biceps, and they will make them grow a LOT if you do it right.

Myth 8 : Thin and Long Bones sucks for Bench Pressing

The reason why thin and tall guys seems to sucks at Bench Press is because they are not muscular and strong. It has nothing to do with their bones. Short torso means you lack pectorals developpement. Long and thin arms means you lack biceps and triceps developpement. Now the short and fat guy will have an easier time at bench pressing because the bar travel is shorter, and the fat is well known for the best endurance and strength giver. That's why "endomorphs" (or fattys) are good at bench pressing.
Once a tall guy with long bones have built his muscles and strength, noboby will dare to say to him he looks weak anymore... because he won't.

That's it for now.