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Why aren’t I building muscle and strength?
Have you ever found yourself wondering this? You train hard, you think your nutrition is on point for the majority of the week, yet you don’t seem to be building the kind of strength you want and need to support your sport?
It’s really easy to feel frustrated, so let’s cover off a few things that might be holding you back.
1. Your training volume might be too little, or too much!
You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘train smarter, not harder’? Well, training effectively is full of nuance – too little stimulus and we don’t give the body a reason to adapt. Too much and we risk the body being too stressed to grow.
Often, the right level of training depends where on you are on your fitness journey. You read about professionals training up to six times a week and sometimes multiple times a day. But unless fitness is your speciality, too much training can be too high a stimulus, and especially if you’re new to the game. Without a good foundation of health and conditioning, you won’t respond well to that exercise. Not only will you stop progressing, but it could also have negative effects on your sleep, digestion and thyroid function.
If you’re aiming to build strength, train for the long game. In the short term, try doing fewer sessions (3x per week) using a slow, deliberate tempo for reps and keep active outside of the gym by walking more or doing slower aerobic runs. Once the muscle is there, you will feel a massive difference when you do push for performance! Also make sure you’re eating enough. Which brings me on to…
2. You’re not getting enough calories
Your body needs a certain number of calories to function. This figure is your basal metabolic rate (BMR), and it’s basically what your body needs to live. It’s the calories you burn through all your automatic processes like breathing, digestion, sleeping etc. Your BMR depends on your weight, muscle mass, activity level, age etc. You can calculate it roughly with any online calculator, or more accurately using a body scanner.
Your total calorie expenditure per day is your BMR plus your activity, which includes both actual workouts and NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), which is stuff like moving around the home or office, doing chores, fidgeting etc.
If your calorie intake is lower than expenditure, you’re in a calorie deficit and you’ll lose weight. If your calorie intake is higher than your expenditure you’re in a calorie surplus. You need to be in a surplus to gain muscle.
How much of a surplus? It totally depends on your build, your workouts etc, (so it’s always best to get a coach to tailor this for you), but the general rule of thumb is an extra 500 cals for guys and around 300 for gals.
3. You’re not eating the right foods
Generally speaking, if you’re eating enough calories every day and training with the right kind of workouts, you’ll see the gains. But, if you’re not eating the right foods, you’re probably limiting yourself.
The best way to plan food for muscle growth is to split it up into protein, carbohydrate and fat ratios. The best ratio of muscle growth is 30/40/20 (although this is one of those topics up for debate among coaches). This means you’re getting 30% of your total calories from protein, 50% from carbohydrates and 20% from fats. Again, you can usually calculate this into actual food amounts using an online calculator.
But it’s not just what you eat – timing is everything.
4. You’re not eating enough meals
The best analogy I’ve heard for this is to think of your body like a log fire. If you put too much wood on at once, the fire burns slow and sluggish. But if you gradually add more wood as the fire gets bigger, it burns more efficiently and gets bigger.
Aim for six smaller meals spread at even intervals throughout the day instead of three larger ones. I know, I know, you’re thinking “that’s a whole lot of hassle, Sal, that I just cba with’, and I hear you. But all I can do is equip you with the facts and if you think it’s not for you, then all good.
What I would say is that once you get into a routine with it, batch cook, freeze portions and get yourself organised, it’s actually easier than it sounds. It just means getting into a new routine. (And it actually saves you quite a bit of money over time, as well).
5. You’re not getting enough water
This is literally the easiest hack of them all, yet it’s the one that so many seem to let fall by the wayside. Aim for 2-3 litres daily; more if it’s hot or you’ve done lots of activity. Just take it with you, everywhere.
6. You’ve been using the same workout too long
Building muscle is the process of the body reacting to increased stress. Your body is quick to adapt to any changes, and once it adapts to your workout routine, it won’t feel the need to build more muscle or get stronger. Which means you have to change the stimulus.
As a general rule you should change your workout when you stop getting stronger, or roughly after about 6-8 weeks. But again, this is one of those ‘it depends’ things. It depends on you, on the substance of your sessions, on how you perform those sessions, on your training age (how long you’ve been training for). I could go on, but you get the picture. If it’s been a couple of months and you’re still seeing and feeling the difference, then all good - stick with it.
7. You’re not progressing the training variables.
Growing muscle means first causing muscle damage, so it can repair and grow back stronger.
Because you’re always adapting, you have to keep increasing the variables of weight, volume and intensity week on week, and particularly the latter.
Now don’t get me wrong, not every single set has to be about killing yourself. But about twice per session, you’ll need to think about increasing the intensity of a set.
You should also aim to improve at least one other aspect of your workout every week. It could be increasing the weight, it could be your increase the reps, but it has to be something.
8. Your technique needs work
If you want to place the right amount of stress on the muscle, and prevent injuries, you have to perform every movement with good form. The new FVSportsDivision platform will help no end with this, as there will be demonstrations by Tee and I on the correct form, but as my top three tips on this are:
• Keep your reps slow and controlled
• Don’t use momentum to move weight (for example, stop bouncing out of the bottom of a squat!)
• As a general rule, shoulder blades should be tucked back for about 90% of movements (apart from a few exceptions like a Jefferson Curl). Think about squeezing the skin between your shoulder blades and keeping your chest proud.
• Use as full a range of motion as is available to you without compromising form.
9. You’re not getting enough rest
Rest is just as important as training, and that exactly why we have a deload week programmed into our cycles. Your muscles look pumped after a workout because of the damage, swelling and increased blood flow to the area. The actual muscle building takes place outside of the gym or studio.
Your body needs days of complete rest to recover from hard training sessions. And not just your muscles; your whole neurological system, tendons, joints and brain need it. So please do give yourself recovery time.
10. You’re not getting enough sleep
Not enough sleep = no muscle. It’s that simple. Aim to get around 7-8 hours of good quality sleep every night. Here are a few tips to help:
• The phone is an obvious one, but we're all pretty much guilty of too much phone time before bed. Try to put it to one side about an hour before sleeping, or even better, leave it in a different room overnight.
• Try to go to bed and get up at the same time every day.
• Read a book in bed. It’s the best.
• Avoid caffeine after about 1pm – it can take up to nine hours for your body to process.
Go get those gainzzzzz gang!
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