Have you been exercising but can’t build muscle?
That can be very frustrating.
All that work but no visible outcomes.
I used to be in a similar situation.
I could work out for long but never really achieved any observable, tangible outcomes.
I remained small despite my best efforts to build muscle. However, after some extensive research, I learned that there are reasons some people can’t build muscle.
Let me share them with you.
Reasons You Can’t Build Muscle
Just as I did several years ago, many people find themselves lost while trying to develop their physique through workouts.
I often worked hard to develop a buff body. I thought I did everything right, but the results I sought did not materialize.
After much research, I realized what I was doing wrong, preventing me from building muscle.
I have compiled a list of some of the common mistakes that may be the reason you can’t build muscle.
They include:
- Poor Workout Routine
- Bad Exercise Technique
- Insufficient rest
- Insufficient Sleep
- Poor Post-Workout Nutrition
- Poor Pre-Workout Nutrition
- Wrong Choice of Foods
- Low Calories Intake
- Insufficient Protein Intake
- Taking Insufficient Amounts of Water
Poor Workout Routine
Before you can embark on any exercise to tone your muscles, you need to first understand your body. Most beginners pick training routines from magazines and articles.
They do not realize that their bodies are different from other non-athletes. They may pick exercises meant for professional bodybuilders from these magazines and try to apply them.
However, that does not work, as you have to customize exercises according to your body type.
Further, a professional bodybuilder’s workouts may not work for a beginner. Thus, it can be an effort in futility.
To overcome the shortcoming of a poor workout routine, you need to develop a good routine that works for your body.
A good routine involves the following
- A training schedule that allows you to have adequate rest
- A muscle group arrangement that ensures you avoid overtraining
- A muscle group that ensures you work each muscle to maximum effect
- An effective selection of both compound and isolation activities
- Good warm up and cool down.
You also need to learn your body type, as each body type has different characteristics that define the type of training.
Remember not to try to copy your friend’s training. A given type of training may work on one person and fail in another.
Bad Exercise Technique
Sometimes good exercises can result in bad outcomes. You may have the right exercises but poor execution.
Some people copy what others in the gym are doing and end up inhibiting their own growth.
Executing exercises wrongly can lead to damage to your body. It can even cause injuries.
If your intention is to build muscles, you need to learn to execute each exercise well.
Focus on your body rather than what those around you are doing. Try to achieve maximum stress to your muscles without causing injuries.
Here are some positive adjustments you can make on your exercises to improve outcomes.
- Maintain slow and controlled reps
- Avoid using momentum when lifting weights or carrying out different exercises
- Use a full range of motion
- At the top of movements, avoid locking joints
Wrong Choice of Exercises
During training, every exercise has a specific goal it aims to achieve.
Different exercises develop different muscles. If your training routine has a poor combination of exercises, then you can’t build muscles.
One major mistake that people make in the gym is to overwork on exercises they like and give less time to other exercises.
It creates an inconsistency that prevents you from achieving your ultimate goal of building muscles.
You need to have a routine that incorporates exercises that maximize your potential and help you build your body into the form you want.
Some recommended exercises include squats, wide grip pull-ups, rows, deadlift, dips, chin-ups, bench presses, and shoulder presses.
Insufficient Rest
In training, rest is as important as your diet and water intake. Your workout routine should have sufficient time for rest.
Your muscle building exercises do not cause your muscles to build. Rather, they tear the muscle tissues.
Resting allows the muscles to repair. It is during the repairing of muscles that they actually grow. If you have insufficient rest, you will not allow your muscles to repair and row.
Most people think that constant exercising builds muscle. They therefore spend lots of time in the gym doing strenuous exercises in a bid to build muscles.
However, that is likely to lead to disappointment if you do not allow your body sufficient time to rest.
To allow your body to regenerate its muscles and grow, you need to include rest days in your training schedule.
An off day is necessary to allow the body recover from all the hard training. During your workout routes, you ensure there is enough time between training sessions to let your body recover.
Recovery time is key to muscle growth, and so, you must ensure your routine has sufficient recovery time.
Insufficient Sleep
Just like rest, sleep is crucial for bodybuilding. It allows your body to recharge and repair muscle tissue.
Most people may dismiss the impact of their sleep patterns on the outcomes of their training.
You may feel that sleep has no relation whatsoever with growing muscles. However, it has a huge impact as it allows recovery.
Muscle growth mostly occurs when the body is at rest and there is no greater rest than sleeping. Thus, sleep provides the optimum conditions for muscle growth.
As you train to build muscles, try to have about 7-8 hours of sleep every night. That will keep you refreshed and energized for your day’s activities.
Poor Post-Workout Nutrition
Your body expends a lot of energy during workouts. Thus, it needs to replenish the nutrients it lost during the exercises.
You need a good post-workout nutrition intake. You need something that will help replenish your protein, glycogen and creatine levels.
Most people take post-workout shakes that mainly comprise of protein. That may not effectively provide the replenishment your body needs.
A post-workout shake containing the three nutrients would be a better alternative immediately after a workout.
The nutrients are easy to absorb into the body to allow immediate commencement of muscle repair.
While the shake is a good source of nutrients immediately after a workout, it is not sufficient for your body. You need to have a well-rounded meal an hour after the training session.
The meal should contain complex carbohydrates, protein, and fats. Your body will be able to break down these foods to facilitate muscle repair.
