Letting go of training myths

Since I started doing sessions with Advance Wellness Centre personal trainer Christian Baldia I have come to realise why some of my presumptions about food and exercise were detrimental to what gym buffs call "dem gains".

I decided this instalment would highlight a few of these in the hope others might begin to realise often it's their own presumptions holding them back from gaining weight, and not the often-blamed high metabolism:

- Doing weights is simple - it involves picking heavy things up and putting them back down again. I could not have been more wrong. Correct form is an art, and not one I am very adept at. For example the squat and the deadlift, two of the most common weight exercises, took me the best part of three weeks to get the hang of.

- If you want to get bigger it's just a case of working out for longer. This was my reasoning when I would spend three hours at the climbing gym, but as Christian explained, you end up burning all the energy your body could use to repair and strengthen.

- Running is an effective warm up for any exercise. My reasoning was if the blood is pumping and the body is warm that's all you were after, but as Christian explained to me the ideal warm up will engage the targeted areas of the workout and by mimicking movements for your central nervous system to prepare. In the case of deadlifts, for example, this means rocking backwards and forwards on your hands and knees, appearing for all the world like a slightly immobile toddler.

- The popular dietary advice applies to everyone. Wrong. It is more often than not targeted at overweight people.

Growing up with a slightly tubby father my formative years were spent eating chicken which had to be grilled to remove every morsel of fat before it was added to the casserole and mince boiled to the texture of rubber. We always needed to have the low-fat option. When you grow up and start cooking for yourself you are so constantly bombarded with health warnings and advice for the fat and unfit you lose sight of the fact that as a slim person who does exercise a lot you need those high-fat, high-protein meals.

I'm not advocating for eating McDonalds every meal - there are good and bad fats - but when you start getting lectured by people for eating bacon or too many nuts when you're 64kg the world has gone mad.

I remember asking clinical nutritionist Sonja Gardiner on day one 'doesn't cheese clog up your arteries?'.

I was 64kg, 25 years old, I climbed eight hours a week and ran regularly. Why the hell was I worried about this? The simple answer boils down to this - market demand is for advice for overweight people, not people trying to gain weight.

■ Advance Wellness Centre is at 711 Victoria Street. For more information about the services they offer see www.advancephysio.co.nz.