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5 Common Myths About Strength Training That Need to Go in 2025 (And What To Do Instead)

Writer's picture: Daniela RadomanDaniela Radoman

With everyone hitting up the gym, rec centre, or dusting off some old dumbbells that were hiding around somewhere, aiming to accomplish their new year’s resolution of getting in shape, here are some common workout misconceptions that need to be left behind.


These are things that are NOT good indicators of progress in the gym if your goal is to get stronger, build muscle, and gain stamina in 2025.



  1. You Need to Feel the Burn

You’ve probably heard some trainers or instagram influencers talking about “feeling the burn” as you rep out some squats.


It’s not really something you absolutely need to be feeling in order to have a good workout. 


Let’s take a look at what’s actually happening beneath the skin.


So when you move, your muscles contract and relax, and as they do this, they release some particles. One of which is hydrogen.


These hydrogen ions build up and create an acidic environment in the muscles being worked. Your nerves sense this and hence, the burning sensation you feel. 


(Yes, you read that right. “The burn” is not from lactic acid as most think).


That’s why you usually feel the burn more the more reps you do or the longer you hold a certain position for. It gives the muscles more time to release more hydrogen, creating more of that burning sensation.

woman physically tired

Think of holding a long wall sit, or cranking out 50 squats. I guarantee those thighs will be feeling it towards the end.


Then, think of holding that wall sit for only 5 seconds, or only doing 5 squats. Not exactly feeling the same burn, are you?


It’s common to experience less of the burn as you do less reps/time - even if you use heavier weights!


Yet, the muscles are still working.



  1. You Have to Build Up a Sweat

A lot of people look at how much their skin glistens when they look at themselves in the mirror after a workout to gauge how good their workout actually was.


When really, sweating is just your body trying to cool itself off. 


Some people sweat more than others naturally due to genetics. Thanks mom and dad.


The temperature of your environment also is a key factor of whether or not you end up sweating a lot, a little, or maybe not at all. 


You could do the exact same workout in the summer sun, or outside in the middle of a snow storm. You’ll 100% sweat more while working out in the summer sun.


A lot of people also like wearing sweatpants and oversized sweatshirts while working out, which are usually thicker and heavier than, say, shorts and a tank top. It’s a good idea to take into account what clothes you’re going to wear and the materials they’re made out of before you make your way to the training floor.


Your hydration levels also play a role. If you’re dehydrated to begin with, you simply won’t have as much water to sweat out!


Lymphatic health is another factor that may affect how much you sweat. If you have a condition like lymphoma, you may find yourself sweating more or less than usual.


So sweating a lot really isn’t a good indicator of whether or not you got a good training session in. 



  1. You Have to be Sore After a Workout in Order for it to be Effective

This is a common misconception I hear very, very often. 


Soreness is usually caused when you do something new and your body isn’t used to it.


This could be from starting a new workout program, trying out a new exercise, playing around with higher or lower rep ranges, jumping up a lot in weight, or starting back up after a long pause.


After a few weeks, the soreness should reduce after each session since your body is adapting and getting used to the routine of movements you’re doing.


A little bit of soreness here and there is fine, but if you’re finding it hard to get out of bed the next morning after a workout thanks to being so sore, then something isn’t right.


It could mean you’re jumping around TOO much from exercise to exercise or program to program. You want some repetition in your program. Repeating the same movements from week to week for a few months before changing it up is a good idea.


It could also mean you’re doing too much volume - AKA you’re just doing too much. If your workout is a list of 20 exercises, doing 4 sets of 12 reps for each, then that’s just overkill. You can easily get a solid workout in with just 5 exercises and proper programming. 


Doing too much volume can also look like hitting up the gym every single day of the week.


You can get away with going to the gym most days of the week with proper programming, but a lot of people go gung-ho and show up every day or to every class and just crank out exercises. This often leaves them sore, achy from overuse, and burnt out. Not only is this not a good way to progress, it’s also a good way to stop enjoying exercising in general and stop showing up altogether. Remember, you need rest days to let your body recover as well. You can even get away with exercising only twice a week and still reap tons of benefits. 


