Top 4 Muscle Building Mistakes Killing Your Gains

In my 13 years of being a fitness coach, I’ve noticed that there are 4 mistakes that almost everyone makes when struggling and failing to build muscle. Even if you’re skinny and trying to get big, or your overweight and trying to get lean, you more than likely are doing at least 2 of these. I’m gonna take some time with you explain it in detail and how to fix it.

1. Not Lifting Heavy Enough

This is a mistake that a lot of newbies make, women in particular. Going slow and steady with your progression is the best way, but this doesn’t give you license to start trying to grow your arms with 5 lb dumbbells. You gotta target the right effort level and there’s a solid way of doing that. Let’s measure effort on a scale of 1-10. 1 being as little effort as humanly possible and 10 being much as humanly possible. We call this relative perceived exertion (RPE).

The target range you want to be in on this scale is anything from 7-9. For example, if you’re doing sets of 10, a 7 would be a weight that you can do a max of 13 reps with. A 9 would be a weight that you can do a max of 11 reps with. Using weight any lower than 7 RPE to build muscle is a waste of time. For warms ups, I recommend using a 5 or 6 RPE.

2. Not Doing Enough Sets & Reps

This is pretty common with ego lifters and people who obsess over their 1 rep max. Strength gain is a primary driver of muscle growth, but you’ll plateau real early if the right training volume isn’t present in your program. The rep ranges you should be working with the most are 6-8 reps, 8-10 reps, or 10-12 reps. Smaller muscles like biceps, triceps, forearms, side delts, and calves respond well to rep ranges on the higher end of the spectrum.

Doing sets of 1,2,3 reps should mainly be done toward the end of your training weeks, or the last week of your training program. This depends on what type of program you’re on. However, 1 rep maxes aren’t really that important to test unless you’re powerlifting. If you’re just trying to develop your best physique, focus on hypertrophy. For a better understanding of program structure, take a look at this here.

3. Not Eating Enough

This right here is the number 1 mistake straight across the board! This goes for the skinny and the overweight people. In fact in my experience, over weight people do this the most. We all know that chubby person in the gym everyday working like a navy seal, but struggling to get that body right. Not only will under eating keep you from building muscle, but it’ll keep you from burning fat too.

This has a lot to do with hormonal function, so check this out. You need adrenaline and testosterone in order to burn fat and build muscle. Under eating cause these two hormone levels to plummet. This results in high cortisol and estrogen levels, which encourage fat retention and reduce muscle growth.

Find out what your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is. That’s how much you need to eat in order to maintain optimal bodily function without any exercise. Now add 30% to that number to see how your body responds with training.

Under eating also implies a protein deficit as well, so here’s a good rule to follow. At least 20% of your macros should come from protein. These are very general diet guidelines that may need to be tweaked for you specifically, but this is a good place to start. If this isn’t working you would either have to increase your calories by 5-10% or follow a better training program that fits your lifestyle and goals.

4. Over eating

This is typical with people who view themselves as hard gainers and respond with excessive force feeding. If you’re a skinny newbie to the gym you do not need to do silly things like eat 3000 calories per day, or eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. Doing that is a great way to make yourself skinny fat and feel terrible while doing it. Don’t do it!

Here’s what’s going to work much better for you. Multiply your weight by 14 to get your maintenance calories. For example,

let’s say you’re 160 lbs
multiplying your weight by 14 will give you 2240 cal.
20% of that 2240 calories equals 112 grams of protein.
You should be targeting 1.6 – 1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of lean mass.

Your body can only recover and build so much muscle at a time, so consuming more than you need will not help.

Tribe By Noire