Why you're not gaining muscle

If you want the best results, you have to try and make it as easy as possible for your muscles to grow, provide optimal conditions and you'll see optimal results.

Diet


This is usually the major factor. You need to feed your body optimally for optimal results. To gain lean mass you should be eating calorie surplus, this means building up those calories. It's not just about calorie intake though, it's also about where you're getting your calories from. You want to be eating enough calories, but you also want to be eating those calories from foods that will benefit you the most. For maximal results you want to be mainly consuming foods with maximum nutrients. To build muscle your body relies a number of factors, not just protein. Fats, carbs, micro-nutrients, vitamins and minerals are also essential. Base your meals mainly around lean meats, add a carb source and some healthy fats and you're ready to go! It's simple, for your body to grow optimally you supply it with the best foods, you only get out the results you put in. 

Meal timing is also an important factor. For instance, post workout, when your muscles are depleted and need repairing you want to be providing it with the raw materials to grow again. This post workout meal is best consumed as soon as possible, the faster you aid muscle repair, the quicker the body is taken out of this 'catabolic' state (muscle breakdown) and the faster it begins to synthesize muscle tissue. 

Water consumption is another important factor and I've mentioned this before. Water - the muscle beverage. Pretty much the most anabolic drink there is! 

Training 

So you think you're going 'hard' at the gym but you're pretty much having to do about 50 reps for you to feel anything? there's something you're doing wrong here. You wanna be leaving that gym feeling like you've physically given it your all. 

For a muscle to grow, it needs to be put under a certain amount of stress. It's up to you how you do that, but you should be providing a stimulus big enough for it to grow. Training to failure achieves this, when your body simply cannot perform the action any longer it does it's all to adapt..so that next time you're able to. You can do this is a number of ways, lots of sets..lots of reps, higher weights etc. But it really does make sense that you're actually putting strain on the muscle, if your body didn't need to be any stronger/more efficient it wouldn't adapt. Why would it need to? it would be a waste of time. It's a survival mechanism, our bodies adapt to survive. 

Leading on from this, if you started working out say 3 months ago..your workout should not like it did when you first started. Change it up, your muscles are used to this by now, what's the need in them to grow if they can already withstand this kinda intensity? 

Another thing could be too much cardio, you may be taking away your muscle growth by over doing it on the cardio. For instance, if your body is constantly put under stress with say..running, and your body is also doing a lot of weight training, which will it respond to? neither optimally. Too much cardio may prevent muscle repair and growth, be aware of it. There's also this issue with calories, if you're overdoing it on the cardio you may be dipping into your muscle building calorie pot. (I made that up but you get the idea) 



Rest and Recovery 

Vital vital process that is so much underestimated. We all have different rates of recovery, it's just genetics. But everyone (unless they're on steroids) needs rest! When is there time for your muscles to actually ADAPT to your training if you're constantly working them? When does your central nervous system get some relief from training? Like I mentioned earlier, rest requirements are different for everyone. Generally, the need for rest increases with age, and decreases with fitness levels. I think as there's no general rule as to how many rest days you take a week it's a matter of listening to your body. If you're hurting, your workout won't be as good and you'll probably leave the gym feeling pretty crappy anyway. Another factor is nutrition, if you're eating right and nourishing your body you should be able to be hitting the gym 5 times a week and feel pretty great with it. If you're not fueling your workouts you won't be feeling up to it. 

Sleep is also important. When we sleep the production of many hormones takes place, including the growth hormone aiding muscle synthesis. When your sleeping your body is using all those nutrients you've taken in during the day to heal your muscles and restore everything to it's best state so that when you wake you're feeling fab again. 


Inconsistency

So you're working hard the majority of the time, putting in the work at the gym etc. But then at the weekends you're going hard on the alcohol, barely sleeping and eating whatever the hell you want. You may make progress, but it will be damn slow. This could also be a thing where, some days you simply aren't eating enough or you're skipping rest days every so often. Little things don't matter right? only if to you building muscle in the most efficient way possible doesn't matter. I say this because, it's okay for you to do these things..we're human and that's fine. But if you're repeatedly messing up your routine then don't expect the best results. We are what we do repeatedly. What  remains consistent in our lives becomes us. There is a delicate balance between gaining muscle and losing it, it's hard, for both sexes. There are so many factors that come into it, and I'm talking about OPTIMAL muscle gain here, you've gotta pull out all the stops. 

Another problem is, often people become sidetracked by what other people are doing. They want to know EXACTLY what someone else is doing and they want to be doing the same thing. Maybe if for once you focused on what you need to do instead of what someone else is doing then maybe you'd make progress. I dealt with this issue for quite some time, I'd be all on a 'bulk hype' check out someone's carb free salad and convince myself I needed to be eating this too. And believe me, this got me nowehere. Not a single gain was made, several were lost and I was in a very unhappy place.  



I hope this blog post was helpful to you. Let me know if it was, or if there's anything you'd like me to cover on my next post.