You want to build muscle, make gains, get toned, get hench, whatever you want to call it?
But you struggle to make progress and actually build muscle tissue.
Here are some simple things to focus on to help you make those much desired gains.
I am going to assume you are already prioritising resistance training. If you aren’t that needs to be your primary focus if your aim is to build muscle.
Prioritise Exercise Technique and Execution!
This is such a simple solution and something you think everyone would naturally do as it just makes sense to do an exercise correctly. Even from a safety perspective. But it is something that I see all the time being overlooked.
Take the time to learn what good technique looks and feels like for each and every exercise you do. If you aren’t sure, get help. Feel free to email me or message me on instagram @andrewstewartfitness and I would be happy to help.
Now technique is looking good it is all about how you execute each and every rep of your set. Something I like to focus on to do this is to try and make my last reps look like my first.
As we fatigue, it will become harder to maintain technique and execute it correctly. So when the reps get hard, we want to really focus on using the same technique we used on the first reps when the exercise is a lot easier and fatigue is low.
By doing this, we are making sure we are still using our muscles to lift the weight and not compensating by swinging the weight and using things like momentum to make it easier.
Progressive Overload:
A must if you want to build muscle! What is it? The gradual increase of stress placed on the muscle.
If we stop overloading our muscles we stop giving them new stimulus and a reason to need to adapt and grow.
The solution – progressive overload. There are multiple ways to achieve progressive overload.
The most simple is gradually increasing the load (increased intensity) used on any given exercise, for example shoulder pressing 14kg instead of 12. However, we don’t increase the weights we are using at the expense of technique and execution as that will blunt the effects and limit potential growth.
Other methods of progressive overload are to increase the reps you do at the same weight (increased volume), increase the number of sets you do (increased volume), make the tempo of the exercise more challenging (increased intensity), improved technique and execution as above.
Effort!
Are you training hard enough? This is a very common mistake people make when trying to build muscle. They simply aren’t training hard enough to create enough of a stimulus that the body needs to adapt to overcome.
Very much linked with both of the above sections.
When a set gets tough to you just stop and say that’s enough or are you digging in and pushing yourself to do the hard reps?
Or do you plan on doing 10 reps then when you get to the 10th rep that’s you done, even though you could probably do another 5 reps before it actually gets tough.
Most people aren’t willing to push themselves to that point of near muscular failure where you are able to maintain technique but your muscles are on fire and you feel like you are moving in slow motion just to get one more rep.
If this is you, you are limiting your chances to grow muscle. Train harder.
RECOVERY
Probably the most overlooked aspect of building muscle. We train hard but we need to recover harder!
When we train we create fatigue the more often and harder we train the more fatigue we create. This is not something we can maintain consistently as eventually there will be a drop off in performance, making our training less optimal.
Basically every hard session we dig deeper into a hole, our ability to recover re fills some of the hole meaning we can keep pushing hard over a longer period of time.
The main things that will impact your ability to recover and thus grow are nutrition, sleep and stress management.
We need all of these to be in a good place to help us be more optimal in our journey to building muscle.
Eating enough calories so we have enough fuel and energy to train hard and recover from training, eating sufficient protein to help repair and build muscle tissue from training, sleeping at least 7 hours to help the body rest, repair and recover. Reducing both physical and mental stress out with training will help give your body the ability to rest and recover.
Exercise selection.
You need to be doing exercises that help you build muscle.
Don’t throw in random HIIT workouts and massive cardio sessions all over the place.
As I said in the beginning, resistance training is your main point of focus so make sure you are selecting exercises that reflect this.
It doesn’t mean you can’t do cardio etc but that comes second and should not be in place of resistance training.
Now specifically for resistance training some exercises are better than others from a mechanics perspective when it comes to muscle growth.
But to begin with, find movements that you like and exercises that you really feel your muscles working hard.
Don’t pick an exercise just because your favourite athlete does them. They will be doing them as they are specific to their goals and body. They might not be the best exercise for you.
Patience!
Building muscle takes time. We are getting our body to create brand new muscle tissue from scratch. It doesn’t happen overnight.
If you are doing all of the above well it will happen though. Stick with it and give it time!
If you are struggling to build muscle and need help or advice reach out via email, text, whatsapp or social media and I will happily help.
If you are interested in coaching to reach your goals quicker email me at andrewstewartfitness@gmail.com or direct message me on Instagram @andrewstewartfitness.
