In the marathon after muscle growth, these 8 mistakes are frequently made by both beginners and advanced!
In the marathon after muscle growth, these 8 mistakes are frequently made by both beginners and advanced!
8. The same workout done for a long time
It's not about "muscle confusion" or changing things a little with new exercises. We are talking about changing the stimuli given by training. This must be done periodically to progress. Finally, the body adapts to the stumps given by training. In the end, the stimulus becomes insufficient to create adaptations or you can no longer recover from the stimulus. Progress stagnates and so do the caps, even if you continue to increase the volume or intensity. That is why it is important to periodize the stimuli, alternating between intensification, accumulation and metabolic phases.
7. You always train for hypertrophy
Sounds like you should do this if you want bigger muscles, right? To progress in hypertrophy, you must constantly improve your performance and recovery skills through other training methods. For example, a neurological phase of intensification (strength / power) will improve the number of fast-responding muscle fibers that we can use during a contraction . Or the use of a metabolic phase to improve the ability of mitochondria to produce energy during a set and outside of workouts for better recovery.
That is why the strategic implementation of other training phases besides the hypertrophy ones will accelerate your long-term results.
6. Too much volume or too much intensification techniques
The greatest muscle growths occur when you make the minimum effort necessary to stimulate hypertrophy, associated with optimal recovery. Creating excessive volume only increases the need for recovery without necessarily adding more muscle mass. Exaggerating with volume or intensification techniques (decreasing sets, supersets, negatives, forced repetitions, pause-rest, etc.) beyond what you need to create optimal growth or beyond your ability to recover after exertion, will lead to slow down progress.
5. Poor nutrition quality
The quality of the nutrients we eat has a huge impact on recovery and the potential to change your physical appearance. Many nutrients are essential in the pathways and processes involved in building muscle mass. Lack of quality nutrients or poor quality nutrients can increase inflammation and systemic stress. Both put the brakes on hypertrophy. You don't want to hear that the secret to bigger muscles starts with a solid foundation of micronutrients, vitamins and minerals. It's not appealing at all, but it's the reality. If this base is precarious, no training strategy and technique will be effective .
4. Do not consider recovery
Maybe you've already noticed how often I've used the word "recovery" so far. Muscles are not built in the gym. There you create stress (stimuli) through training and this triggers an adaptation in the body that results in muscle growth, weight loss or changes in the nervous system. The key is to have enough nutrients and the ability to recover from these stresses.
It is simple and not at all attractive to give it importance, but the quality of sleep is simple. Lack of sleep will decrease glucose sensitivity (insulin sensitivity), increasing the difficulty of partitioning nutrients; so you run the risk of many of the calories going to fat deposits instead of muscle . During sleep, it also produces the most growth hormone, repairs and detoxifies the liver, and restores the nervous system. All are essential if you want tons of muscle on you. This mistake about hypertrophy is perpetuated by the mentality of training "hardcore" without mentioning recovery at all, and that intense training increases the importance of recovery even more.
3. You are not learning to do the exercises correctly
Performing an exercise correctly gives you the strength to put tension on the desired muscle. Creating muscle tension is the basis of all training stimuli. Without a good execution, other muscle groups will take over the movement and the targeted muscle will have less tension. It means that you have to do several sets and repetitions to have the desired stimulus.
It doesn't sound so bad, but keep in mind that extra work will create more stress and increase the need for recovery.
2. You focus too much on execution and forget about effort
It is the opposite of what we discussed in the previous point. It's probably not a mistake many make, but it's worth mentioning. It is a mistake to focus on execution so much that it inhibits your ability to produce intensity and put in some effort to do the repetitions. No matter how much you strain a mental muscle, at some point you have to put weight on it to stimulate it . You need to progress the intensity. After you have mastered an exercise perfectly, you need to increase the weights used to stimulate it to the maximum . The goal is not just the movement of weights, but weight is an important variable.
1. Isolate muscles too much
Trying to isolate a muscle in a movement that is made to work in tandem with other muscles creates a neurological conflict and drastically reduces the force you can exert. An example would be an exercise with an emphasis on the quadriceps, such as squats with the back bar or the hack squat press. Trying to isolate the quadriceps a lot is counterproductive. These are not exercises designed to use only the thighs. And the buttocks must be intensely activated to create stability. Trying to "push only with the quadriceps" will greatly reduce the weights you can use so that a too weak stimulus will be created (it is better to do leg extensions). Moreover, an unnatural neurological pattern is created that will lead to neuronal inhibitions.
20.09.2021