10 Muscle Building Mistakes

I’ve spent years trying to build muscle naturally and let me start by saying it’s not easy.

There’s so much misinformation out there on how to build muscle as a natural and even if you were to find the right information there’s so much of it that it’s easy to get overwhelmed and not take action.

I felt that first hand as I’ve gone through phases where my goal was to strictly be as bulky as possible and other phases where the goal was to get as lean as possible.

Over the years of going through dirty bulks, clean bulks, cutting phases, trying different supplements, as well as constantly modifying my workout plan

I went through a lot of trial and error. And I want you to avoid making the same mistakes that I did

so you can see results as fast as possible by focusing on the things that truly matter when it comes to building muscle while ignoring the rest.

Check out my client Seth’s transformation where he gained a whole bunch of muscle.

So today I want to go over the 5 biggest muscle building mistakes that you’re probably making that are preventing you from seeing the gains you deserve.

Let’s jump right In and start with the biggest workout related mistake that beginners and advanced people make.

Always sticking to the same rep range. There is a rep range that is believed to better for building muscle and even though there’s a lot of debate about what the best rep range is

However by constantly sticking to this same rep range you’re going to have a lot of trouble making progress especially after you’re no longer a beginner and results start slowing down.

This is why you want to spend time with three different rep ranges low moderate and high.

Breaking up your work out into periods of low moderate and high rep ranges is known as periodization and this will allow you to continuously increase the intensity of your workouts in the shortest amount of time possible ultimately leading to some very impressive results.

Your body is very good at adapting and periodization is a great way to constantly keep it guessing which is a big plus when it comes to building muscle.

The next mistake is undervaluing the importance of food. If you happen to be a hard gainer you have to eat a lot of food to build muscle.

if you’re not a hard gainer you still have to eat a lot of food to just not as much.

Muscle is metabolically active tissue and due to our biology and the way that we’ve evolved our bodies try to conserve energy whenever they can to ensure that we don’t starve.

So from an energy conservation standpoint your body doesn’t want to build muscle and you’re going to have to force it into growth.

Most people are aware that more protein is required because it’s made up of amino acids which are the building blocks to muscle.

However most people especially people with fast metabolisms are not eating enough in total for the day.

Eating enough carbohydrates like brown rice oatmeal and sweet potatoes for example can be equally as valuable as eating enough protein when it comes to supplying your body with the energy it needs to add on muscle.

if you’re doing all the right things in the gym but you’re still not growing consider adding on 500 calories a day to your diet.

If you’re still not growing after a couple weeks consider adding on another 500 calories. By doing this I promise you-you’ll be gaining weight and adding on muscle in no time.

But to get enough calories in for the day you’ll have to avoid this next mistake which is having too low of a meal frequency.

when you’re actively trying to build muscle to take in the amount of food that you have to take in to get the job done you’re going to have to be eating many times throughout the day.

There are a lot of diet plans centered around fasting and decreasing meal frequency like the Leangains approach or The Warrior Diet or the one meal a day diet.

And even though these are great diet plans to maintain muscle mass and to lose body fat, unless you’re a beginner, they are not the best approach for building the maximum amount of muscle.

Like I said you’re going to have to eat a lot of food. When your bulking correctly even if you have six or seven meals a day you’re going to feel uncomfortably full during some of those meals.

It’s going to be very difficult to get enough calories by limiting your feeding window. When I was seriously trying to bulk up I was eating 8 to 9 times a day.

 

Now it’s important to note that most of those meals should be real food. Sure you can throw in one or two protein shakes but the rest should all be prepped meals.

Too many people make the mistake of overvaluing supplementation when it comes to building muscle which is actually another big mistake that may be preventing you from seeing faster gains.

You don’t need to go crazy with supplements because you only really need a few. You can start with protein powder and there’s value to both a slow and a fast digesting protein powder.

The fast digesting protein powder you usually want to take after your workout. Casein is an example of a slow digesting protein and whey is an example of a fast digesting protein.

Then you Also may want to get regular creatine monohydrate as well as a pre-workout to improve your strength and performance during your workouts.