Huge jumps in reps and weight can also cause a jump in soreness. If you’re used to doing squats at 12 reps with a 10lbs weight, and then you try squatting with 50lbs or doubling the reps to 24 instead, then expect to feel more soreness than usual since your body simply isn’t used to that stimulus. It’s used to the 12 reps at 10lbs!


Being debilitatingly sore isn’t a sign of an effective workout. Not only does it make the next few days uncomfortable and inconvenient for you, but it can also hinder you from working out again since it’ll take you longer to recover.


Who wants to workout when it hurts to walk?


Either way, soreness is NOT a good indicator if you had a good workout. It’s usually a sign of improper programming.



  1. You Need to Keep That Heart Rate High

Your heart rate should rise with any exercise you do. Whether that be walking, lifting heavy weights, doing pilates, or shoveling the snow off your driveway.

Higher heart rate

Your heart has to pump a little harder in order to get enough blood (and thus oxygen) to all those working muscles.


The part where people go wrong is when they think you need to have a high heart rate for the entirety of the workout.


Now, of course, if you’re a long distance runner, cyclist, or some other kind of endurance athlete and you do a long duration endurance workout, your heart rate will be elevated for the duration of that workout.


But too often you see people treating their strength training workouts like cardio workouts.


If you’re doing sets of heavy squats (squats seem to be the exercise of choice for this blog today), you don’t want to finish your set and then jump right into burpees, box jumps, or some other form of cardio “just to keep the heart rate up.”


All this does is make your body more tired than it needs to be and lowers your body’s ability to recover and restore energy before your next set of squats.


Literally just rest. Take a break. Relax a bit. Do some light movement. But take it easy for a few minutes before your next set.


Resting properly will allow you to devote the energy and focus needed to lift heavier. If you’re exhausted from the previous set plus all the extra stuff you did during your “break,” you might not have the energy to do as many reps or go as heavy as you normally would. 


If you’re exhausted, you also might be at a higher risk of faltering in your form. That’s probably not a good idea if you’re lifting heavy or doing a more complex exercise.


If you’re more of an endurance or hybrid athlete (think Crossfit), then this circuit type training may apply to you, but even then, it’s a smart idea to devote time to strength exercises and strength exercises alone


There’s a time and place for cardio. It shouldn’t be at the same time as strength training. Ideally, do it after a strength training workout, or on a different day. 


If your goal is strength training, keep it to strength. Focus on your lifts, not on making sure your heart rate is through the roof. 



  1. Feeling Wiped During & After Every Workout

While fatigue is normal during and after a workout, you shouldn’t be absolutely shot, feeling

like you need to just lay around the rest of the day

Tired woman

Workouts should leave you feeling a bit tired and like you did some work. In the long run, you should feel more energized and feeling good, not perpetually drained.


Lots of people think they need to kill themselves with every training session in order to see improvement. That can look like doing every exercise they can think of, hitting a new personal best every set, doing more and more reps, training to failure all the time, or even pushing through pain. 


Constantly pushing your past your limits is a recipe for overtraining, higher risk of injury, and burn out.


As mentioned earlier, doing too much for your body to handle too often can leave you exhausted, not able to recover sufficiently, too sore to exercise again, and mentally drained. 


Doing too much will often leave you in the same place in your fitness journey. Not being able to recover well means your body won’t have the capacity to actually heal and build strength and muscle as it normally would. So not only do you end up not seeing as much progress physically, you’re also fatiguing yourself more and more and are left feeling wiped.


That’s no bueno.


You need to find a balance where you’re still being challenged, but it’s at an appropriate level where you’re able to recover properly. You should end up seeing progress - being able to lift more weight, do more reps, or see improvements in body composition.



So What Should You Do Instead?

So if feeling the burn, sweating buckets, being dead sore, skyrocketing your heart rate, and feeling as though your soul was sucked out of your body aren’t indicators of a good workout, then what should you actually look out for when you’re strength training?


Here are 3 things everyone should implement:

  1. Proper Intensity

  2. Progressive Overload

  3. Consistency & Patience



  1. Proper Intensity

You need to work hard in order to see progress. 


