1. You finish your reps

Fast, heavy lifting uses more of the fibres with the most growth potential, but they tire fast, in 15 seconds or less. Then you’re left struggling with weaker fibres. There are two warning signs: 1) The speed of your reps slows, and 2) you shorten your range of motion. At this point, it’s better to end the set than keep going with compromised speed or form. This will help alot for building muscle. It seems like an off for a sit in the steam room cop out, but stopping early works if you don’t make muscle building mistake no. 5.

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2. You do too many reps

As a beginner, you’ll gain strength, building muscle using 60% of your 1-rep max, a weight you can lift for 15-20 reps. But gym regulars need 80% of their 1-rep max to boost strength, a weight you can lift for 8 reps per set. Do you really use weights in that range? If you do multiple sets of 8-10 reps, you don’t and are not building muscle.   The trouble is, even the Arnie-est among us can lift near-max weights on every exercise of every workout. Fortunately, there’s a loophole if you don’t make mistake no. 3.

3. You lift too slow

Traditional wisdom says you should lift weights slowly for building muscle. Control is essential for good form but slow is holding you back. The faster you lift the better the results. Fast lifts activate the muscle fibres with the most growth potential, plus they crank up your heart rate and metabolism. Anything worth lifting is better lifted fast. Lifting fast gives you the same muscle building growth with less weight. And though you should lower slower than you lift don’t stress about tempo. Just return to the start without shifting your body out of alignment.

4. You do too many exercises

Forget muscle building exercises that work muscles in isolation. Each session you’ll now do is built around one lower-body exercise and two upper body exercises, one for pushing and one for pulling these will work all your muscles in combination. By working your larger muscle groups you’ll burn a lot more calories and build muscles faster.

5. You don’t take enough breaks

Every muscle rule book has targets for a fixed number of sets and reps, but avoiding muscle building mistake no. 1 means you won’t always hit them, thus not building muscle. Instead, focus on total reps and let the sets take care of themselves. If your workout specifies 5 sets of 5 reps, 25 is your total – it doesn’t matter how many sets it takes to get there. Taking more sets means you get more from those reps because you’re doing more work with your biggest, strongest muscle fibres.

So make sure these reasons are not keeping you from getting the muscle building gains you want.  If you want to invest in a very good muscle building program I highly recommend No-Nonsense Muscle Building (see proof of how I transformed in 6 weeks) by acclaimed bodybuilder Vince Delmonte. It has an 100% 8 week money back guarantee.