Lack of Results

There are a number of different factors you can consider and incorporate when it comes to building muscle, however there are also numerous ways to which you can hinder muscle growth and effect your progress in a negative manner.

Not getting the results you desire can soon lead to your motivation levels to decline and become frustrated with the process. It can also be a reason people may turn to more drastic measures such as anabolic steroids in order to help aid their results. However, it's important to look into the number of factors which may be the reason to the lack of results and rectify them before implementing a drastic change.

Overtraining

Overtraining can be the main culprit when it comes to impacting your progression but can often be overlooked. Over training can occur in pretty much any sport or physical activity.

The definition of overtraining is when an individual performs more physical activity than what they are able to recover from. You're constantly putting your body under physical strain without any time for an effective rest period.

If you were to train 7 days a week and have sessions that where several hours long at a time, you are consistently breaking down the muscle tissue. However, the key to muscle growth is breaking the tissue down but then allowing it to recover and grow stronger. So, without rest there will be minimal growth if any at all.

Signs and Symptoms of overtraining:

Tiredness/Fatigue

Decreased Strength

Decreased Performance

Weight Loss

Nausea

Illness

To combat overtraining, It is recommended you incorporate an appropriate rest period or rest days into your plan being at least one day per week.

Lack Of Rest

Going hand in hand with overtraining, rest is an essential factor to repairing and growth. Adequate rest is more then implementing a rest day once a week, it consists of good quality sleep and downtime to allow your body to repair effectively.

Sleep is the best time for your body to utilise nutrition and repair damaged cells, therefore its imperative that you try and get substantial amount as well as ensuring it is good quality sleep. On average for an adult, an adequate amount of sleep is around 8 hours per day, however this may differ from person to person.

It’s important to recognise when you begin to feel fatigue and use this as an indicator to take a rest period, as not only could this effect your physical progress but it can also effect your mental state in terms of motivation levels etc.

Lack Consistency

If you desire to make progress in anything, consistency is the key to that. When you’re trying to build muscle, a lack of consistency will only hold you back.

With building muscle, your body will only adapt if it feels the need to, meaning the muscles need to be pushed out of their comfort zone on a consistent basis. Being intermittent and constantly taking breaks for weeks at a time will not give them a reason to grow. This isn’t to say you won’t see any results but more a lack of them.

Consistency requires routine, creating yourself a plan and targeted goals will aid you with this and result in you becoming more disciplined.

Poor Technique and Low Intensity

A culprit to lack of progression and muscle development could simply be how you perform an exercise and at what intensity.

Stated numerous times, it is essential that when lifting weights or performing a resistance based exercise, form should take priority. Not only does correct form reduce the risk of injury but it will also allow you to concentrate on the targeted muscle group, ensuring optimal engagement having the desired impact.

Finding a balance between intensity and form is key. You may target the muscle by performing the exercise correctly, however a lack of intensity will mean the muscle(s) have little to no reason to develop and become stronger. Therefore, finding a resistance that will implement hypertrophy while allowing you to be able to control the weight will be essential for progression.

Increasing intensity may not always fall to the resistance being applied, you can also make adjustments to the number of reps, rep tempo or reducing rest periods etc.

Inadequate Nutrition

Training on a consistent basis and applying the right techniques during your workouts to focus on muscle growth should lead to seeing results over time, however possibly one of the biggest factors which could hinder this, is your diet.

Breaking down muscle tissue and pushing your body to it’s limits will require an adequate amount to nutrition to aid recovery and growth. A lack of nutrients will not fuel your body to perform to a high standard nor recovery effectively.

It is imperative to implement some form of diet plan or build knowledge around the essential nutrients if you’re looking to build muscle and become stronger. An example being high protein intake to aid protein synthesis.