Top 10 common fitness myths

3. Workout every day

Whatever time you go to the gym or take a class, do you always see that one person who always seems to be there exercising every day without fail? Rather than be impressed by their commitment, realise they could be hampering their fitness by working out every single day.

"You don't need to work out every day to see results. In fact, overtraining increases your risk of injury," says Angela. "It's important to remember that your body needs to rest in order to recover. This will ensure you get the most out of each workout. In between gym sessions why not try a low intensity activity like swimming or yoga, sometimes known as 'active recovery'."

4. You can spot-target fat

It would be nice to think you could target a specific area of your body and the fat would just melt away. It doesn't work that way. You do lose fat from resistance training but unfortunately you can't specify where the fat will be lost from.

A small study in 2013 published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research suggested targeting a certain body area wasn't effective. Participants were trained with their non-dominant leg for 12 weeks, with 3 sessions a week of around 1,000 leg press exercises per session. At the end of the 12 weeks body fat all over had decreased but there was no significant change in fat mass or fat percentage in the trained or untrained leg. So the training did reduce fat mass but not in the targeted area.

"You can train body parts for strength but your genetic makeup will determine where fat burn is quickest. HIIT training (intervals) and powerful moves such as Olympic lifts will burn lots of calories and utilise lots of muscle mass which will enable you to burn more calories but it is a case of mixing it up, combining cardio and strength, and healthy eating to really change your body shape," says celebrity trainer and author Kelly Du Boisson.

5. Crunches give you a 6-pack

Wrong again. Doing 500 crunches, curls or sit-ups won't get you the 6-pack of your dreams.

"Crunches burn, no two ways about it, but this doesn’t mean they’re an effective exercise and in fact the opposite is true as actually they’ll simply shorten your hip flexors and cause unnatural curving through the spine," warns Kelly.

"In order to really create strong abs we need to change our diets, reducing sugar, effectively using unrefined carbohydrates and upping green vegetables. Exercises such as squats, deadlifts and clean and press that use lots of muscle require the core to work harder and utilise the muscle fibres. Adding power to this, for example squat jumps, releases fat burning hormones that will literally shred abdominal fat much more effectively than crunches," recommends Kelly.