Building muscle when you first start going to the gym.
Common mistakes made by those who want to gain muscle mass.
1️⃣ Skipping meals
We need an anabolic environment. Unlike when losing lean mass, when we want to reduce the amount of circulating insulin, to gain lean mass we want to increase circulating insulin, which brings us to a second mistake:
2️⃣ Being afraid of carbohydrates
Some people are afraid to increase the amount of carbohydrates in their diet WHILE 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. You may gain some body fat, especially if you are a natural athlete, but that brings us to the next topic:
3️⃣ Gaining fat while on a lean-mass-gaining diet is normal!
It’s better to make solid gains and then lower 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 mass and lose fat, but you won’t make HUGE gains in lean mass.
4️⃣ Not giving your muscles the rest they need
If you train legs hard on Monday, for example, and can train legs again on Wednesday, I have two things to tell you: 1) You’ll hinder muscle hypertrophy, because muscle “repair” takes place during rest and consequently leads to hypertrophy. 2) If you can train the same muscle group on Monday and Wednesday, you didn’t use the necessary intensity and/or volume—in other words, your workout is garbage!
5️⃣ Alcoholic beverages
They increase cortisol and decrease testosterone.
6️⃣ Inadequate sleep
Want to grow? Sleep! If you see someone big who sleeps very little—3–4 hours a day—they are VERY LIKELY TAKING ANABOLIC STEROIDS and supplementing with GH!
7️⃣ Skipping steps!
Don’t skip steps! Don’t think that taking steroids will let you skip steps. They may be the icing on the cake for the 0.01% who truly need them, or the filling in a spoiled cake that ruins everything for everyone else!
How to gain muscle mass as a beginner
Do you consider yourself a beginner, intermediate, or advanced? How do you classify clients as beginners, intermediate, or advanced?
Not at all… it doesn’t matter if you HAVE been training consistently for a long time if you’ve been doing everything incorrectly, without a plan, and haven’t achieved good results.
I know people who have been training for 10 years, but I consider them beginners… and I know others with two years of training whom I would classify as advanced. Beginners are people who are entirely or relatively new to the world of bodybuilding. They benefit equally from both high- and low-volume training.
