Have you been training for years without making progress, or have your gains slowed? Find a solution that works for you!
Five truths about building muscle you may not know yet… Learn what could be holding you back and eliminate these problems from your training plan!
1. Most people fail because they lack consistency and commitment
Most people get nowhere with their training or nutrition because they simply do not stick with it consistently enough. If you want to be muscular and strong, whatever your specific goal, you need to work at it for years, all year round, without any major breaks. People who achieve something often do so precisely because they are consistent, work towards their goals regularly and keep moving forward with determination. Nobody gets results without sustained, focused effort.
It is normal to take one week off every 2 – 3 months, but if taking breaks becomes a frequent habit, you need to start looking at why you take them so often. Many people also make the mistake of trying to do too much at once, too quickly, and burn themselves out as a result.
If that sounds like you, aim for quality workouts rather than focusing so much on volume and frequency. You do not need to do 30 – 35 sets every workout, 5 days a week. You can achieve excellent results with 12 – 16 sets per workout and “only” 3 – 4 workouts a week.
2. There are no “miracle programs” or “secret systems”
“Miracle programs” do not exist. Most well-known, effective programs include the same exercises. If you focus on progress, eat properly and remain consistent in your efforts, many programs will deliver good results. Choose a program that motivates you and suits you, then get to work.
Think of it this way: if you are in Germany and want to get to California, for example, there are several ways to get there. Some options might be 5% slower, while others will get you there 5% faster. Either way, unless you choose an extremely foolish option, you will still arrive; some routes may simply take a little longer. Enjoy the journey and keep your destination in sight.
3. In your first years of training, it does not matter whether your priority is strength or muscle
You will not get bigger without getting stronger. And if you do not focus on increasing the weights you lift, you will also hold back your muscle growth. During your first two or three years of training, you should have just one goal, whatever your ultimate aim: focus on compound exercises and work towards lifting heavier weights.
But talking about heavier weights does not mean you should only do low-rep sets, singles, doubles and triples. It is also important to progress on compound exercises and increase the weights you lift in rep ranges that promote hypertrophy. Your goal may be muscle mass, but that also means strength, and strength across different rep ranges. There is no such thing as a weak elite bodybuilder.
4. Gains slow over time, and that certainly does not automatically mean a plateau
During your first 12 – 24 months of training, results come quickly and are easy to see. That early progress, with the weights going up and steady gains in both strength and size, feels motivating and exhilarating. But it does not last: gains slow over time, which sends many people into a panic. They immediately assume something is wrong, that they have hit a plateau and need to take action to restore their rapid gains.
In reality, there is no reason to panic or immediately start looking for radical new measures.
Progress does slow over time, and that does not mean you have done something wrong. Usually, quite the opposite is true. If you monitored your progress properly, looked back through your training log and kept an accurate record of your gains, you would see that you are still progressing, just much more slowly than before. That is normal, and there is no reason to panic.
Once you reach an intermediate level, you need to become very precise in your approach. You need to allow time for gains and plan systematically over longer periods to build strength. Stop worrying if you suddenly find you are no longer adding 2.5 – 5 kg to your press every week.
A plateau or standstill means “no progress”; do not confuse that with “slow progress”. Slow progress does not mean a lack of progress.
5. What you need to know…
You do not actually need much to make progress; you just need to meet a few key conditions. Be consistent, choose your exercises well, eat properly, take a progressive approach and follow a good training split. There are, of course, many other details that can help you build muscle, but most of the time, those other things are not what matters most.
You will often hear people talk about negatives, supersets, rest-pause sets or specific rep ranges, but these techniques are neither the foundation nor any kind of “miracle”.
How do I know, and why should you trust me?
I have trained with hundreds of bodybuilders and studied and tested dozens of training systems from both bodybuilding and powerlifting. And although training is always a highly individual activity, you should still focus on the fundamentals mentioned above. You can try new things, adapt them and put them into practice, but is that always necessary?
The “miracle trick” is simply the ordinary stuff: the basics…
Author: Steve Shaw” Janar Rückenberg (translation)
Come and train! ArtGym
