4 common mistakes preventing you from gaining muscle mass

For muscles to grow, they need stress, tension, and recovery. So let us look at common mistakes on the gyms’ floors.

Often, I see people moving weights from and to the initial position with the same speed. To create a better stimulus, you should slow down during the easiest part of an exercise. For example, which movement is easier when performing squats: sit down or stand up? Sitting down is more straightforward because gravity helps you perform this movement. The same happens during the biceps curls. The easiest part of the exercise is lowering the weights down. Your cadence of movements should be 4 (the easiest part) x 2 (hold in position) x 2 (return).

It is essential to take each repetition through a full range of motion. But, of course, that would depend on your mobility. Still, by taking an exercise from full flexion to full extension, your muscles endure tension at different angles. And that gives them a more potent stimulus for adaptation. So, for example, try performing biceps curls and cable triceps pushdowns by fully extending your forearms.

You only have a limited amount of energy to perform your workout. Therefore, it would help if you did not waste it on isolation exercises performed at the beginning of training. Such exercises target the smaller stabilising muscles such as the biceps, triceps, deltoids. On the other hand, compound exercises work big and small muscles simultaneously. They engage those smaller muscles to help bigger muscles to complete the movements. For example, you get a more significant benefit for the same amount of time if you perform a face pull instead of rear delt fly and biceps curls. There is nothing wrong with isolation exercises per se if you perform them on a different day or at the end of your session.

Sound restorative sleep is essential for muscles recovery. Therefore, your exercise session and a postworkout meal must occur well before your sleep time, at least three hours prior. If your daily work commitment does not allow you to adhere to this recommendation, try breaking your workout into smaller sessions targeting one muscle or group of muscles a day.