You're doing everything right — you're constantly hitting the gym, giving 100% to your workouts, and eating healthy. But for some reason you don't see any change in your body. When progress in the gym stalls, it can be tempting to give up your workout routine. But sometimes the answer is as simple as making a few small adjustments to your workouts. Here are some reasons why you're not making progress, and what you can do to see it.
Your technique is letting you down
When you perform exercises with the wrong technique, you not only risk injuring yourself, but it can also prevent you from getting stronger. The reason for this is that if you don't do the exercise as intended, the muscle fibers may not burn correctly. If you've been training for a while and you're not seeing much progress, it might be worth asking a personal trainer to help you.
You don't increase your weight in small steps
Often people do a set with a certain weight successfully, significantly increasing the load on their next set. But when they can't complete that set with that weight, they get discouraged and go back to the original weight. The mistake here is to move up to a much higher weight too quickly, rather than building your strength by gradually increasing weight in small increments. Use the rule of two to determine when you're ready to raise your weights. If you can successfully complete two or more reps in the last set in two consecutive workouts for a given exercise, the load should be increased by only 5% (enough to trigger muscle growth without putting yourself too much at risk of injury).
You can't get a grip
Sometimes it's not your overall body strength that lowers you in the gym, but your grip strength. This is especially true for moves that require you to hold a bar for extended periods, such as chin-ups and deadlifts. While wearing gloves and using a mixed grip (one underhand, one overhand, then swap for the next set) may help, it may be worth doing exercises that strengthen your grip.
You are not feeding your body correctly
You can do all the exercises in the world, but if you don't feed your body correctly with food afterwards, those gains are essentially lost. When you lift heavy weights, your muscle fibers experience tears. To repair the muscle and make it bigger and stronger, your muscles need amino acids or proteins. You also need carbohydrates to raise insulin levels and help those amino acids enter your muscles. While the conventional wisdom has always been that you should consume protein and carbohydrates within 45 minutes of your workout, studies show that you will still see benefits if you delay your post-workout meal by 2-3 hours.
You train the same muscle group in succession If you follow your squats with lunges, you're actually doing yourself a disservice. Of course, training the same muscle group is good for your endurance, but it can actually be counterintuitive because your muscles don't have enough time to recover between sets. This means your tired muscles won't be able to perform at full power in the second set, which can prevent you from getting stronger. It's best to alternate between different muscle groups to make sure they all get plenty of rest before moving on to the next set. That way you are always able to put in your maximum effort and get the most out of the exercise.
You only work muscles from one angle Our muscles are complex, not one-dimensional. So, if you're consistently working a muscle group from one angle (bicep curls, for example), you're only going to work a portion of the muscle. While you will still see some gains, it can lead to muscle imbalances. Balance in a muscle is ideal for maximum strength and functionality, which in turn will improve the overall look.
This is especially true for large muscle groups, such as the glutes. To take your workouts to the next level, learn how to target the muscles in different ways.
