To make the best possible progress during your workout you must:

• Stimulate the muscle frequently;
• Start a program according to your experience in training;
• Focus on the correct execution of the exercises and choose mainly compound movements;
• Use a progressive overload method;
• Maintain the same workout program for some time. Consistency is key for good results.

When the goal is to build muscle, there are many mistakes that will make achieving your results very hard. The diet and the workout must be in sync and adapted to each individual. In this article we will leave the diet aspect aside and focus on training.

SEE ALSO: TRAIN WITH YOUR BETTER HALF!

Our experience regarding coaching people who only want to diet, as well as begginners in the fitness world, or even athletes, makes us see the same situation over and over again: Either they follow the current trendy workout, or the workout they are given at the gym. And they don’t progress.

In this article we are going to analyze the reasons why these programs fail in terms of muscle gain.

Before anything else, what do we define as bodybuilding workouts?

A traditional bodybuilding workout is that typical workout you have seen in the fitness magazines for decades, that you can also observe in the gym, and that posses the following characteristics:

• Training a muscle only once a week (low frequency);
• Working only 1 or 2 muscles on the same day;
• The muscles are exposed to an enormous amount of volume. Many exercises, sets and reps, with the purpose of working the muscle from as many angles as possible;
• Each set is normally done with high reps (above 10 reps per set);
• In some of the sets, there are techniques designed to take you past muscular failure;
• Lots of isolation exercises;
• The goal is to feel the muscle “burn”, and achieve the famous muscle pump. If it hurts, the it’s awesome!
• Frequent changes, to surprise the muscle.

SEE ALSO: ARE THE PUMP AND MUSCLE SORENESS INDICATORS OF A GOOD WORKOUT?!

Does your training relative to the one described above? If so we regret to inform you but you have been working out in the wrong way. Let us explain why:

Mistake nº1: Low Frequency

The research and experience based on success cases can easily prove that this training method is the one that will provide the least results in terms of strength and muscle mass.

If you have incredible genetics, or use an incredible amount of steroids, you will certainly recover from the huge amount of muscle damage caused during these workouts. But, if on the other hand you are an average person with average genetics, you will inflict a large amount of muscle damage. After 7 days, when you want to train the muscle again, your muscle will have hardly recovered, let alone evolved since the previous training session. So you will add to the already existing damage.

This is the rule for the average human being, and applies to around 90‰ of the people.

There are always exceptions. If this is your case, think that you would obtain even better results if you trained properly.

Mistake nº2: Dangerous Muscle Combinations

By training a certain muscle, you will indirectly train others. We frequently see that in the gym there is always a person with shoulder problems, and that that person trains according to the characteristics described above. The solution is to workout with logical muscle splits and combinations.

Mistake nº3: Badly Distributed Training Volume

By workout volume we mean the amount of work done (weight, sets, reps and exercises per muscle). The amount of volume tolerated is quite individual, regarding various factors like: age, how long you have trained for, genetics, food intake, etc. Normally, one of the following mistakes is responsible for delaying results:

Too little volume – We all know that the bigger the training volume, the bigger the muscle gain.

Adequate volume, bad execution –  We can also observe an adequate amount of workout volume, followed by terrible exercise execution and terrible muscle activation.

Too much volume –  The training is structured above the person’s capacities and characteristics. Many people train while committing this mistake.

Mistake nº4: Too Much Focus On Isolation

Compound movements (like deadlifts, squats, pull ups, bench presses, overhead presses…) should be the foundation of any training program. Isolation exercises should be secondary. We can consider then as accessory movements. Many people give up compound movements in favor of isolation movements. Apart from people with physical problems or injuries, this is an extremely bad decision.

Mistake nº5: Training Myths

“Low reps are only for strength gains”;

“Always training with high reps makes muscle grow”;

“Isolation exercises promote fat loss”;

“Constantly change your workouts to keep the muscle “guessing”;

Among others, these are a few examples of the myths that don’t allow people to progress within their training.

SEE ALSO: EUNICE ROSADO’S 8 WEEK TRANSFORMATION

The key is consistency, knowing to correctly activate a muscle during training, progressing within a workout and knowing the ideal volume for your case.

Mistake nº6: Advanced Methods

Advanced methods are for people who are really advanced in training. This is not the case of most gym-goers. Supersets, drop-sets, pre exhaustion, forced reps, partial reps, negative reps, etc.. are techniques for those who no longer respond to regular stimuli. Achieving this level of training maturity takes many years, not months to achieve.

So, how do you actually build muscle?

• Higher training requency: training muscles 3 times every 2 weeks, twice a week, or even 3 times a week ideal;
• Using an intelligent training split like: Upper/Lower or push/pull/legs.
• Using moderate volume: where you perform anywhere between 20 to 60 repetitions per workout for a muscle;
• Using a moderate selection of exercises:
• Using compound movements as the foundation of your training;
• Wisely choosing weights: so that you are able to perform the whole workout, between 5 and 15 repetitions.
• Longer rest periods for workouts with lower reps;
• Progression within a workout: This is the most important principle of all training programs.

We hope to have cleared some of your doubts, and that you can better understand you’re your workout isn’t working. If you need help finding a plan that is adequate to your characteristics and personal goals, don’t waste any more time. Contact us. We are happy to help you achieve your goals. Join Team Transformerz.