Why YOUR Muscles Aren't Growing (And How to FIX IT)

building muscle is easy if you're a brand new beginner past a newbie gain stage though building muscle becomes disproportionately harder especially as a natural this is why so many people no matter how hard they work in the gym or how well they eat can't seem to grow their muscles any bigger you can't brute force your way past this and beyond the basic fixes like eat enough food or get enough sleep it often all comes down to one reason today i'm going to reveal what that reason is and how to modify your training to instantly make it far more effective at building muscle first we have to understand how a muscle action grows in order to take advantage of it historically there were three mechanisms that everyone conceived as driving muscle growth and i mean everyone from trainers to old school bodybuilders to scientists and i remember reading about these mechanisms on an online forum and instantly i tried tweaking my training program to try to maximize all three of these mechanisms and the rest of the industry did the same promoting training programs and protocols that took advantage of these three mechanisms however as more research was conducted over time it became evident that the science and reasoning behind some of these mechanisms were quite flawless and unfortunately most people including many trainers weren't made aware of this and as a result many people still train ineffectively preventing them from building muscle long term in fact there is a strong chance that one or more of your training habits are based on an outdated understanding of muscle growth so what are these three mechanisms and which of them are no longer reliable the first mechanism muscle damage is actually something that most people intuitively strive for after their workouts it's very straightforward representing actual damage known as micro trauma that training can cause the muscle cells in this damage it causes a reactive inflammatory response in the body which can create muscle soreness and in theory causes the muscles to grow bigger in response because of this many people go out of their way to pursue soreness while training thinking that more soreness means more gains the second mechanism is called metabolic stress and this mechanism represents the chemical demands placed on your muscles during training if you train your muscles a certain way it can cause a high amount of chemical byproducts to build up in that muscle as you work harder and harder and create more and more build up your muscles become more acidic creating a burning sensation in your muscles that i'm sure many of you are familiar with the hormonal environment and swelling of the muscle caused by this is theorized to cause muscle growth to maximize metabolic stress you'd want to use training methods that don't allow your muscles enough time to clear away the chemical buildup high reps supersets short rest periods anything that gives you a big arnold pump or strong burning sensation in your muscles all take advantage of this mechanism the third and final mechanism is mechanical tension and this represents the tension that's placed on your muscle as it lengthens and then contracts under load you can think of it as a band repeatedly stretching and then shortening each rep generally the heavier the weights you lift and the greater the range of motion you use to lift them the more mechanical tension is created now all three mechanisms sound great on paper but recent research has revealed that we've been undermining the importance of one way overestimated one and well we were completely wrong about the other let's start with muscle damage when researchers of a 2017 review took a closer look at existing muscle damage research they were met with findings that came as quite a surprise they found that the growth past researchers thought muscle damage caused was actually just due to temporary swelling in the muscle that would occur after training temporarily making muscles appear bigger than they actually were when this was accounted for participants who experienced greater muscle damage and soreness from their workouts didn't experience greater growth it wasn't until the muscle damage eventually died down did participants start experiencing true muscle growth other studies support this as well suggesting that although muscle damage and soreness will be a byproduct of hard training trying to get more of it does not lead to more growth and can in fact hinder it as for metabolic stress we can determine its effectiveness by analyzing training protocols that create high amounts of metabolic stress and see how well that they stimulate growth shorter rest periods for example seem to create a high amount of metabolic stress yet it's been consistently shown to cause less muscle growth than longer rest periods where less metabolic stress occurs training all the way to failure also creates a very high amount of metabolic stress but when compared to stopping just a couple reps shy of failure it at best results in an equal amount of muscle growth and lastly faster lifting temples involve far more metabolic stress than slower lifting tempos yet tends to provide either equal or less muscle growth overall suggesting that even metabolic stress doesn't seem to be strongly correlated with hypertrophy finally mechanical tension this mechanism has withstood the test of time and recent research has only served to reiterate that it's the most important driver for muscle growth now although metabolic stress will always be present to some degree in your training and muscle damage will still occur whenever you train a muscle hard enough it's clear that for the best results you want to structure your workouts such that they maximize mechanical tension how can we do this simple there's four modifications that you'll want to make to your workouts by the way guys before we dive into the modifications i'm curious what is one thing that you've been told was really important for build muscle but didn't turn out to be true comment below for me personally i always thought that the key was shocking my muscle with new exercises every single workout all right back muscles you ready for some pull-ups psych not today which actually leads me right into the first workout modification that i want you to make first modification most people design their workouts so that they feel more sore but don't prioritize feeling like you made progress prioritize actually making progress and you can do this by sticking with the same exercises week to week and slowly adding more weight and reps to them as you get stronger although after a few weeks of this you won't feel much soreness anymore that's actually a good thing it means you're recovering well and your body is no longer spending a bunch of time and resources repairing old and damaged tissue and instead focused on building new muscle second rest with purpose many people don't spend near enough time resting between sets which decreases the amount of weight and reps they can lift in their neck set and hence decreases mechanical tension illustrating this is a 2016 study by schoenfeld and colleagues that compared resting three minutes or one minute between sets after eight weeks strength and size for every muscle group measured increased more with the longer rest reaching significance for three of the four muscles measured now although optimal rest time highly depends on how taxing the exercise is as well as your training status a good recommendation is to spend at least 1.5 to 2 minutes of rest between sets for most of your exercises with three minutes of rest or even more being a good idea for heavy compound movements just be aware that this may turn your workouts from sweaty heart pumping sessions that feel satisfying into a totally different kind of workout that may not feel like it did much but in reality is far superior for building muscle trust the process third increasing mechanical tension is not just about going from point a to point b or how much weight you can lift it's about how you lift that weight from point a to point b anytime you cut a rep short don't control the weight down of a movement or bounce out of the bottom position using momentum you're effectively reducing the amount of mechanical tension placed on the muscle even if you've heard a million times you need to pay attention to proper form rather than let your ego get the best of you in addition to that there is one more trick that you can use to further increase mechanical tension and this brings me to my final modification most people they mindlessly train a movement trying to hit a goal number of refs without paying much attention to how the target muscle is contracting for example during the dumbbell chest press rather than mindlessly moving the weight up and down think about pulling your arms together and driving your biceps into your chest each rep to really feel the chest working doing so has been shown to stimulate more growth especially for the upper body muscles try to develop this mind-muscle connection with every muscle that you train even if you feel stuck right now apply those four modifications to your workouts and you'll very quickly notice the gains picking back up again that is the true power of science and if you're looking for customized help to apply this science-based approach to your training to make faster gains and build a body you're proud of just head on over to buildwithscience.com and take my analysis quiz to discover the best step-by-step program for you and your body now i do also have some past workout routines that you can watch here that are designed to maximize mechanical tension and are great options to start out with or if you want some more advanced strategies on how to continue forcing muscle growth in your training you can give this video a watch don't forget to hit that subscribe button and i'll see you next time

Channel: Jeremy Ethier

Views: 1,199,803

Keywords: not making gains, not gaining muscle, tips to build muscle, why you’re not gaining muscle, why am I not building muscle, why you aren’t building muscle, why my muscles are not growing, why am I not gaining muscle, reasons you’re not building any muscle, reasons you’re not getting any bigger, muscle not growing after workout, why my body is not building muscle, why you’re not building muscle, builtwithscience, jeremyethier, not gaining muscle mass, how to build muscle

Id: ci00g_mAmRU

Length: 9min 6sec (546 seconds)

Published: Sun May 22 2022