Top Reasons People Fail to Make Real Progress in the Gym

by Bob Myhal, author of The Ultimate Muscle Mass Bodybuilding Program

Everyone knows that if you’re not dedicated and committed to your training, then you’re certainly not going to continue to add quality muscle mass, get lean, and feel great. That’s just obvious.

But why is it that so many people in the gym who are committed and focused on what they’re doing find themselves stuck on a prolonged plateau, failing to make continual and dramatic progress?

I see it all the time . . . people working hard at the gym, week after week, month after month, only to find that they’re treading water. They’re obviously trying to add muscle and drop fat, but they look exactly the same as they did 6 months ago.

Here are without a doubt the top reasons why people fail to make improvements on a consistent basis:

If you always do the same thing in the gym, your body will quickly adjust to the stresses you’re placing on it, and your progress will slow down significantly or stop altogether.

Do You:

• Follow the same workout for the same body parts on the same schedule for more than 5 or 6 weeks in a row? If you do, then you’re not adequately using variation to continually shock your body into new periods of muscle growth.
• Train your chest by starting with barbell bench presses every time? No wonder your pecs are not fully developed. Some days you need to start with inclines or even flyes to break the pattern and build real muscle mass.
• Forget to vary your exercises, rep and set patterns, level of intensity, tempo? If you do, you’re more than likely not maximizing your gains.

To make consistent and continual gains in the gym, you need to be constantly pushing yourself to break your training patterns by using the principle of variation intelligently.

Some people will tell you that proper nutrition accounts for up to 80% of the results you get with any bodybuilding or fitness program, and they may not be far off.

In my experience, nutrition is the most neglected area for people interested in health and fitness. Why is it we’ll spend countless hours and go out of our way to investigate, study, and test the latest newfangled training system, but we won’t take 10 minutes a day to plan our nutritional intake? It just doesn’t make any sense.

You must inform yourself about the body’s nutritional needs, and put some effort into assuring that you’re meeting these needs on a daily basis.

Of course, the intricacies of proper muscle building nutrition are too extensive to explore fully here. For a complete guide to muscle-building nutrition, check out my Anabolic Nutrition Guide. But there are some givens that you need to be aware of and adhere to:

1. *Protein intake is absolutely essential to muscle growth. You should be consuming at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight daily. The best way to do this is through the consumption of small, frequent meals. For instance, a 200 pound person involved in intense weight training, should consume at least 35 grams of quality protein 6 times per day.

   *To maintain proper nitrogen balance, try not to go more than 2-3 hours without consuming an adequate amount of protein.

   *Use protein powders, meal replacement powders, and/or protein bars. But get your protein in!

2. Take a multi-vitamin and antioxidants every day. People who tell you that you can get adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals in the food you eat are simply living in a fantasy world and are not familiar with the requirements of hard training athletes. The way many of us eat most of the time, it’s amazing we get any vitamins at all.
3. Fuel your muscle growth throughout the day by eating small, frequent meals. Eat 4-6 meals per day. Four is the absolute minimum. Six is better.
4. Make sure you get adequate amounts of unsaturated fats. That’s right, FATS. It’s not the four letter word the media has made it out to be. In fact, the proper fats are absolutely essential to muscle growth and overall health in general. Good sources include fish high in Omega 3s, nuts, and olive oil.

Supplements play a key role in building a quality physique.

Don’t get me wrong, supplements alone without an intelligent training and nutrition program are not enough. But the quality supplements that are currently available can certainly help take your physique to the next level.

Here, you also need to do your homework. You need to have an intelligent approach to supplementing to reach your goals.

Ask Yourself:

• Are you training for muscle mass? Try a good Whey Protein and Creatine.
• Are you trying to drop fat and get cut? Try Meal Replacements, CLA, and Glutamine.
• Depending upon your age, what are your needs? Try a Protein Blend to build lean muscle and Glucosamine for aching joints.
• Are you male or female? Low Carb Meal Replacements are popular with our women customers, Men looking to increase size like Weight Gainers to build lean muscle.

How you answer these questions will completely determine which supplements make sense for you and which ones do not.

Your supplement program must be highly individualized based on your goals and what works for you.

Stick with proven, safe supplements.

Overtraining

Short of not training at all, nothing will cut into the gains you make in the gym quite like overtraining.

Get In The Gym, Go Hard, And Go Home!

I am an avid believer in short, intense training sessions.

My training generally lasts 45 to 75 minutes, with 1 hour being typical. I mean I see some guys in the gym train their biceps for 45 minutes . . . ridiculous. If you can’t blast your biceps to new growth in 10-15 minutes, your not training intensely enough and you’re probably throwing in a bunch of worthless sets and reps.

Most people also do not give their muscles adequate time to recover between workouts.

At a minimum, I recommend 5 days between training the same body part, and many people can benefit from a full 7 days or even more.

In fact, with muscle building, less IS often more.

Bottom Line: If you’ve reached the point where you’re no longer making steady gains in the gym, the chances are that either you are not getting the most out of your training, nutrition, and/or supplement program or you’ve fallen into the trap of overtraining.

Take a minute to step back and reassess what your doing. The payoff you’ll get in terms of results will be well worth the added effort.

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