What’s going on guys?
Sean Nalewanyj, SeanNal.com.
And in this video today I’m going to be giving you what is, in my opinion, the number
one reason why you aren’t gaining muscle.
Now, there are a lot of different factors that contribute to an effective muscle building
program.
Of course, training intensity, volume, frequency, exercise selection, proper form, there’s
the whole nutritional side of things in terms of overall calories, macronutrients, food
choices, etc.
And all of those things are important but when it all comes down to it, the main reason
why the majority percentage of trainees don’t end up seeing significant results is that
they aren’t putting their primary focus in the gym on the simple goal of getting stronger.
It’s really that simple.
It doesn’t matter if you’re hitting the gym five days a week on alec’s push-pull
split, or your training full body three days a week, or you’re doing an upper lower split
or even if you’re doing, you know, a six-day a week (braw split).
The underlying foundation of your entire program still needs to rest on consistently adding
more weight to the bar over time on your exercises.
Now, I’m not saying that you have to be heaving around massive amounts of weight in
order to build a great physique but you do need to focus on becoming reasonably stronger
on those key compound movements relative to where you’re starting out from.
Muscle growth is an adaptive response to stress.
And if you want to consistently build more and more muscle then the stress has to be
continually increased.
Now, that can be done in other ways such as performing more total training volume, increasing
your training frequency, reducing rest periods, using other types of advanced techniques but
those sort of things only become important later on after you’re more in the sort of
intermediate and advanced stages and after you’ve already added a solid foundation
of size and strength to your frame.
If you’re someone who is just struggling to gain muscle period then it means that you’re
still a relative beginner.
And if that’s the case, then basic progressive overload is by far the most important thing.
And it should be your primary focus.
And you should be able to make simple linear progress with your routine for quite a while
before you need to go ahead and change anything.
And I know that this sounds really basic for those of you who do follow this but next time
you’re in the gym just take a look around at how many people actually track their workouts.
Sometimes I literally don’t see a single person who’s doing it.
And as someone who’s trying to gain muscle and who is still in the relatively early stages,
there’s no reason whatsoever why you shouldn’t be writing down your workouts.
Gaining strength is the most fundamental aspect of gaining muscle.
And tracking your workouts in detail is the fastest and the most efficient way to get
your strength levels up.
So, you can use an app, you can just write it in the note section of your phone or you
can just write it down using basic pen and paper.
All you need to do is make a record of which lifts you performed, how much weight you used
and how many reps you did.
And then each week put a 100 percent of your focus on beating the log book by slightly
improving each time.
Focus on performing additional reps with a given weight until you hit the upper end of
your rep range and then increase the weight slightly and go back to adding more reps.
So, if your rep range was five to seven and you did say a 100 lbs for five reps, the following
workout you could aim for six reps, then seven reps, and then increase the weight to a 105
lbs and then continue from there.
A lot of people will say that they just keep it in their head but it’s still way more
powerful and way more effective to actually write it down and to have a concrete visual
of things.
And I guarantee that you’ll progress way faster if you do it that way.
You’ll be more precise with your increases and you’ll have that accountability of knowing
exactly what you did in the previous workout and exactly what you have to do during this
workout to improve.
Another one caveat here is, of course, proper form.
I’m not talking about just aimlessly adding more weight to the bar just for the sake of
it.
You need to be maintaining proper technique each time you increase.
And if your form does have to be compromised just to lift more weight, then I would suggest
that you slow down and you lighten things back up.
And this is important not just for preventing injuries but also because lifting heavier
weight with sloppy form can actually decrease muscle activation which is obviously not what
you’re after.
So, the goal here is to add more weight to the bar while using the same form each time.
So, yes, there are plenty of other smaller details that go into structuring an optimal
training program.
But the number one most basic reason why most people in the gym are not building muscle
is that they’re not focusing on getting stronger.
They go into the gym and just wing it each time, they constantly mix up their exercises
and their other training variables, they put all their focus on, you know, just getting
a pump or feeling the burn and in doing that they miss the central point of what their
workouts really should be about.
So, get yourself on to a good structured program with set days in the gym and a set sequence
of lifts, don’t deviate from it and then put all of your focus on progressing in weight
and reps on that particular plan.
Stick at this approach for a consistent period, combine it with a calorie surplus if maximizing
muscle growth is your goal, and you’ll be very surprised at just how quickly you’re
able to increase your strength and how much of a difference it makes to your physique.
So, I hope this was helpful.
If you do want to grab a fully structured step-by-step program that combines this basic
foundation with all of the other smaller training and nutrition details that you need to optimize
your progress, then you can click here or you can visit BodyTransformationTruth.com
to grab my complete body transformation blueprint.
The link is also in the description.
Make sure to hit the like button, leave a comment and subscribe if you enjoyed the video.
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Thanks for watching guys and I’ll talk to you again in the next video.