I lost weight but can’t gain lean muscle
Text by Rodrigo Schröder. Common mistakes made by people who want to gain lean muscle.
Skipping meals
We need an anabolic environment. Unlike when losing lean muscle, when we want to reduce the amount of circulating insulin, to gain lean muscle we want to increase circulating insulin, which brings us to a second mistake:
Being afraid of carbohydrates
Some people are afraid to increase the amount of carbohydrates in their diet ON A MUSCLE-GAINING DIET and simply don’t eat carbs because they’re afraid of gaining fat!
Carbohydrates from good sources, such as oats, firm-cooked potatoes, and even rice, are important and may increase your body fat if you’re a natural athlete, but that brings us to the next topic:
Gaining fat on a hypertrophy diet is normal
It’s better to make solid gains and then reduce your body fat percentage. Right? But ideally, you should always stay at a maximum of 15–18% for men and 20–24% for women. Obviously, you can gain lean muscle and lose fat, but you won’t make HUGE muscle gains.
Not giving your muscles the rest they need
If you train legs hard on Monday, for example, and you can train legs again on Wednesday, I have two pieces of news for you: 1st, you’ll hinder muscle hypertrophy because muscle “repair” happens during rest, and consequently, so does hypertrophy; 2nd, if you can train the same muscle group on Monday and Wednesday, you haven’t reached the necessary intensity and/or volume—in other words, your workout is garbage!
Not getting enough sleep for hypertrophy
Want to build muscle? Sleep! If you see someone who’s big but sleeps very little—3–4 hours a day—THEY’RE VERY LIKELY TAKING ANABOLIC STEROIDS and supplementing with GH!
Don’t skip steps! Don’t skip steps!
Don’t think that taking steroids will let you skip steps. They might be the icing on the cake for the 0.01% who really need them, or the filling in a spoiled cake that ruins everything for most people!
Mistakes that keep you from gaining lean muscle
Women are increasingly taking over gyms across our country, and that’s incredible!
With more and more women entering the fitness world, we’ve come to the conclusion that each gender has, let’s say… its own unique mistakes at the gym.
One of the most common mistakes men make is overdoing the weight or duration of their workouts. Women make this mistake too, but it’s far from the most common one.
Women have tremendous potential in their workouts. Everyone, regardless of age, genetics, height, or experience level… Just avoid these common mistakes in women’s training.
It’s important to get the support you need to get started and keep reaching your goals.
