Building muscles and maintaining them requires time, effort, and commitment. It’s not easy to get the perfect body and develop a good muscle tone. But sometimes, even after people put in effort, they can’t seem to develop muscles. There’s just something that holds them back and leads to wasted effort. Here are some common mistakes that beginner body builders make that stalls their progress.
#1 You Don’t Eat Enough Food
This is a surprisingly common mistake. Most body builders are so keen to lose fat and weight that they don’t realize they hinder their own progress by not consuming enough food. Muscles won’t form out of air and water; they need fuel and raw materials to grow and that fuel comes from carbohydrates, proteins, and fat that’s present in your food.
While overeating is bad, you do need sufficient nutrition to build muscles and give you energy to carry out intensive training. Your weight and resistance training should go hand-in-hand with a proper nutritious diet. Don’t binge on donuts and pizza because that wouldn’t help you. But you need to remember that the body is incapable of adding more than half a pound of lean muscle in a week.
#2 Protein, Protein, Protein
Protein is the building blocks of your muscles. You need to consume it to get the desired muscle tone and need about 1.3 to 1.5 grams of good protein per 0.5 kg of body weight. The more you exercise the more protein you need. When you exercise, your muscles develop small tears.
These tears heal to form stronger muscles and protein helps speed-up that process. You will need food items like beef, dairy, eggs, poultry, fish, seeds, etc. All these items contain different amino acids that can help you achieve that perfect build.
#3 You Lack Consistency
When you make an exercise and diet regime, it’s important you stick to it. If you’re not consistent and focused on your goals 24/7, you won’t be able to achieve the physique you want. No matter how much you sweat it out in the gym, if you don’t have the right diet and get enough rest, you won’t see any results. You need to be 100% committed all the time. You can’t tone down the workout and use just protein and supplements to try to bulk up; that simply won’t work.
#4 You Don’t Exercise Well or Enough
You need challenge and have to push your body if you want to get even an inch of lean muscle. Your muscles should feel the strain if you want them to grow back stronger. For better results, you must lift heavier weights and listen to your body when you work out. Every weight you lift should require effort and power.
When your body gets accustomed to the weight and the strain, you need to increase the intensity. Of course, you should observe some precaution and not strain your body too much and that’s where a trainer can help.
#5 You Don’t Rest Enough
Rest is vital for your body and you should try to catch at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep per day. You also need to take regular breaks from high-intensity exercises. Experts suggest that you perform intense workouts only four times a week and that you regularly change your exercise routine. Rest would allow your body to heal, which would help your muscles grow.
Once you rectify these mistakes, you should see considerable improvement and experience good results. You should consult a professional to establish the right exercise and diet routine. If you have any questions about building muscle or want a workout routine that would help, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at Schembri PT. You can send us an email to info@schembript.com or fill in this contact us form and we’ll reply as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading,
Schembri PT Team
02 9648 6405