I often have new clients in Richmond Hill tell me they’ve tried everything and can’t seem to build the muscles they want to have. One of the reasons they have a tough time is that they’ve made several common muscle building mistakes that don’t give them the results they want or even impede muscle development. Some even want to turn to pharmaceutical methods for muscle building, which can affect their future health. These toxic methods aren’t necessary when you have the right techniques to build muscle naturally.
Too often people workout too long or too often.
Working out at the gym longer and more often isn’t necessarily the way to go. In fact, it’s one mistake rookies often make that can discourage them and make them believe they can’t gain muscle. Overtraining, whether you’re working out too long or too often can actually cause you to lose muscle tissue. Your body and muscles need time to heal those micro fractures and restore balance to your immune system and body. Don’t train more than four days each week or more than two days in a row. You need time for those muscles to heal. Don’t workout longer than about 75 minutes for maximum muscle growth.
Make sure your diet contains an adequate number of calories and plenty of protein.
If you’re getting too few of calories, you’re going to lose weight. That’s often counterproductive to building massive muscle tissue, unless you want to burn fat, too. In order to get bigger, you need more calories than just your base requirements. Your diet should get 30 percent of those calories from protein, approximately 50 percent from carbs and 20 percent from fat. You need approximately 0.8 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight to build muscle.
What you eat is important, but so is when you eat it.
If you’re grabbing that energy bar at the end of the day, you’re building a potential to increase fat, not muscle. You need carbs to create glycogen reserves used to build muscle tissue. However, when you eat those carbs is just as important as the types of carbs you eat. Eat your carbs early in the day. It replenishes the body after sleeping, where you body burned the reserves of glycogen. When you eat them later at night, they store…that means fat! Eat most of your carbs early in the day and slowly taper off the later it gets
- Another mistake that sabotages muscle building is doing too much cardio. You may love to run, but if you’re building muscle, cardio is NOT the way to go. It burns tons of calories, some of which come from lean muscle tissue.
- You may not be pushing yourself enough to go heavier or changing up your routine to challenge yourself. If you haven’t increased the amount of weight you’re lifting in months, that may be part of your problem.
- Add compound strength training moves to your workout. You’ll get the maximum benefit, since it works several muscle groups at once. A dumbbell lunge is an example of a compound move.
- Don’t forget to get adequate sleep. When you sleep, your body mends itself. The process of building muscle tissue is making small tears in the muscle and then having the body mend it, which makes the muscle larger and stronger. Not enough sleep also stresses your body, which slows the muscle building process.