The 5 Most Common Muscle Building Mistakes
You see the same people in the gym day after day,
week after week, and they never look any different, which is okay if
that is their goal. But for most it isn’t. Most people lift weights to
get bigger and stronger. After years of seeing these types of people
come and go, but never grow, I’ve identified the 5 most common muscle
building mistakes that will hold you back forever.
The first and probably the most common is doing too many reps.
If doing a lot of reps was the way to build size wouldn’t carpenters
have arms like Arnold did? Or wouldn’t marathon runners have huge legs?
Only doing high rep (anything over 8) work outs will NEVER allow you to
add size and mass.
Secondly most people do not use enough weight.
This is partially because of the high rep counts they do. The idea of
“lifting big to get big†seems so obvious, yet few do it. Who is bigger
and stronger, the person who lifts 500 lbs once or the person who lifts
100 lbs 5 times? They both move 500 lbs of weight, but the mass
building effect of each is totally different. You will never add mass
or get stronger if you don’t try lifting weight amounts that you
presently can’t! How does anybody ever
think their muscles will grow to handle loads that they never try to
lift? It is the essence of muscle building!
Thirdly, most people lack the workout routine necessary to build muscle.
The workouts they do seem to have no rhyme or reason. Building muscle
requires a plan. Your workouts should follow that plan. You can not
show up at the gym and begin doing stuff and expect it to have a
positive effect on your physique. Until you adopt a muscle building
plan and stick to it any gain you get will be by sheer effort and luck.
The fourth common error I see is you can not, efficiently build mass and lose weight/fat at the same time.
One, the other, but most likely both, will fail. This means lifting for
mass gains and doing a lot of cardio exercise simultaneously will
undermine your efforts. And not why you think. It has nothing to do
with calorie burn. Adding muscle to your body requires a MAXIMUM effort
in the weight room. If you have the energy to do a bunch of cardio
before or after your lifting, then you left mass building in the gym.
You should be physically spent after a muscle building session. And
most definitely don’t dilute a lifting session by doing cardio first.
The last common mistake I see people make is related to the previous one. Some people try to make the case that cardio workouts done on non-lifting days is the answer to the above problem. I will say it’s better than doing it the same day, but
the truth really is that you need to rest 100% on your non-lifting days
because it is on these days that your muscles actually do their growing.
Allowing your muscles to recover is the only way you are strong enough
to go back in the gym and lift more than you did before.
Which is what muscle building is all about, isn’t it?