Poor Pre-Workout Nutrition
Before any journey, you need enough fuel to get you to your destination.
Similarly, before you begin any training session, your body needs to be recharged to take you through the entire session.
If you have poor pre-workout nutrition, then the outcomes will be dismal.
A nutrition package devoid of carbohydrates is sure to result in failure for you. Carbohydrates provide you the energy you need for activities.
Specifically, complex carbohydrates give you long-lasting energy that will see you through your workouts.
Most people do not pay attention to what they eat throughout the day. They do not consider the energy levels they need for training and thus fail to take in enough carbohydrates.
Your eating patterns have a big effect on your training. If your intake of carbohydrates is low, then you will be sluggish in your workouts, which results in poor outcomes for your muscles.
Taking reasonable quantities of food in evenly distributed intervals will help you build your energy stock, to allow you exercise efficiently and effectively.
For a pre-workout meal, the emphasis should be more on carbohydrates. However, it should also contain fats and proteins.
Some foods that you can consider as sources of complex carbohydrates include oats, brown rice, brown bread, pita bread, potatoes, and pasta.
A carbohydrate-rich meal will give you the energy to push through your exercise to ensure you maximize muscle growth.
Wrong Choice of Foods
Training requires you to eat well. For your body to grow, you need to eat as you exercise.
However, a poor choice of foods can be counterproductive. You may end up accumulating excess body fats instead of building lean muscles.
Some people have a poor protein/carbohydrate/fat balance. The imbalance can be the reason you can’t build muscle and must be rectified for you to achieve gains from your exercising.
To correct this kind of mistake in your training, you need to have a 3/5/2 ratio for your protein, carbohydrate and fat intake.
That means that for every calorie diet you consume, 30% will be protein, 50% carbohydrates and 20% fats.
Low Calorie Intake
Your body needs calories to maintain its weight. The basal metabolic rate (BMR) varies from person to person depending on age, muscle mass, weight and activity level.
You have to maintain a good balance between your calorie intake and you BMR. A low calorie intake causes a calorie deficit, which hinders the building of muscle mass.
Every trainer needs to know their BMR so that they can determine their daily calorie requirements.
If low calorie intake is the reason you can’t build muscle, then it means you need to increase the intake to exceed what your body needs.
Insufficient Protein Intake
Your body needs proteins to build or repair muscle tissue. It therefore should be a key component of any trainer’s diet.
You can’t build muscle without taking in copious amounts of protein. As it is, the body stores minimal amounts of protein.
Thus, you have to constantly consume proteins to replenish what the body uses. Most people may ignore the importance of proteins in the body.
Sometimes, out of ignorance, people consume more carbs at the expense of proteins. That has a negative impact on the body’s ability to regenerate tissues.
To optimize your muscle building, you should ensure each meal you have has a generous amount of protein.
Rich sources of protein that you can include in your meals include red meat such as beef and lamb, poultry such as chicken or turkey, fish, eggs, dairy, whey, lentils, nuts, and beans.
Taking Insufficient Amounts of Water
Water is essential for your body. It is especially more important for any person training with a goal to gain muscle.
Some people may underestimate the importance of hydrating the body.
Water supports most of the body functions and is crucial to keeping your body in perfect working condition. It also increases your body’s muscle mass.
Dehydrating your body can inhibit your efforts to grow muscles. It can also cause symptoms that are likely to prevent you from completing your training routines.
Some of the symptoms of dehydration include
- Feeling thirsty
- Fatigue
- Headache
- Dry mouth and sore throat
- Dark concentrated urine with a strong odor
- Loss of appetite
Building muscle requires water just as much as it requires food. When you are training, you need to make it a habit to take water frequently to avoid dehydration.
Dehydration denies the body the water it needs to break up foods and convert it to energy and nutrients necessary for building muscles.
You also need to avoid some supplements that increase the chances of dehydration such as creatine monohydrate.
Lack of Consistency
One habit that can really hold you back from achieving buff muscles is lack of consistency. Good outcomes in anything depend on consistency.
You cannot expect impressive results if you are not consistent in your efforts. Anyone that is inconsistent in their workout routine will achieve minimal progress.
You have to maintain your momentum so that you keep building your muscles.
Final Thoughts
Most people that workout to build muscle make some mistakes that prevent them from achieving their goals.
The mistakes vary from their training routines to their eating habits. Building muscles involves a combination of several things that you need to consider.
It needs your motivation and commitment as well as a high level of discipline. You have to have discipline in your training routine as well as in your eating habits.
People often underestimate the power of rest. It is critical that you have enough rest so that your body can rejuvenate and repair torn muscles.
Ignoring the need for rest will always pull you back in your efforts. You also need to pay attention to your body’s hydration levels because your body cannot function well without water.
A good diet, water and rest are important for building muscle. However, you also need a good combination of exercises to achieve impressive outcomes.
Your choice of exercises may be the reason you can’t build muscle. Tailoring the exercises to your body type will help get the best out of you.
You also have to ensure a balance in the exercises you choose. Going for exercises you enjoy only will jeopardize your efforts.
Building muscle is not easy. You must be ready to make sacrifices to achieve the goals you set for yourself.
You can always consult professionals to assist you with planning your nutrition and workout routines. That will ensure you reap maximum benefits from your efforts.
