Bodybuilding Muscle Building Tips
Not Listening To Your Body
You need to listen to your body and what it's asking—or screaming at you.
You're scheduled to hit the gym for a big chest day today, but your triceps and front delts still ache from your last shoulder workout. You had mediocre sleep last night that left you feeling far less than energized. What do you do?
Many dedicated gym-goers will hit the gym anyway. They say there are some days you just have to push through. Which is true—to a point. There comes a time, though, when you're only stacking abuse on top of abuse.
You need to listen to your body and what it's asking—or screaming at you. Maybe it's saying that a day or two of straight-up, no-strings-attached rest is necessary.
Or perhaps it's telling you that knocking against the ceiling of your abilities every day isn't the way to go, and that a program with more built-in periodization is a better fit for your abilities and lifestyle.
Athletes learn and improve. You know who doesn't? Injured athletes. Muscle tears, strains, and systemic overtraining will all cost you time and muscle mass. Don't give up performance in the name of ego!
Missing out on Big Lifts
Too many of us lift to lightly. When you're trying to grow, I mean really grow some muscle and mass, you have to lift heavy. Progressive overload stimulates growth, and that comes from lifting heavy and/or doing tons of reps. It's much easier to lift heavy than to do 1000 reps to get the same outcome or stimulation.
Compound exercises are great exercises to do because they involve more than one muscle group, so, therefore, you have more chance to grow some muscle.
You do not want to over-train though, so have a proper training program in place.
Not Mastering Mind-Muscle Control
Maybe because of all the intense faces that people make in the weight room, it can be easy to overlook how fun training is. It's like a playground for adults, with every station offering a different experience and potential for improvement.
With all these tools at our disposal, it can be tempting to simply move from station A to B, push weights from points A to B, and trust that it's working. If you've accomplished everything the little piece of paper said to do, the workout was a success, right?
If you really think about each muscle fiber squeezing and contracting as you move the weight upward, you'll dial in and work the muscles you aim to.
Yes and no. In reality, half the battle is the process. If you really think about each muscle fiber squeezing and contracting as you move the weight upward, you'll dial in and work the muscles you aim to. You'll maximize the time under tension (TUT), which is a proven way to grow. Allowing stronger muscle groups to take over a movement pattern is the fastest way to miss out on gains in the muscle you target. Your front delts are all too willing to take over a shoddy bench press, for example.
Learn how to really focus in on a muscle, and you'll see an instant boost in how your workouts feel and your body grows. You also might find yourself making some of those intense faces I mentioned earlier—and that's a good thing!
Overdoing Cardio To Stay Lean
A lot of people these days like to say you don't need cardio at all, and that simply setting foot on a treadmill or trail is going to cost you gains and leave you skinny-fat. I'm not of those people. Cardio can have a place in most programs, but it's definitely possible to overdo it, particularly if you do hours of it every week in order to "stay lean" while trying to bulk. That's a big no-no if you're trying to add muscle.
First, overdoing cardio training can dramatically decrease your total force generation capacity, which may mean you don't have the energy to produce the growth stimulus you need during your lifting session. Remember, it's TUT that really pushes muscles to grow, and you need the energy to produce it. And if you're eating to build muscle, you especially need to maximize your strength training. Otherwise, you set yourself up to add fat where muscle should be.
Second, too much cardio stacked on top of weight training can also cause your testosterone levels to drop. Men who have low testosterone levels tend to maintain higher body fat levels and lower levels of total lean mass. Those are two strikes against overdoing cardio.
Overdoing cardio training can dramatically decrease your total force generation capacity, which may mean you don't have the energy to produce the growth stimulus you need during your lifting session.
Finally, low-intensity endurance work teaches your body to be more efficient. Cardio trains you to make a little bit of fuel last for lengthy periods of time. This is exactly the opposite of what you want when trying to stay lean. You want to burn calories in a raging, inefficient inferno, while you keep throwing fuel on the fire in the form of food.
The answer: While trying to add muscle, stick to high-intensity interval training for cardio—provided that it doesn't interfere with your recovery. Save the low-intensity cardio for other training cycles throughout the year.
Reaching Your Calories and Macro Goal
For building mass and maintaining it, you must eat. Eating is a huge thing when it comes to bodybuilding. Us bodybuilders must eat a lot to grow. So, you have to stay reaching your calorie and macro goal on a daily basis. If you don't stay consistent with reaching those goals, you won't grow efficiently, and you may actually lose gains due to not proving your muscles what it needs. For those who want to become shredded, you actually need to eat less, to be in a calorie deficit. But for building mass, you need to be a calorie surplus.
However, for maintaining muscle mass over time, whether if you're lean or bulk, you must prioritize protein. If you become protein deficient (along with low carbs), you will lose your muscles. Other than that, if you keep up with your protein intake on a daily basis, you can and will maintain your muscle mass regardless of whether if you're bulking or cutting (now if you're a mass monster and wanting to become shredded, you obviously will lose a bit of muscle mass.)
Not Training To Failure
One of the most common things that can hinder gains in the gym is not pushing your muscles to failure. Beginners tend to do this out of fear, while more experienced lifters do it out of some misinformed notion that doing so could adversely affect strength gains. But researchers at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra found that lifters who performed four sets of six on the bench press, with the last set done to failure, three times a week for six weeks experienced a 10% increase in strength. Subjects in the study who performed three sets of eight, but never trained to failure over that time, saw only a 5% bump.
Additionally, a recent study published in The Journal of Nutrition found that protein synthesis was increased for 24 hours following resistance exercises performed to failure in both heavy-weight/low-rep and lighter-weight/high-rep groups, meaning that training to failure puts you in a position to grow more muscle — regardless of how much weight you’re using.
