Building muscle is a long term commitment that requires consistent visits to the gym and an iron mindset in order to train hard time and time again. When you witness the results in the mirror after lifting hard and consistently for a couple of months, you feel proud and are even more motivated to keep going hard in order to make even more progress.
The above is an ideal scenario, but what if you’ve been hitting the gym for months or even years on end without seeing any significant results whatsoever? You’re spending lots of time and energy on working out and for what? You may ask yourself. What’s going on and why aren’t you gaining muscle and strength?
Now, rest assured, you’re not unique snowflake that is unable to make his or her muscles larger. The fact that you’re muscles aren’t getting any bigger is perfectly explainable. Time and time again there are people who come to me for coaching advice to solve their problem regarding lack of gains. Interestingly enough, there’s a pattern and there are 3 extremely common causes that is the cause for the lack of results.
In this article I will share three big reasons why you may not getting the results you’ve hoped for. If you recognize yourself in one or more of these three reasons, you can change where it all went wrong and finally make the muscle gains you’ve been hoping to see when you look at yourself in the mirror!
Let’s jump right in it.
1. YOU’RE NOT EATING ENOUGH CALORIES
In order to create new muscle tissue, your body needs building blocks. Those building blocks are the energy we call calories and is found in the foods we eat. Combined with eating a sufficient amount of protein, which is about 0.8g per pound of body weight, your muscles will growth and adequately recovery from your workouts.
A lot of people make the mistake of not eating enough calories to support muscle growth. We are in a time where social media overstimulates us with images of extremely lean and perfect bodies. This causes people to think that they should remain shredded all the time and prevents them from eating in a calorie surplus to support muscle growth.
The other group of people who don’t eat enough calories to build muscle mass are people who have lost a big amount of weight and are afraid to regain the weight and get fat again. I definitely understand where they are coming from, because I’ve experienced the same thing. The last thing you want is to regain all the weight that you’ve worked so hard for to lose in the first place. However, there is a difference between gaining weight and gaining fat. If done correctly, eating in a surplus will not make you fat.
The problem most people make while trying to gain muscle on a bulk is that they gorge themselves with everything in sight, eating a huge calorie a surplus that is way beyond what they need to build muscle mass. As a result, these people gain tons of fat more than they should’ve. This will only lead to having to diet down longer than you would if you’d do things right.
The correct way to gain muscle is to eat a moderate surplus of 200-300 calories above maintenance. This will support muscle growth at the maximum rate your body’s muscle building capacities and keep fat gain at a minimum.
While eating in a calorie surplus, a little bit of fat gain is inevitable and you have to accept that. However, combined with a proper resistance training program where you train hard and focus in progressive overload, 80%+ of the extra calories should go to building muscle and refilling glycogen stores.
Since you’ll gain muscle and your maintenance calories will be at a much higher place than where you first started, you now have a fantastic base point to start a fat loss phase where you will still be able to eat a significant amount of food and you’ll look absolutely amazing when you diet down to around 10% body fat due to the extra muscle you packed on.
Don’t make the mistake of not eating enough calories, since you’ll be spinning your wheels and not make any significant progress.
2. YOU DON’T FOCUS ON GETTING STRONGER – PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD
Often times I see guys lifting the same weights for the same number of reps month after month and just as the weight on the bar isn’t changing, nor is their body.
A lot of people don’t really train hard enough. Instead of focusing on progressive overload, which means aiming to lift heavier weights for more reps over time, they just go through the motions with the same light weights and never make any progress. What’s lacking here is drive and intensity.
The response I often when I discuss this topic is: “But I don’t care about getting strong, I just want to look good and have bigger muscles!”. Well my dear friend, even if looks is all you care about, you better focus on getting stronger. The size of your muscles is the result of the amount of force they can produce. A bigger muscle is a stronger muscle, therefore, if you want to get bigger muscles, focus on getting stronger!
Getting stronger is the result of training a muscle group at least twice per week with an appropriate training volume for your level of experience and each set taken close to failure. Do this consistently, eat enough calories and protein, get adequate sleep and my friend, your muscles will grow like magic.
To make sure that you are getting stronger over time, track your lifts with a training log where you write down the weight and reps you performed for a certain lift along with the date. You can do this in a notebook or use a note file on your phone like I do. This will keep you accountable to make progress and will have a positive impact on your mindset, since you consistently see the numbers in your log rising! This is especially true in your first 2 years of lifting.
If you don’t get stronger, you’re not doing it right. The strength you gain is the result of your muscles growing and adapting to the training stimulus. So make sure to focus on getting stronger gradually over time.
3. YOU CENTER YOUR WORKOUTS AROUND THE WRONG EXERCISES
If you want to get big, you have to center your workouts around big exercises. I’m talking about the key compound exercises such as the bench press, overhead press, chin up, row, squat, lunges and Romanian deadlifts. If you’re not doing this, you’re missing out and doing yourself a huge disservice.
Isolation lifts are meant to bring up lagging body parts and weak point that aren’t maximally stimulated through compound exercises alone. They are useful, but should never be the focus of your workout routine. They are assistance lifts that are an accessory to the big, multi joint compound exercises.
Why focus on compound exercises? Because they stimulate so much muscle growth in multiple muscle groups with a single movement. They give you the best return of your investment and should be the bread and butter of your workout routine.
Want big legs? Squat! Want a big back? Do weighted chin ups! Big chest and shoulders? Bench press and overhead press, my friend! You can get big and strong on compound exercises alone, if that’s all you want to do. You can’t get big and strong by performing only isolation exercises. The isolation lifts are the icing on the cake whereas compound exercises are the cake’s foundation.
While compound exercises are mainly associated with the larger muscle groups, smaller groups also grow immensely from compound lifts. Your biceps will grow from getting stronger on pulling movements such as chin ups and rows. Your triceps will grow nicely from getting strong on pressing movements. Abs? Chin ups, squats, deadlift variations,… believe me, you won’t have a shortage of a nice set of abdominals if you get strong on these lifts. Want to throw in curls and lateral raises at the end of your workout? Sure, go ahead, but perform your chin ups, bench presses and squats first.
Compound exercises are hard work, since they involve multiple muscles and joints and take a lot out of you. But hey, hard work is what gets you results in life. The reason people opt for isolation lifts instead of focusing on compound lifts is because they are afraid of hard work and getting tired. So don’t be a pussy and learn to embrace hard work. Being comfortable with uncomfortable things will carry over to all aspects of your life and is a skill only successful people master. Apply this concept in the gym and in anything else you want to accomplish. Seeing results will just be a matter of time.
If you’ve been making one or more of these muscle building mistakes that hold you back from the results you want to achieve, I hope this article has opened your eyes and that you will take this advice to heart, because I truly want you to become the version of yourself that you dream of being.
Applying these tips will be a big game changer and will inevitably bring you closer to your physique goals.
You go build the physique of your dreams now, tiger!
Kevin Mahjoubi