February 19, 2009

Top Reasons You Aren’t Seeing Muscle Growth

pdp0343357_veer What’s the number 1 reason we go to the gym? Answer: To get BIGGER! (the reason behind the reason is bit deeper and different for evereyone) And wha’ts the number 1 frustration from going to the gym? Answer: NOT getting Bigger!

This blog is after all designed to show you how to get bigger more efficiently, as do all workout programs and weight lifting sites. But, if your’e not experiencing the gains you want, I’m about to list the reasons that account for 90% of your frustrations.

In the number 1 spot we have improper nutrition. This accounts for most cases of not seeing growth. You could be doing the best workout on the planet, but if you aren’t providing your muscles with the nutrients it needs to grow, it’s like having a Ferrari with no gas. It’s useless! And so many times I see beginners come into the gym, workout hard, then leave and eat a burger or go to sleep, or just sit around. They ask me “Mitch, how do I get bigger?” and the first thing I ask them is “What’re you eating?” They look at me funny and can barely rattle off what they ate that day. And if they do, it’s something like pizza, burgers, a salad, etc. You get the idea.

I’m not writing this blog entry to tell you what you should be eating. I’ve done that before and you can check out my blog on proper workout nutrition

The next on the list is that you’ve probably hit a plateau. The dreaded plateau isn’t so dreaded once you know how to get past it. It’s a simple matter of the Increasing Load Principle and Variety Principle. There are endless combinations of the two. Increasing Load simply means you increase the load your muscle has to move and it will grow. But endlessly piling on weight can lead to injury. The Variety Principle means you increase or change the intensity or the workout altogether. There are several ways to increase the intensity without increasing the weight such as changing the tempo, number of sets, and rest between workouts. There are tons of workouts for each muscle so there’s no need to stay with one or two workouts week in and week out. If you take a look at my chest workout, you will see how I utilize the Variety Principle in my workout to make sure my chest continues to grow larger.

These are brief explanations which I will delve into deeper in a later blog.

The next reason may be that for brand new beginners, it generally takes 4-6 weeks to see growth in muscle at all. However, your strength will increase very rapidly. This is due to how the muscles are designed. The proteins in your muscles will get denser, allowing them to move more weight, and finally, when they can’t get anymore dense, they recruit more protiens to grow in size. You have to understand, the last thing your body wants to do is put on muscle. Muscle is heavy, eats up a lot of calories, and is just plain harder to carry around. The body doesn’t want to do anymore than it needs to survive. That’s why it’s easier to lose muscle weight than fat weight. It’s the first thing the body gets rid of because of the hassle it is to carry around. However, you can burn fat without sacrificing muscle. After these 4-6 weeks, you should see growth if everything else is in place. It’ll come a bit slower than your initial strength gains because now to increase strength, your muscles must get larger.

The next very likely candidate to you not seeing the growth you want is inadequate sleep. When you are sleep, your body releases Growth Hormones which burns fat and transports proteins to the muscles, which again is vital for them to grow. An incomplete sleep cycle (less than 8 hrs), among other things, trumps the release of GH. Trump GH and you trump you muscle growth. Why do you think so many of those steroids contain GH?? Well now you know that your body does it automatically. It’s been said that the magic happens AFTER the workout, not during. This is very true. So if you’re serious about seeing growth, you won’t be up to see the Late Show, sorry.

Since we are on the subject of hormones. Another reason you may not be seeing growth is that you don’t have enough testosterone. But you may say my voice is deep! (or it may not be…) What I mean by this is that testosterone is one of the major players in muslce growth along with GH. Testosterone is released when large muscles come into play. The more muscles active, the more testosterone is released to rebuild them. The problem I see most beginners face is that they go in the gym and do a bunch of bicep exercises, ab exercises, chest exercises, maybe some triceps or back, and call it a day. Then on top of that, they’ll only do isolation exercises for the muscles. The trick to releasing testosterone is to get more muscles involved. The best way to do this is combinaiton exercises like pull-ups, squats, bench press, rows, deadlifts, power cleans, etc. not curls and extensions.

So there you have it. Some of the top reasons why you’re not seeing growth in your muscles. Since you know what they are, avoid them! And watch your workouts be more rewarding starting almost immediately. Knowing these things to avoid have allowed me to see ever increasing growth and to pinpoint the problem when I’m not growing or slowed down. Please realize that there’s a genetic limit to how large you can get naturally, though very few of us ever make it that far. And let me debunk the myth right now and tell you that you CAN NOT grow new muscle fibers. Only add protien to the existing ones to make them larger.

For more information on muscle growth, see my Free eBooks or the newly added Articles page. Until next time, Happy Lifting!

Mitchell

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