Just keep in mind you don’t want to take the Pre-Workout all the time because your body will develop a tolerance and you won’t feel the energy-boosting effects

I recommend taking it two to three times a week at the most on the days that you plan to really push yourself. And that’s all you really need for supplements protein creatine and pre-workout.

Let’s move on to another mistake regarding your workout’s not trying to develop your neuromuscular connection.

Neuromuscular connection is exactly what it sounds like it is essentially the ability of your brain to communicate with your muscles efficiently.

Although it will takes time for your mind and muscles to begin to communicate better a couple simple things you can do to speed up this connection is go slow on your way down,

Focus your mind on the muscle that you’re targeting, flex the targeted muscle during and in between sets, and ensure that you have proper form.

Keep in mind that breaking down your muscles is essential for growth, but don’t make the mistake of working out too much.

If you work out too much when you’re trying to bulk up it’s going to hurt you more than it’s going to help you.

Remember what we’re trying to lose weight or burn fat we want to create a calorie deficit. So in this situation the more we work out the better for creating a negative energy balance.

However the same cannot be said for building muscle because you want to create a calorie Surplus that’s why I want you eating a lot of food throughout the day.

A lot of people are making the mistake of doing tons of cardio because they’re afraid of putting on fat while they’re trying to bulk up and build muscle.

If you do tons of cardio like this or if you just work out multiple times a day or for really long durations you’re going to be drawing away energy from that calorie Surplus that you’re trying so hard to create.

This is why I highly recommend that if you’re serious about gaining muscle and you’re no longer a beginner Focus only on gaining muscle and don’t worry too much about gaining some fat.

Be sensible with your food choices but its okay if you put a little bit of fat while building muscle you can always cut it down later.

Even though you want to limit the total amount of calories expended per week from working out you still want to make sure that your weight training sessions are intense.

This is the next big mistake people make, they don’t go heavy. Even if you follow the periodization strategy that I talked about at the beginning of this video but you don’t use the heavyweight you won’t see results.

Same thing for the other rep ranges. By the last set you should be hitting failure. Natural lifters need to go heavy because they do not have elevated levels of protein synthesis 24 – 7 like steroid users.

Naturals need to stimulate protein synthesis with the workout itself. The higher and the longer the rate of protein synthesis the more muscle you will produce.

 

Steroid users can get away with high rep work because they have a higher protein synthesis levels all day due to the drug, but naturals do not have the same luxury.

You must lift heavy if you want to build the maximum amount of muscle as a natural. It’s not always easy to always break through plateaus and lift heavier and heavier weight.

Periodization is one way to break through strength plateaus, but if you’re making the mistake of not switching up your training style and you don’t confuse your body it makes it a lot harder to progress.

Besides periodization, you can also incorporate things like supersets where you do two sets of two separate exercises back to back with no break.

You can also do drop sets where you drop the weight on the same exercise multiple times with no break to help exhaust the muscle targeted.

There’s also tri sets, opposing muscle group training, rest pause training, and much more. By constantly switching up your workout you keep your body guessing and make faster progress.

Another thing you should do with your workouts is concentrated predominately on using barbells and dumbbells, not selectorized machinery.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that all those fancy machines at the gym are better at building muscle than the barbells and dumbbells that have been used for centuries.

Barbells and dumbbells will usually stimulate much more muscle fibers, they have a free range of motion, and they will help strengthen your stabilizer muscles allowing you to lift heavier weight leading to greater gains.

You can incorporate stabilizer equipment but save it for the end of your workout and incorporate free weights for the majority of your workout instead.

The very last mistake I want to go over is not being consistent. Building muscle takes a lot of hard work, time, and consistency.

And these would be considered great results. Without consistency you’ll yo yo back and forth between gaining muscle and losing it.

Ultimately you won’t allow your progress and your gains to stack on top of each other for truly impressive results that last.

Make sure you’re being consistent it’s one of the most important things you can do.

That’s it guys I really hope this 10 Muscle Building mistake has helped you out Also for those of you that are looking for a done for you program that can help you build muscle visit my website where we’re running a challenge designed to help you build muscle in only 6 weeks.

You get a workout plan, a custom diet plan, as well as an accountability coach to help mentor and guide you through the entire process. This takes all the guesswork out and helps you hit your goals without any of the grueling trial and error that just wastes time.