If you want real muscle, you need to be careful not to make a few mistakes that may seem harmless, but are capable of ruining your gains.
Only those who have known for a long time that to build muscle you have to go a long way full of obstacles ahead. Factors such as lack of proper nutrition, training and rest are the minimum to be achieved in this path.
As if that weren’t enough, there are still some mistakes that you make or may come to commit that, make no mistake, although they are small, they can harm your development and put your shape down the drain.
1- Ignore the stabilizer muscles
If you only want to focus on building massive chest, arms and legs, chances are you are making this mistake.
The stabilizing muscles may not impact the way you look, but they play a key role in your health and the functioning of your body as a whole.
2- Skip the warm-up
A lot of people who train confuse warming up with stretching. The second is only useful after training, as a way to enhance the muscle recovery process.
Heating has nothing to do with it. It must be done before training, as a way to prepare the muscles for the effort that will follow and protects against joint injuries.
3- Always do the same thing
There are two main reasons why you might want to switch up your workout every now and then. The first, and most obvious, is that as you train and your body develops, training becomes easier and less effective.
The human body adapts to even the heaviest of workouts. It is necessary that the training follows the evolution of your body , always remaining challenging and efficient.
4- Focus only on size and weight
When it comes to bodybuilding, most people only think about getting huge. The bigger the better. But this reasoning is wrong .
First, because no one should train just to look good or have an impressive body – they should think of a healthy, strong and functional body, which has aesthetics as a consequence and not as an end.
Then, because an elite athlete is not the one with the biggest possible size. For example, if a 100kg athlete drops his weight to 85kg and maintains the same level of strength and power, his relative strength takes a giant leap.
Cars, planes and motorcycles have an impressive power-to-size ratio. Just like elite athletes.
5- Not controlling protein intake
Protein is the most important nutrient when it comes to building muscle. Of course, the other macros (carbors and fat) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are also essential. But protein is the main thing.
It is essential to control your daily intake of nutrients, but mainly quality protein with lower amounts of fat such as lean meats, skimmed milk, whey protein , and vegetable proteins.
If you want to build lean mass, you need to talk to a professional nutritionist and set your daily protein goal, which you should follow strictly.
6- Ignore the importance of water
When someone talks about dehydration, most people imagine someone walking in the desert without drinking water for several days. But for much less, you can already become dehydrated – and the consequences for those who train are terrible.
There are studies that show that a measly 3% dehydration – which can be reached in a few minutes – causes a loss of 10% of strength, which is more than enough to compromise your training. Adequate water intake varies according to each person, but for physical activity practitioners, it is necessary to intake at least 3L of water per day.
7- Bad sleep
It’s practically impossible to build muscle mass or burn fat if you don’t get enough sleep.
It’s during sleep that your body releases the greatest amounts of essential hormones for those who train – such as testosterone and GH.
So without decent sleep, you’re going to sabotage all your efforts at the gym.
Not sure what “adequate sleep” means? Between 7 and 8 am, in a silent, dark environment, with a mild temperature around 22°C and good quality mattress and pillows.
8- Muscle recovery
You might already know that muscles don’t grow in the gym, but when you leave it. It is at rest that the microlesions caused during training will turn into bigger muscles.
Therefore, what you do when you are not training directly affects your results. And this process, called “muscle recovery”, deserves your attention.
Stretching, massage, foam rolling not only ease post-workout soreness – allowing you to train better the next session – they also help you relax, avoid injury and increase blood flow.
This is fundamental, because the greater volume of blood in the muscle means greater delivery of nutrients as well, and this can be decisive in your results.
If you make any of these mistakes, don’t complain if the results don’t come later.