You’re trying to gain muscle mass, but you can’t see the progress you expected? Avoid these 5 frequent errors when it comes to increasing muscle mass so you can meet your goals once and for all. You aim.
1. YOU DO NOT TRAIN ACCORDING TO YOUR GOAL
When your goal is to gain muscle mass, you have to focus your training on it. This means giving less priority to other parameters such as losing fat, increasing our aerobic resistance, etc. A very common mistake is that during a stage of hypertrophy, we give too much weight to aerobic training – running, cycling, elliptical…-, which will be counterproductive when pursuing our main goal.
During a volume stage, it is usually advisable to train with high loads, a repetition range of between 6-15, and about 10 series in total per muscle group, although it should not be forgotten that there are different methods to achieve an optimal increase in muscle mass and therefore your coach will help you to choose the one that best suits you.
Within each training, it is advisable to start with exercises involving large muscles (chest, dorsal, quadriceps…) and then move to smaller muscles (biceps, calves…). During the weeks it is also key to vary the incentive of training, whether it is changing the exercises, range of repetitions, series, etc. Always train with the same repetitions and the same exercises will stagnate your progress.
2. YOU EAT A LOT OR VERY LITTLE
Most people say that you eat enough – and even eat a lot, but the reality is that often that perception is wrong. To increase volume it is logical that we need to ingest more calories than our body consumes, approximately 15% to 20% more than our basal metabolic rate (always gradually increasing intake).
In addition, we must feed on quality and balanced nutrients, as we will not be able to progress properly if our diet limps somewhere. As for the consumption of proteins – the structural material of our muscles – it is advisable to consume between 1 and 2 grams per kilo of weight (to adapt these consumptions to your characteristics it is important to visit an expert nutritionist). Carbohydrates are gasoline, energy, so we must regulate them according to the energy we will spend every day; between 3 and 4 grams of carbohydrates per kilo of weight is recommended. Even with the bad reputation usually attributed to it, fat is key to any target in the gym, make sure you take quality fats (unsaturated) regularly in your diet.
Apart from the energetic nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats), your diet must be complemented by a correct intake of vitamins and minerals, which will help us in the processes of cell regeneration, recovery, and muscle growth.
3. YOU DON’T CHOOSE THE RIGHT EXERCISES
I haven’t seen a few cases where, when you decide to start a stage of hypertrophy, the number of analytical/mono-articular exercises in each training increases a lot. What we want is to stimulate all muscle groups with few repetitions (usually between 6-12), if we pass with analytical exercises we will need much more training volume to recruit the same muscle fibers, and the effects will be minor at the hormonal level as well.
Focus on the fact that composite/poly-articular exercises (squat, bench press, military press, dead weight…) compose most of your training, in this way, you will get a greater hormonal response and muscle recruitment, which translates into more muscle mass gains. I’m not saying you have to eliminate analytical exercises, but use them only as a complement and not as a main exercise.
4. YOUR LIFESTYLE DOES NOT CONTRIBUTE
The day has 24 hours and our body responds to the stimuli it receives during those 24 hours. That’s why it’s important that we not only focus on gaining muscle mass for the few hours we’ll go to training during the week, but it’s also crucial that our lifestyle helps us achieve those goals.
Among the healthy habits that usually fail most and without which our body will not increase its levels of muscle mass, we find:
-Hydration: As with the rest of the food, your water intake should increase. Muscles are made of water and it is vital that they are never dehydrated, otherwise, you will slow down all cellular regeneration processes and you will be literally subtracting effectiveness in each training.
– Dream: a fundamental pillar for progress, as important as diet and training itself to recover our body 100%.
– Stay active during the day: giving everything in your training time and spending the remaining 23 hours sitting is ineffective, isn’t it? If during the day we stay active and moving, avoiding prolonged periods while remaining still, we will get a better and faster recovery – in addition to other benefits – which will favor our muscle growth.
– Avoid tobacco and alcohol use.
5. YOUR RUTIN NO IS FOR IT
Friends and new customers often tell me that they have tried to follow some intense routine to gain muscle mass they have seen on the internet, which was made by celebrities or elite athletes.
The big problem with doing this is that this routine is not adapted to each person’s characteristics, and often trying to do the same as someone else can cause injury or simply not be effective for us, so we would just be wasting time. You have to think that all these people have a team that supervises their training every day and adapts it to their characteristics and lifestyle.
For this reason, it is important to always follow a training program that is as adapted as possible to each person. Only in this way will we take advantage of all the effort invested in each training and we will see remarkable results.
Now that you know these 5 mistakes not to make when winning muscular mass, rethink (if necessary) your training and you’ll see how you get closer to your goals much faster. Train intelligently.