“I LIFT BUT DON’T LOOK LIKE IT” (The 5 Reasons Why)
- 9 months ago
Do you lift weights every week? Twice a week? Three times? More? But are your arms, chest, or whatever muscle you’re trying to make bigger not growing? Well listen up, because with regards to “training” I’m going to show you 5 common lifting mistakes that explain why people who lift consistently see no muscle growth in a month (or for years on end). And if any of those muscle building mistakes describes you, also how to fix each one – so you build the muscle mass you desire.
The first of the muscle building mistakes: you are not training with sufficient effort. While it’s not “necessary” to train to absolute failure every set, you do need to get close enough to it. During each of your sets, you need to push hard enough such that you’re at least 1-3 reps short of the point where you could not possibly do 1 more rep with proper form. But many people miss the mark on this one by: 1) simply not pushing hard enough during a set to reach this 1-3 rep short of failure zone, or 2) overestimating how close they are to reaching this zone. For example thinking that they just did a set with only 1 rep left in the tank before they reached failure, but in reality could have done 5 more if they really pushed.
The second of the common lifting mistakes is not training with enough intensity. For a long time it was believed that the most muscle was built in the “hypertrophy rep range” of 6-12 repetitions. This concept has since been disproven many times over and it appears that similar muscle can be built across a wide range of repetitions. But, it does appear that there is a limit to how high reps you should go before muscle growth is compromised. As a general rule, if you can perform more than 30 repetitions with a given load, even if it is to failure, you likely need to increase the weight to drop the reps or else you will be leaving gains on the table.
What was once hard enough to help you build muscle mass when you started working out will likely not be hard enough after a few weeks or months. The easiest and most straightforward way to make sure you continue to push yourself is to periodically try and increase the weight of an exercise. For example, if you used 30lbs last week and performed 10 reps, try to use 35lbs this week and perform 10 reps. Now this strategy works very well for new lifters, but as you become more trained it is unlikely that you will be able to make noticeable progress on a week by week basis. For more advanced individuals, a more likely scenario is to try and increase the number of reps.
As you continue challenging your muscles and pushing harder than you used to, you need to ensure that your technique remains on point. Many make the mistake of trying to do too much too soon and sacrificing good technique to use more weight or add another rep. Thus, explaining why there’s no muscle growth in a month (or months). So even if you haven’t been making mistake #3, you could be “artificially” getting stronger and improving your sets an
The first of the muscle building mistakes: you are not training with sufficient effort. While it’s not “necessary” to train to absolute failure every set, you do need to get close enough to it. During each of your sets, you need to push hard enough such that you’re at least 1-3 reps short of the point where you could not possibly do 1 more rep with proper form. But many people miss the mark on this one by: 1) simply not pushing hard enough during a set to reach this 1-3 rep short of failure zone, or 2) overestimating how close they are to reaching this zone. For example thinking that they just did a set with only 1 rep left in the tank before they reached failure, but in reality could have done 5 more if they really pushed.
The second of the common lifting mistakes is not training with enough intensity. For a long time it was believed that the most muscle was built in the “hypertrophy rep range” of 6-12 repetitions. This concept has since been disproven many times over and it appears that similar muscle can be built across a wide range of repetitions. But, it does appear that there is a limit to how high reps you should go before muscle growth is compromised. As a general rule, if you can perform more than 30 repetitions with a given load, even if it is to failure, you likely need to increase the weight to drop the reps or else you will be leaving gains on the table.
What was once hard enough to help you build muscle mass when you started working out will likely not be hard enough after a few weeks or months. The easiest and most straightforward way to make sure you continue to push yourself is to periodically try and increase the weight of an exercise. For example, if you used 30lbs last week and performed 10 reps, try to use 35lbs this week and perform 10 reps. Now this strategy works very well for new lifters, but as you become more trained it is unlikely that you will be able to make noticeable progress on a week by week basis. For more advanced individuals, a more likely scenario is to try and increase the number of reps.
As you continue challenging your muscles and pushing harder than you used to, you need to ensure that your technique remains on point. Many make the mistake of trying to do too much too soon and sacrificing good technique to use more weight or add another rep. Thus, explaining why there’s no muscle growth in a month (or months). So even if you haven’t been making mistake #3, you could be “artificially” getting stronger and improving your sets an