5 Most Common Muscle-Building Mistakes

To be honest, it's hard to keep this list down to just five things, but these are the main mistakes people make when trying to gain a decent amount of muscle mass. Failing to address one or more of these will seriously affect your performance - and your results.


1. Avoiding the big lifts.


If your gym programme, over the course of a week, doesn't include squats, deadlifts, some form of chin ups, and some form of bench press, then you need to stop and re-evaluate what you're doing. Ideally, your programme should have:


Squats
Deadlifts
Chin ups
Military presses
Bench press and/or dips
Rows


Once you've got all those factored in, great. You can go on to do whatever other exercises you like, but don't skip the big lifts. You simply won't get the same results doing dumbbell flies, leg extensions and curl/shoulder press supersets.


2. Not eating enough.


As trainers, we get VERY used to skinny folk saying 'but I eat like a horse'. No, you don't. Or you wouldn't be skinny. Eat more than you burn off + weight training = muscle gain. At the very least, if you ate more than you needed and never trained, you'd gain fat. If your weight stays the same, you aren't eating enough. End of story. Most people who claim to eat 'loads' turn out to be eating huge portions, but not eating often enough. A 1000 calorie meal might look impressive, but if over the rest of the day you only eat another 1000 calories, you won't gain muscle.


3. Not resting enough.


You don't grow in the gym. You grow when your body has a chance to repair itself...when it's resting. That doesn't mean train once a week and rest the other six days. You need to strike a balance. Generally, for new lifters, training three times a week, having a day (or maybe two) in between each training day works. As you get more advanced, you can train more often, but only if you plan your training intelligently.


If you train every day, don't get enough sleep and constantly push yourself, you'll burn out. The most obvious indicator of burning out is a lack of progress in either your size or strength increases. If you hit a plateau, look at your rest and see what can be improved. An hour earlier to bed? An additional rest day? A weekend off?


4. Relying on supplements.


Really, this needs it's own blog post. Suffice to say, the clue is in the name - supplements. They are designed to supplement an existing good nutrition and training plan, not replace them. I have yet to train anyone who couldn't simply get better results from addressing their nutrition plan, than from spending money on supplements. 'Fat burning' supplements in particular are a huge con. They simply won't have any effect on fat loss until your diet is 100%, and I mean 100%, perfect. My diet isn't that perfect, and neither is yours - so don't waste your money on something that will make 0.1% of difference.


I'll add a caveat to that - probably, for convenience sake, a basic whey shake, multi-vitamin and Omega 3's are worthwhile investments.


5. Changing your routine every five minutes


There's a current trend (things like P90X) to promote 'muscle confusion' as the way to get big and lean. Well, it's generally rubbish. Your body responds to progressive overload. It likes getting used to doing an exercise well, and being able to get stronger at it. That takes time, and can't be achieved by chopping and changing your plan every time someone comes along with a fancy new idea. Pick a plan, stick with it for AT LEAST six weeks before considering changing. If you're wanting to get bigger, get more muscular, then consistency and progression are key. Not jumping on every latest fad.

Gaining muscle...

There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there about gaining muscle and strength. The truth is, it’s about consistent hard work, attention to your diet, and using your training time intelligently. You wouldn’t expect to be able to service your own car without doing a little research and experimenting first, yet so many people walk into a gym blind…and are quickly disheartened by a lack of results.

Your body doesn’t necessarily want to generate extra muscle. After all, it takes a lot of effort for the body to grow and maintain lean tissue. To encourage it to go in the direction you want to go, you need to do three main things:

• Supply an excess of energy (i.e calories) 
• Supply a consistent stimulus to your muscles 
• Get adequate rest and recovery

Muscles increase in size through repairing themselves after intense activity. Firstly, you need to provide that activity in a structured way, and secondly, you need to ensure you have enough incoming energy to ensure that the re-building happens at an optimal level.

How often you train, which exercises you pick, the number of repetitions and sets – all of these things impact on your size increases, and whilst there is no one-size-fits-all training programme, there are certain elements common to any successful trainee.

At Real World Fitness, we can manage both your training and your diet to ensure that none of your valuable gym time is wasted, and that everything you do is geared towards increasing your lean body mass. Incorporating tried and tested conditioning methods as well, our programmes ensure that your weight gain doesn’t come at a price of sacrificing your overall fitness, or body fat, levels.

We will teach you (or assess and if necessary improve your form) all of the major compound movements – the squat, the deadlift, the bench press, bent over rows, chin-ups and dips, military presses and basic Olympic lifts. As you learn and improve your technique, you will notice dramatic improvements in your strength, size and conditioning.

We can work with you at a number of gyms in the Nottingham area, or further afield subject to a small travel cost. Check out the website and contact us to discuss your training.