One of the top fitness goals most people have is to build muscles. Not only does it do wonders for your appearance and help you stay physically fit, having muscles can also help you maintain your appearance in the long run. The problem is that building muscles is easier said than done. There are lots of people out there who are unable to get the results they are after, despite making considerable effort to build muscles. Why do they fail to build muscles? There are a number of reasons that lead to failure and some of them have been highlighted below.
The wrong intensity level
Training intensity plays a key role in your goal of building muscles. It comprises of sets, repetitions, weights as well as rest periods. If you are not using the right combination of these variables, then you are not training right. The key to remember is that muscle hypertrophy involves taking every set close to failure. This means you should do every set to the point where it becomes immensely difficult for you to do more reps. If your muscles plateau and you do not find the exercises you were doing as difficult as you did earlier, then it means that your muscles have gotten stronger and you need to up your game now, or you will not get results.
Not eating enough
You need to have a calorie surplus for gaining both muscular and fat weight. This means that you need to eat more food than what your body requires for energy. Essentially, it is the opposite of dieting. You need to have a good idea of how much you should be consuming every day because there is no standard to follow here. It depends on your gender, age, height, current weight, genetic makeup and training experience. When you want to build muscles, you should consume nutrient-rich and quality calories instead of empty calories.
Isolating your muscles excessively
When you want to define certain muscles, or focus on areas that are weak, it is a good ideal to isolate individual muscles, such as doing the calve raise for focusing on calve muscles, or the bicep curl for focusing on bicep muscles. But, you should remember that compound movements should be a big part of your workouts if you want to see improvement in muscle strength and overall definition. Compound movements like bench press, squats and dead-lifts can improve muscle coordination, recruitment and posture, along with muscle hypertrophy.
Not sleeping enough
Your muscles need time to repair due to which a good night’s sleep is a must. If you do not get enough sleep, your gym performance will suffer and your body’s ability of recovering from the exercise session is also reduced. Muscles rebuilding and repair happens when you are resting, particularly when you are sleeping. If you are sleep deprived, it will reduce protein synthesis activity and increase muscle degradation. This can lead to muscle loss rather than recovery. Therefore, you need to get consistent and quality sleep of at least 7 to 9 hours daily.
