Yash Birla has been a firm believer in fitness

. He does not appear to be a typical corporate guy who is always in a suit. He has varied interests in life and fitness is one of them. Here’s Yash Birla sharing his experiences related to fitness & working out. He dispels several myths/misconceptions about working out.

Yash Birla believes that weight training forces the muscle fibers to adapt by getting bigger and stronger over time. Aerobic exercise, on the other hand, improves the body’s ability to intake oxygen but does not help in building muscles. In the long run, weight training is more efficient than aerobics for burning up calories.

For strength gains, says Yash Birla, ideally, 3-7 reps are best, and for muscle gains 8-12 reps are ideal. Heavyweights, lifted for 5-12 reps per set, can build rock-hard muscles. You just have to get the fat off them to see how hard they are. If you can perform more than 15 repetitions in general, it simply means the load is not sufficient to force the muscles to adapt. Many believe that training with weights causes your muscles to get tight, and hinders flexibility and consequently athletic performance. However, weight training when done properly & consistently can increase flexibility.

Ways to enhance fitness in your life

Muscle is made up of individual cells — living, breathing cells that undergo all kinds of complex metabolic processes. Fat cells are simply storage sites of lipids. Yash Birla says if one stops working out and stop applying resistance to your muscles constantly, they will simply adapt to the new condition. In other words, they’ll shrink.

For steroids to be effective, your muscles need to be stimulated in the first place and given the right nutrients in the right proportions. Otherwise, only steroids are not going to make you muscular (without food to build the muscle or training to stimulate it). Most of the weight gain seen with the use of some steroids is due to water retention and is not actual muscle Yash Birla explains.

Many believe that one needs to focus on the lower abs to get six-pack abs. However, there’s no such thing as lower abs. The sixpack most go after is one long muscle, called the rectus abdominis, that extends from below your chest to your pelvis. To work your abs, you should do exercises to target all four muscles — the rectus abdominis, internal and external obliques and the transverse abdominis. Secondly, only crunches will not help you get a six-pack, especially if you’ve got a layer of fat over your abdominal area. To see the muscles; you must reduce your body fat.

Yash Birla points out that many believe that stretching before exercise is important to reduce injury. However, light exercise is better at warming up your body (to make your muscles and joints warmer and limber), compared to deep stretching, which can result in injury. Stretching before exercise may increase the risk of injury. It is better to stretch during and after completing your workout.