Your muscles adapt to what you stress them with. So, if you’re hardly stressing them, they have no reason to adapt. If you stress them too much, they might not be able to recover well and can end up doing more harm than good.


Hence, the need to train at an appropriate intensity.


You need to perform enough reps with a sufficient weight to the point where the last few reps are difficult.


You want to leave 1-3 reps left in the tank by the end of your set. You don’t need to go to failure (doing that all the time is not a good idea - read above), but you want to flirt with it. Get close, but just shy.


Another way to think of this is by using a scale from 1 through 10, with 1 being “very easy”, and 10 being “very hard.” You want to be in the range of 6-10 by the end of the set.


You can do this with various rep ranges. Whether you stick with the common 10-12 rep range, or if you go for only 5 reps, or maybe you like repping out 20. All of these rep ranges, provided you push yourself, will build strength and muscle.


Either way, you want to feel like you only can do a few more with decent form by the end.


If you’re new to lifting weights, it can be hard to determine when you’re actually close to failure. While more experience definitely helps, here are a few signs you can look out for that’ll let you know you’re getting close to your max: 

woman barbell squatting

  • Your reps are slowing down

  • You start to tremble a bit

  • Your non-dominant side is starting to lag behind

  • Your form is starting to waver slightly


Looking out for these signs can let you know how close you are to failure, and when it’s a good time to stop. 


So remember, you have to push yourself to the point where you only have a few more reps left in the tank at the end of your set.



  1. Progressive Overload

This is just a fancy term your trainer, coach, or health care professional uses to mean, “we gotta pump those numbers up!”


Why do we need to pump them up? And what are those numbers you say?


Well, your body adapts to what you put it through. So if you stay at the same place for too long, your body has no reason to adapt and progress. That’s why we have to keep challenging the body with new stimuli so it has a reason to continue to adapt!


Those numbers that we’re talking about are variables we can adjust during our training. 


There’s a good number of them:


  • Intensity (hmm…sound familiar?)

  • Load 

  • Volume (# of reps and sets)

  • Frequency (how often you work a muscle/how often you exercise each week)

  • The exercises themselves

  • The exercise technique

  • Range of Motion

  • Tempo

  • Rest


You can adjust one or a few of these at a time to tweak the difficulty of your training sessions.


This is also why you should follow a program that follows some repetition for a while. Following the same exercises over the course of at least a few weeks allows room for not only building confidence in those movements, it also allows you to tweak some of these variables to change their difficulty level. This lets you make visible progress in those same lifts over the course of the few weeks or months that you follow the program for.



  1. Consistency & Patience

Everyone wants to hit the gym and immediately see the fat melt off their bodies and their muscles start to pop a bit. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen overnight. 


If you’re new to strength training and/or you’re starting a new program, you’re bound to see a quick shift in progress when you first start. It might last a couple of months even.


Then all of a sudden, you’re not seeing the same progress like you once did. Those numbers aren’t jumping up like they were a few weeks ago. You feel like you’ve plateau-ed a bit even though you’re still putting in the work.


Don’t worry. Building muscle and strength takes time.


We’re talking months and years, not days.


You just have to keep at it.


So find a good workout program and follow it.


Or find a good coach (*cough cough*) that’ll guide you through one.


Show up day after day, week after week.


Put in effort and challenge yourself.


Gaining muscle and strength is simple, but it’s not easy.


It takes time. Be patient.


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Final Remarks

If you’re wondering about where to start, look no further! I’m here to help. As an experienced kinesiologist, I’ll take the guesswork out for you and create a plan tailored to your goals and needs. Even if you have a sore knee, a shoulder injury, or maybe you have arthritis in your hands, you’ll receive a program that takes all your needs into account.


If you have any questions, are curious about our services, click the link below to get in touch.


We also offer a free initial consult to get to know each other better and to build a roadmap towards reaching your goals.


So why wait? Start today and make 2025 your strongest year yet.


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2 Kommentare


vkr661
20. Jan.

Very informative! Thank you !!

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Antwort an

Glad to hear!

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