When building muscles, many tend to make things more complicated in their quest for a sculpted physique in a short time. The muscle-building process isn’t as difficult as many think, and there are four common ways lifters make muscle-building harder on themselves. Here are effective new ways to think about building muscles.
Don’t Obsess About Training
The industry stresses the importance of training and prioritizes working out over good nutrition, improving mobility, meditation, and sleep. However, training is only part of the process, not the whole process.
Muscle tissue is broken down during weight lifting. Still, it’s built through overall workout recovery, including proper rest every night and nutrition. This makes training important, but it doesn’t end there. A good workout program starts the muscle-building process, but the other elements will rebuild and repair those muscles.
Focusing On What Other People Do
Some people recommend working out 5 times a week, HIIT 3 times a week, weighing every morsel of food, and hitting your exact macros daily. But this isn’t the lifestyle for everyone; it is hard to maintain, and it isn’t always going to work for you.
Many muscle-building concepts that are backed by science, such as resistance training, which can increase lean muscle mass, do work, but it depends on personal goals. A specific workout program has particular goals, so while resistance training will add lean muscle mass, it is an individualized practice that may not work for you.
Everyone has different work and family obligations, which dictates what is possible regarding workouts, nutrition, and sleep cycles. The key to muscle building is to find the things that work for you, that you can do, and do it consistently.
When you enjoy your workout, you are more likely to be motivated and maintain consistency. Try new things from time to time, but keep in mind that there is no one right way for everyone to follow. Find what works for you.
Ignoring The Bigger Picture
Adding more volume to your workouts or training more frequently is possible. Still, muscle building is a progressive goal that should be figured into your long-term goals. Upping set counts to 25+ sets a workout, which is challenging to maintain week after week and can affect your motivation as workouts become a daily grind.
Muscle building is about consistency, and instead of thinking 5 weeks down the road, goals for 5 years down the road are more important.
Workouts are more effective with consistency, and the same applies to nutrition. If calorie intake is drastically altered, or you have extreme restrictions, it becomes impossible to maintain in the long run.
Few people can consistently live on a 1000-calorie deficit over the long term, and even fewer can aggressively eat a calorie surplus and maintain a decent body fat percentage.
Not Enough Compound Lifts
While training isn’t the only muscle-building element, some attention is essential. Unfortunately, people tend to focus on increasing the amount of isolation exercises for a particular muscle group.
Yet, if the goal is to increase overall lean muscle mass, heavy lifts are necessary. You can lift a lot more weight doing compound exercises than doing isolation exercises.
When building biceps, for example, they can be targeted with many curls, but as a small muscle group, they can get worked with pull variations like the chin up and row.
Because the primary muscle group is in the back, heavier weights can be lifted during the workout, and the more weight moves, the more testosterone and growth hormones are released, leading to long-term muscle strength.
Isolation exercises can be included, but most workouts should be centered around big lifts like squats, deadlifts, presses, rows/pulls, and carries.
Building muscle is a long process, and consistency remains the most crucial part.
Simon Turner is a former Obstacle Workout features writer and writes regularly on sports, fitness and adventure for Probody.
