When it comes to making progress in the gym, there are certain things you can be doing that either help or hinder your progress.
However, this doesn’t mean you’re doing anything inherently wrong in the gym, but little things can add up and as they add up, our progress might suffer. Or, maybe even cause you to hit a weightlifting plateau.
I’m sure for many of us, we would love to help our progress rather than hinder it.
Mainly because when we’re spending so much time in the gym, we want to see the results we deserve to see. The right results for our efforts.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through all the reasons why you aren’t seeing the results you should be seeing.
And, how to change what you’re doing so you can start seeing the results you deserve.
In this post you’ll find:
What if you know you aren’t working out consistently
First things first, let’s rule out if the culprit of a lack of results is a lack of consistency.
In order to make progress in the gym, you need to be making it to the gym regularly. You need to be putting the work in for yourself to see results.
If you aren’t consistently doing your weightlifting workouts, then you probably can’t expect to make much progress.
Be honest with yourself and ask yourself if you’re regularly working out as much as you know you should be. Otherwise, it wouldn’t really make sense to wonder why the results aren’t showing up.
If the work isn’t there, then the results won’t be either.
If this is you, then consider finding ways to stay consistent in your workout routine. Once you do that, you’ll most likely find the results come flooding in.
Whereas if you know you ARE working out consistently
On the other hand, maybe you are working out consistently and sticking to your routine. It’s possible to be doing this and still not seeing results.
If this sounds like you, then this post is for you.
By this, we know that a lack of consistency most likely isn’t the problem. So, what are other problems we can tackle that might be the culprit?
You’ll want to evaluate your training style as soon as possible so you can make minor changes and start seeing major results.
Mainly because it can be really discouraging if you’re continually working hard but seeing minimal changes. And, who would want to be working so hard but holding themselves back from the maximum results they could be seeing from all of that work?
As a result, it’s important to learn how to maximize your results in the gym. How to do everything you can in order to make sure your body gives you the results you’re working for.
The main purpose of this post is for me to help you learn what it is that you could be doing wrong.
You’re in the boat where you deserve to see changes, so I want to help you see those changes you should be seeing.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of less obvious things that may seem minor but are actually taking away from your progress.
It’s important to recognize these things as soon as possible so you aren’t loosing anymore precious gains.
The most common reasons you might not be seeing the progress you deserve
You aren’t prioritizing your nutrition for muscle growth
One of the biggest things that could be stopping you from seeing progress is the way you’re eating.
Two things your body requires in order to grow muscle: One) enough food, and two) high quality, nutrient dense food.
When you work out, you use up tons of calories and energy. Then, when you recover, you use up even more calories and energy.
That’s why your body needs tons of nutrient dense, high quality foods in order for your muscles to grow.
If you don’t give your body the food it needs to workout and recover, then your progress is going to be hindered.
Low energy means low quality workouts
Your workouts will suffer because you won’t have enough energy to actually workout. Meaning you won’t be able to push yourself and train as intensely as you could.
And, most likely anyone who doesn’t have enough energy at the gym isn’t going to want to be there.
Causing you to look for ways to cut back on and shorten your workouts. As you can imagine, this isn’t very good for making progress.
Not enough nutrients to recover causes minimal growth
On top of that, your body won’t have enough energy to recover.
Here’s how the cycle of lifting weights works. During your workouts, you make a bunch of tiny tears in your muscles. Then, when your body rests and recovers, it rebuilds your muscles just a tiny bit bigger than they were before. It does this over and over again each time you workout and this is what causes muscle growth.
Now think about it, if you aren’t eating enough food, your body won’t have enough available energy and nutrients. Meaning it won’t have enough nutrients to prioritize muscle growth and recovery.
This will cause two things to happen. First, your recovery time after your workouts will be much slower. Meaning you’ll be sore longer and won’t be able to have as many intense sessions in a week.
And second, your muscles won’t be able to rebuild themselves bigger than they were before. Not only does it require an abundance of nutrients for your muscles to repair themselves, but it requires EVEN MORE nutrients to create more muscle on top of what you already have.
This means that once you finally do recover, you’re muscles won’t be able to regrow themselves bigger than before, since there aren’t enough nutrients available.
What does this mean in terms of your progress? No growth!
How to eat properly for muscle growth
In order to resolve both of these issues, it’s important to make sure you’re eating enough foods, while also eating the right foods.
Before the gym, try eating something high in carbs to give yourself energy for your workout. As these carbs digest during your workout, you’ll have more sugar in your blood stream and readily available to be used as quick energy.
Whereas after your workout, try to eat a meal high in both protein and carbs. Both of these will help give you the proper nutrients and energy for your body to start repairing itself.
Not training intensely enough (your workout routine isn’t effective)
In order to make progress in the gym, you need to make sure your workout routine is effective. To do this, you need to be training correctly.
Your intensity is one of the biggest training factors that determines your muscle growth and progress.
In order to maximize your progress in the gym, you need to be training with high intensity.
To increase your training intensity, you can either increase the amount of weight you’re lifting, the number of reps you’re doing, or both.
Once you do that, this will allow you to start training at or near failure. Training to failure means that you train until your muscles can’t do anymore reps during that set. This gets your muscles extremely fatigued and stimulates the most muscle growth.
