If it seems like no matter what you do, you’re unable to build a substantial amount of muscle mass, you might be compelled to fall into the trap of thinking that nothing works and you’re cursed to stay with a small and weak physique forever.
And that’s not true – if there’s one indisputable truth to be found in the world of bodybuilding, it’s that anyone can increase his size if provided with the right set of tools. If you’re perpetually doing the same things, how can you expect different results?
It’s time to step up the game. In this article we’re offering you a wake-up call that can powerfully accelerate your bodybuilding efforts, condensed in 2 reasons why you can’t build mass and no BS ways to overcome your mistakes. Read to find out how you can improve and achieve your size goals.
#1. Your Diet Sucks!
How can you tell if your bulking diet sucks? Easy – just look at the number of calories you’re consuming on a daily basis. A common mistake that bodybuilders make while bulking is convincing themselves that they eat enough when in fact, their day-to-day diet lacks consistency and real structure.
If you only eat one huge meal per day, that’s not going to cut it. What happens during the rest of day? How about the entire week? How does your weekly diet look like? Do you eat at regular times every day?
Enter reality. If the numbers on the scale are not going up, you’re not getting in enough calories, period. Meal size and meal frequency are incredibly important and there’s no way to get around them.
As one of the most recent ‘radical’ ideas in the fitness community, intermittent fasting has really helped many people shed fat faster – but there isn’t a single bodybuilder who went from scrawny to brawny with the help of this method.
The idea that fasting for long periods of the day will help you build as much mass as possible is basically illogical. People following fasting claim that it works because fasting increases GH production, which is true, but they neglect to mention that you also use it as a tool to eat less food, which is bad for putting on mass. Remember, more food is the basic requirement for growth.
Simply put, if you’re trying to gain mass, stay away from any diets. Meal frequency may not be the sole criteria for gaining weight, but it’s a great way to give your diet a solid structure and make sure you’re getting in all the calories you need. And you can be sure that every jacked lifter you’ve ever met has relied on this to develop his physique. So the first rule is: eat more. A lot more. At every meal of every day!
Oh, and if you’re one of those guys who claim they simply can’t force themselves to eat the large amounts of food the process of mass building depends on, your point is valid but that doesn’t make it a valid excuse to stop trying. Increasing your caloric intake is a gradual process just like anything else – your body needs time to adjust to it, so you can’t expect to go from 2,000 calories to 5,000 calories per day in one week. You wouldn’t expect the same from your deadlift numbers, right?
Here’s what you can do, if you haven’t already – add a protein shake after every meal. For example, two scoops of protein powder amount to around 220 calories, and if you add a tablespoon of olive oil which contains 120 calories to it, the total will be 340 calories. Drinking three shakes like this one in the day will bring over a 1,000 extra calories per day.
This is one of the simplest ways to up your caloric intake without having to eat another meal, and if you’re consistent it will help your body adjust to eating more food.
Buy a blender and prepare high-calorie protein shakes by adding egg whites, peanut butter, bananas, chocolate syrup or anything else you can think of. Liquid meals are much easier to ingest than whole-food meals, so use this advantage to the maximum.
#2. Your Training Sucks!
If you spend a third of your time in the gym socializing or checking social media, you need to readjust your priorities. It’s basic logic that how you spend your time will determine how much you get from your gym sessions.
Of course that having a couple of laughs with your gym buddies shouldn’t be a crime, but remember that the first reason why you’re there is to train as hard as possible and make maximum gains. And in that case, you need to start taking your time in the gym seriously and teach yourself to train in a way that optimizes the efficiency of the workout. Focus on the activity you’re doing. If you have trouble focusing, maybe your routine is too mundane and you need to introduce some novelty.
In modern time, bodybuilders tend to focus so much on technicalities that they forget about the basic, vital things that make muscles strong and big – such as, you know, training really, really hard. Remember the old school bodybuilders?
They didn’t even know about the term ‘metabolic stress’, yet they worked to achieve maximum of it on a daily basis, using high-volume sets and set intensity-extending techniques. Instead of wasting time on discussing complex biomechanics and multi-factorial strategies for maximizing anabolism, they actually focused on training their asses off as best they could and built physiques all of us admire to this day. This is not about obsessively glorifying the past and criticizing the present, it’s about the healthy task of learning a lesson or two from the previous generations.