To keep gains on track, take the last set of each exercise to failure, which increases protein synthesis for 24 hours following your workout.
Lack of Sleep
A review article by Mullington et al. provides a detailed overview of the negative effects of sleep deprivation.3 Growth hormone (GH) commonly reaches its daily maximum during the first half of the normal sleep period. However, sleep-deprived individuals experience a smaller pulse of GH levels during sleep. Sleep deprivation also decreases glucose metabolism, which can contribute to insulin resistance, accumulation of fat stores, and inflammation throughout the body. Interestingly, sleep-deprived individuals have reduced concentrations of leptin, the hormone that signals satiety to the brain. They also have increased concentrations of ghrelin, the hormone that signals hunger to the brain. The combination of lower GH levels, decreased glucose metabolism, reduced leptin levels, and increased ghrelin levels can be catastrophic to your weight training and fitness goals. In order to avoid these effects, give yourself at least eight hours of sleep per night.
Improper Form
Your objective is to perform each exercise properly with the appropriate weight for your training level and engage as many muscle fibers as possible. This can only be accomplished with proper weight lifting techniques. By using improper form, you are less likely to engage every muscle fiber in a given body part, resulting in slower, less effective muscle growth. Secondly, you are far more likely to injure yourself. Improper technique is one of the most common causes of weight-training injuries. So, if you notice yourself using improper lifting techniques as you increase weight, decrease the weight and maintain proper form.
Overtraining
Exercise and weight training cause injury to skeletal muscle fibers, which release various signaling molecules to orchestrate the cellular response to muscle injury. While this response is necessary for muscular development, it can lead to overtraining syndrome if insufficient recovery time is given to the body. Excessive inflammation from overtraining can result in muscle fatigue, loss of muscle protein, loss of muscle mass, and reduced muscle function. It can also induce a ‘whole-body response’, in which the brain induces sickness, vegetative, or recuperative behaviors, leading to mood and behavior changes that allow the body to get rid of the excess inflammatory factors. Some of these behaviors include sickness, disinterest in exercise, reduced libido, arthritis, or a common cold. So, give yourself at least one or two days of rest within a seven-day period to avoid overtraining syndrome.
Not Drinking Enough Water
Your body is made up of two thirds water. Out of that, two thirds of that water is found in your muscle. Your muscle cells are made up of protein and water and if you want to gain more of it you need to increase your water intake.
The usual 6 to 8 glasses a day is a good guideline but a more accurate approach is to drink half your weight in ounces of water each day. So, with our 150 pound example, you should be drinking approximately 75 ounces of water a day – the average cup has about 8 oz in it, this equals around 9 cups a day.
Not Being Consistent
Bodybuilding requires consistency. If you're not being consistent, you won't keep up with your gains. Bodybuilding is not made for everyone because it requires tons of energy and effort. So, if you can't always maintain a bodybuilding lifestyle, it is not made for you.
You have to stay consistent with:
-Eating
-Exercising
-Prioritizing on recovery and health
Improper Workout Programming
An improper routine can ruin your gains. Simply by overtraining or not training enough. As a beginner, you may or may not know how HARD you're actually training. Your muscles need Stimulation to grow. Essentially damage to the muscle. Thus requires intensity. Many people fail to realize they're not training hard enough so this could be the reason why you're not either growing or maintaining.
A proper program in place ensures that you will grow. Because it is properly formulated for you - for your goals. Everyone has different programs when it comes to bodybuilding. Different reps, different sets, the way you exercise, the equipment, etc. Everything counts. So by having an actual program in front, it'll ensure that you will accomplish each task to efficiently 'damage the muscle.' Because As I mentioned, sometimes we fail to realize if we're actually training hard enough. A program or a coach will make sure that you will follow the task to grow.
It'll also prevent over-training and will help train the muscles that actually need to be trained. Because we people tend to train our favorite muscle parts such as the Biceps, Chest, Triceps but we mainly and the majority of the people neglect training legs and/or squats.
Now squats aren't necessary per se, but training legs are hugely neglected by many people. If you are neglecting leg training, you won't grow as much as you're wanting!
Recovery and Rest Are Critical!
Without recovery or resting, you will end up having diminishing returns. The body needs rest - and recovery. Recovery happens when we sleep, so make sure you sleep GOOD every day. Many people don't get enough or good enough sleep, therefore, that may hinder muscle growth.
If you're not allowing yourself to recover for a couple of days, then you're not recovering properly. Now it depends when you should let yourself recover for x amount of days. For example, if you've been training very intensely for a week, then I'd advise recovering for a couple of days without gym days. This will allow your body to regenerate any damaged parts and overall you'll gain strength, mass and you'll feel way better.
Too many of us neglect recovery. Sometimes we are bored and need to work out. Or we may have a workout obsession. Whatever the case may be, allow your body to heal. Don't constantly work out for a long period of time - allow your mind and body to relax for some time and then go back and repeat.
Onto stress, stress also affects recovery. So, I Highly Recommend To Everyone to avoid stress as much as possible. Now, Do not laugh but yes, try to avoid stress. Stress is a killer - and many of you people don't know that. Stress does more than cause a headache and some anger, it damages us within. It damages our gut, our brain, our whole body essentially. Our bodies are capable of holding onto stress from our muscles and tissues; so if you're a chronic stressor, go get massages or find something to relax you.
Tips for managing stress
- mindful thinking and breathing (focus on breathing)
- avoid stressful situations
- have a proper sleeping routine
- massages can help relieve tension and stress
- therapy
- addressing your life situations
- remove stress from your life
- stop engaging in stress[ful] situations
- don't over-train
- have a healthy diet in place
- allow yourself to rest and recover