Finally, you want to do all of this while practicing proper form and focusing on increasing your time under tension. Both proper form and time under tension are crucial to complete slow and controlled, proper reps.
Doing all of this will allow you to turn your progress around and start making more progress, faster than ever.
Doing this will allow for the most muscle growth.
Not resting enough in between your sets
Rest in all aspects is crucial for muscle growth. It’s almost as important, if not as important, as the actual workout itself.
This means that during your workouts, it’s critical that you allow yourself enough rest in between your sets.
Especially if you’re training at a high intensity, and even if you’re training at a lower intensity.
What happens if you aren’t getting enough rest between your sets is that you’re muscles will be fatigued at the start of your next set.
Meaning you’ll be going into your next set already fatigued and won’t be able to push yourself as hard.
Now, this is fine if you’re going for more of a cardio style of lifting, but if you’re lifting to build muscle, then you want to be almost fully rested at the start of your next set.
How much rest is enough rest?
Allow yourself enough rest between your sets until your muscles aren’t feeling tired anymore.
Now, it can be tricky to know exactly how much rest is the right amount of rest.
Keep in mind that you’ll need to decipher between being tired from the previous set, and just being tired from your entire workout.
Focus on allowing yourself enough rest until you don’t still feel the burning from your previous set.
There’s really not an exact amount of time you should be resting between your sets, it’s different for everyone depending on the person and the intensity of training.
The recommended amount of rest time is generally anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes, sometimes even up to 5 minutes.
It’s best to just try out different times for yourself and find out what works best for you and your body.
Not giving yourself enough rest days
Along with giving yourself enough time to rest in between your sets, muscle growth also requires plenty of rest days. And I mean total rest days.
Rest is when your muscles and body recover. Especially if you’re training intensely, and even if you’re not, rest is extremely important in order to grow your muscles.
If you aren’t giving yourself enough rest days throughout the week, your muscles will never have the chance to recover themselves. You want to regularly be giving your muscles enough time throughout the week to fully recover.
The importance of recovery for muscle growth
I have a post on why rest days are so important for women who lift weights.
Rest is crucial to allow your body to recover, become strong again, and reduce your risk of injury.
If you aren’t allowing yourself enough rest days, at first, it might seem like your body’s doing fine without rest. But the longer this goes on, the more you increase your risk of burnout and injuries, and the more unsustainable it becomes.
You put your body at risk of becoming overly exhausted. When this happens, you won’t be able to workout as much or as intensely. And, you put yourself at more risk when you do workout.
Finally, on top of all of that, you’ll never be giving your muscles any chance to recover. No chance to recover means no chance to grow.
As a result, if you find yourself feeling stuck and not seeing the progress you want to be seeing, maybe the problem isn’t in your training but rather in your rest.
To overcome this, consider adding more rest days into your weekly routine.
I would recommend taking at least 1-2 full rest days per week, in order to give your body enough time to rest.
I guarantee you once you start adding more rest days into your routine you’ll feel much more energized in the gym and will start seeing more progress than before.
Spending too much time at the gym (and doing too many exercises)
Usually, the more time you spend lifting, the better. However, past a certain point, you could start getting a return on investments from your workouts.
How to determine if you’re spending too much time in the gym
You really don’t need a crazy amount of exercises in order to see growth in the gym.
As always, it’s different for everybody.
However, past a certain points in your workout you might find yourself so fatigued that you have no more strength for your remaining exercises.
I see this all the time with people at the gym. They’re there for 2 to 3 hours thinking that they’ll be able to make more progress the longer they’re there.
For some people this may be true, but for others this time just becomes excessive. Because by the end of your workout, you have almost no energy to put into your final exercises.
Instead, it’d be much better to do less exercises, but do them much more intensely.
The reasoning behind this is the more intensely you train, the less exercises you can get away with doing. While still stimulating as much growth as if you were doing more exercises.
Or if you’re doing too many exercises per session
If you find yourself spending hours at the gym but don’t feel tired when you’re leaving, chances are you’re doing too many exercises in one session.
And, if you’re doing too many exercises and STILL aren’t tired at the end, chances are these exercises aren’t optimal for muscle growth.
Maybe you aren’t doing these exercises intensely enough, or they just aren’t the best for targeting the muscles you’re training.
Now, this is really only a problem if you feel you spend too much time in the gym and aren’t seeing the right results from that.
Maybe you enjoy spending all this time at the gym and love doing these exercises. This isn’t a problem. I know people who just love working out so much that they love spending hours in the gym. If this is you, then by all means keep doing this.
However, if you’re looking to see more progress from your workouts while spending less time in the gym, then you’ll want to consider trading some of that time you spend working out for more intensity.
Remember, in terms of muscle growth, how you train is more important than how long you’re at the gym.
Takeaways
If you’re working out consistently but aren’t seeing much progress, this can be extremely discouraging.
It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong necessarily. However, there are things you might be able to improve upon to increase the progress you see from your workouts.
By focusing on your training style, nutrition, and rest, I guarantee you can turn your progress around and start seeing more results than ever before.
Then, in no time you’ll be seeing the results you’ve been working for all along!
More of my posts on women’s weightlifting
Here’s how to brace your core while weightlifting