You want progress? Increase the volume of work you do at every training session. A three-rep max set is undoubtedly hard, but what’s even harder is a high-rep all-out set of the same exercise. “Go big or go home” doesn’t only refer to poundage. The volume of work will determine your gains even when you’re working with the heaviest weight. Here are two intensity-extending techniques that can help jump-start your progress:
- 50% Sets – After properly warming up, take your set to complete failure. Rest for 1 minute, then do another set, this time aiming to complete at least half the reps you did on the first set.
- Rest-Pause Sets – Rest-pause training incorporates 30-second rest pauses between sets. Set a goal to increase the total number of reps on each rest-pause training session. If you get 15 reps on your first set, 10 on your second and 6 on your final one – that’s 31 in total – aim to beat 31 total reps on the next workout.
The big advantage of these two set intensity-extending techniques over all others is that they involve goal setting. This is crucial because when you have a number you want to improve upon, you get extra motivation to work harder and this will improve your focus. If you don’t have small and precise training goals to guide your sessions, you’ll be less inclined to put a lot of effort into your sets, which can make even the best-conceived routine a complete waste of time.
The fear of overtraining is another famous obstacle to muscle building these days, and unfortunately it’s making even serious lifters forget that training frequency is a crucial factor for achieving optimal hypertrophy. It has become the most popular excuse for not making gains even though this lack of progress is usually caused by goofing around the gym, taking too long rest pauses and other intensity-killers. While overtraining is a real thing, it’s very unlikely that it will happen to the average lifter.
In fact, it’s very hard to overtrain and what people believe to be overtraining is more often than not prolonged fatigue caused by lack of rest. If you eat right and sleep well, you shouldn’t experience this, regardless of your level of experience.
One last thing: start doing the exercises you hate. Although it might seem counterintuitive, if you only do the movements you enjoy doing while avoiding crucial mass-building exercises just because they are difficult and uncomfortable, you will never get where you want to be. Everybody hate squats because they are hard, but smart bodybuilders make them the cornerstone of their routine because they’re incredibly effective for building functional strength and increasing overall muscle mass.
Also, exercises are hard when the muscles involved in performing them are small and weak. If you want to continue making gains, and eventually build a well-defined and well-proportioned physique, you need to constantly challenge your body and mind, and having a nice little comfort zone built around the movements you love or have mastered will prevent you from moving forward.
The Ultimate Plateau-Busting Program
Here’s a program that will help you bust through any plateau and climb out of any training rut. There’s only one rule: on the first three days of this program you will only choose exercises you hate and suck at.
DAY 1 – Chest, Shoulders and Triceps
- Chest pressing movement: 50% method
- Chest isolation movement: rest/pause method
- Shoulder pressing movement: 50% method
- Shoulder isolation movement: rest/pause method
- Triceps compound movement: 50% method
- Triceps isolation movement: rest/pause method
DAY 2 – Back and Biceps
- Vertical pulling movement: 50% method
- Vertical pulling movement: rest/pause method
- Horizontal pulling movement: 50% method
- Horizontal pulling movement: rest/pause method
- 2 biceps movements: 1 with 50% method, 1 with rest/pause method
DAY 3 – Quads, Hamstrings and Calves
- Quad isolation movement: rest/pause method
- Quad compound movement: 50% method
- Hamstring isolation movement: rest/pause method
- Hamstring compound movement: 50% method
- 2 calf movements: 2 sets x 20 reps of each
DAY 4 – Off
During the next three days, you will perform the same program with intensity-boosting methods but this time with exercises you want to do.
DAY 5 – Chest, Shoulders and Triceps
- Chest pressing movement: 50% method
- Chest isolation movement: rest/pause method
- Shoulder pressing movement: 50% method
- Shoulder isolation movement: rest/pause method
- Triceps compound movement: 50% method
- Triceps isolation movement: rest/pause method
DAY 6 – Back and Biceps
- Vertical pulling movement: 50% method
- Vertical pulling movement: rest/pause method
- Horizontal pulling movement: 50% method
- Horizontal pulling movement: rest/pause method
- 2 biceps movements: 1 with 50% method, 1 with rest/pause method
DAY 7 – Quads, Hamstrings and Calves
- Quad isolation movement: rest/pause method
- Quad compound movement: 50% method
- Hamstring isolation movement: rest/pause method
- Hamstring compound movement: 50% method
- 2 calf movements: 2 sets x 20 reps of each
DAY 8 – Off
DAY 9 – Repeat
