5 Reasons Why You Might Not be Building Muscle

Muscle building is one of those things that is harder than it looks. On paper it might be easy to put together the perfect plan but in reality everything has to be in order for impressive muscle gains to occur. I’ve put together some reasons for why you might not be building muscle and what you can do about it.

You’re not eating enough 

Building muscle requires a lot of energy. For people who tend to be slimmer, you’ll need to have a larger caloric surplus than what is typically recommended. Start with a 500 calorie surplus and go from there. For those who have no issues putting on weight, a 200 calorie surplus is usually a good place to start. Food is your greatest weapon in the pursuit of building muscle. If 500 isn’t enough, keep on increasing your intake until your weight begins to budge. 

You’re not sleeping enough

In order for your body to adequately recover and undergo all the steps necessary to build muscle tissue, an adequate amount of sleep is required. In my experience, 8 hours is a good number to aim for if you’re engaged in a program geared towards muscle building. Some need more, others need less. To find how much sleep you need, sleep without setting an alarm and wake up when your body naturally rises. This is typically a good way to determine your true sleep needs.

You’re not sending your body the right signal 

In order for your body to grow, you need to be following a proper muscle building program, progressively overloading in the 6 - 15 rep range.  In many cases, I’ll see people doing excessive cardiovascular activity that tells your body to catabolize tissue, including muscle. 

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ll see people lifting very weights, below the 5 rep range. Some exercise science literature has shown positive benefits with heavy strength for building muscle, but I believe that it’s highly overrated unless your strength levels are truly lacking.

Roughly 75% of your training should be performed between the 6 - 15 rep range for optimal muscle building results. Most things outside of that range will steal from your recovery resources and send signals that interfere with muscle building. 

You haven’t changed your workout since 1995 

It’s common to see people doing the same program with the same weight, reps and sets for years on end. In order to make progress overtime, your body needs to be exposed to a progressively greater challenge. Using the same sets, reps and weights overtime isn’t going to cut it. 

With each workout, you need to increase the challenge by increasing the weight you lift, the repetitions performed or the number of sets you complete. The best way to ensure you’re constantly making progress is to track your workouts. 

Additionally, don’t be afraid to experiment with different exercises, training splits, sets, reps and rest. Constant change is difficult to track progress but at the same time keeping variables the same for years on end always has its downsides. Train an exercise until you can no longer make progress and then switch it up. 

You’ve got way too much on your plate

In order for your body to prioritize muscle building, life stress cannot be excessively high. Your body only has so much stress that it can recover from and that’s including stress from external factors such as your job, family and other life components. 

If your goal is to muscle, ensure that you’re managing stress by either removing it from your life (not always possible), changing how you react to stress (perception of stress) or adding in techniques to reduce stress such as meditation, journaling, walking etc.  

Ultimately, if stressors outside of training increase beyond what your body can handle, your ability to train and recover will be impaired. In my experience, it’s best to plan growth phases during times of decreased stress when you know you can commit more to training. When other areas of life begin to ramp up, plan for a maintenance mode or switch to a less stressful training goal to keep yourself sane. 

In all, the right conditions need to be met in order to grow muscle as it’s a process that’s extremely costly to the human organism. If you’re finding it difficult to add muscle, give these tips a thought or try and let me know how it goes.

If you would like to talk, feel free to reach me at matthew@endurehp.com