Biggest Muscle Building Mistake (FIXED!)

When it comes to building muscle, you have to make sure that you avoid making these muscle gaining mistakes and stop thinking that steroids are the end all be all of your pursuit. Now, many think that nutrition and specific exercises are the key to building new muscle, and of course I’m one of them. However, without this prerequiste, none of the exercises or foods you do will matter. We are talking about the effort you are putting forth in the gym.

This starts with understanding the end point of your sets and what your goal should be for the sets that you perform. This is where things tend to get confusing. People hear terms like RPE or rate of perceived exertion or they talk about reps in reserve and tend to want to leave some effort in the tank so as not to overdue their exertion and still get the same results since that is what studies say.

The issue with this thinking is that almost everyone, especially beginner lifters, underestimate their effort. What may be prescribed as an RPE 8 winds up being an RPE 4 which is far too low of an intensity to actually produce results.

Similarly, everyone wants to rely on only S tier exercises thinking that these are the magic factor for putting on muscle. I’m telling you, it has nothing to do with the exercises if you can’t get the intensity right. Doing set after set of the greatest exercises in the world will not build muscle if you don’t perform any of them with the right amount of effort.

Ask yourself, when is the last time that you found yourself doing the exercises that you love rather than the ones you know you need to do. I am guilty of this myself and have to force myself to change course and get back on track when I see this happening. As a matter of fact, if your goal is to gain muscle you need to find yourself almost being a little fearful or at least having a bit of nerves prior to some of the sets that you’ll perform in any given workout.

The absence of nerves indicates that you are not pushing yourself close enough to your potential and not stretching your physical limits. Instead, you are lifting within your comfort zone, a place where little new muscle gains are to be had. The mere concept of progressive overload relies on the pushing of your muscles and body past its current level of ability in order to create an adaptation that forces the body to pack on new muscle growth.

One of the ways to determine if you are on the right track is to check your face along the way. I’m serious. Do you ever find that when you are exerting your highest efforts in the gym that you make the classic “ugly face”?

That’s not a coincidence. As a matter of fact, it’s nearly impossible to keep a straight face when you push hard enough in your training since the muscles of the face require a lot of voluntary muscle control. When your body is distracted, focsuing your efforts on moving heavy weights, we don’t have the volitional control over the smaller muscles of our face and they are free to do what they please – often with uglifying results. But this is a good thing since it indicates a high enough level of intensity.

I often say, when you enjoy your training sessions and maybe even if you break a sweat, it doesn’t mean that it was indicative of a successful workout to build muscle. In fact, I would argue that it likely was not. Muscle building workouts are not meant to be enjoyable. Exercise is fun. Training is not. Training is the putting forth of maximum effort or at least at a very high level, with the end result being that you’ve forced your body to adapt to come back bigger and stronger than it was prior to that workout.

This is how you gain muscle. This is how you build muscle over time. It may feel slow, but I can assure you if you don’t get this concept right from the beginning then it will feel glacially slow in the long run since building muscle will be almost impossible. Forget the S tier exercises and instead focus on how you are peforming all of the exercises you are doing and that is where the real gains will be had.

If you’re looking for a complete science based workout plan that programs not only the best exercises but the specific way to do them to maximize their intensity and effectiveness, head to athleanx.com via the link below and get the 90 day plan that best matches your specific goals.

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6 Muscle Building Mistakes – https://athleanx.com/x/6-muscle-building-mistakes
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