3 Sneaky Gain Killers (Likely In Your Workout Routine)

How many workout routines have you tried? 1? 5? 10? More? But are you again and again left dissatisfied because you see no results from any of these workout routines? Well listen up, because I’m going to show you 3 “gain killers” that your workout routines at the gym are likely guilty of, which causes you to see no muscle growth after, no matter how hard you workout. I’ll also show you how to fix each of these mistakes.

One of the most common gain killers I see is called “HADD”: “Hypertrophic Attention Deficit Disorder.” People who have “HADD” Switch up their exercises too often and have no long-term focus. Here’s the truth: guys who do the same, boring exercises over and over, do them well, and get stronger on them, simply build more muscle than guys who “switch it up” for whatever reason. Why? Well, it’s well known that new exercises cause the most muscle damage, but after a while, you adapt and less damage occurs. So while you may feel a lot more soreness from these “random workouts”, they actually don’t provide as much growth as sticking to the same set exercises and focusing on progressing those with more weight and/or reps over time.

What does this mean for your workout routines? Well, it means that you likely need to do an exercise consistently for at least 2-3 weeks before you can start to really get the best growth possible out of it. In addition, during your workout, at a minimum you should be recording the exercise, sets, reps, and weight that you are using. It’s also a good idea to write down your effort on each set and the settings that you are using on a machine or cable or any modifications you may have made. This allows you to control as many variables as possible such that you can more accurately determine if you actually made progress or not. It also serves as a plan of attack for your next workout.

Gain Killer 2 for workout routines at the gym: “Junk Volume:”  Doing more sets than you should do in a single session, rather than doing just enough to maximize growth. But how do you know your limit? Based on the current evidence, as long as sets are being performed to or near failure it seems that the limit is around 10 sets per muscle per workout. This is highly variable, but does suggest that if you greatly exceed this theoretical limit by regularly doing 15-20+ sets for a muscle group in one session, then you are probably doing more harm than good. A practical solution is to distribute that volume into more than one session per week.

Gain killer #3; redundant exercises. If you only have a certain amount of productive sets you can do per workout, then you want to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck. Most people workout consistently but see no results because they make the wrong exercise choices for these sets; in other words: they do exercises that do pretty much the exact same thing but just have different names. For example, take these two sample chest workouts. In workout A you do 3 sets of bench press, flat dumbbell press, and a flat machine press. In workout B you do 3 sets of bench press, 3 sets of an incline dumbbell press, and 3 sets of a cable fly. Which one do you think would be a better use of 9 sets?

Well, if you look at workout A, you are actually performing pretty much the same 1 exercise for all 9 sets. Whereas in workout B, you’re working several different parts of the chest with exercises that have varied angles and different resistance profiles. So for the same amount of work, you’d be able to provide much more stimulus to your chest with workout B, and as a result get more gains out of those 9 sets. Meaning, that for your overall workout routine, just think carefully about the chosen exercises you’re using for each muscle. Make sure you include exercises that are biomechanically different and challenge the muscle at different angles and ranges of motion. By doing so, you’ll be able to get more stimulus and more gains for the same amount of work.

Observing no muscle growth after your workout is a sign that you could be doing something wrong. Overall, if you’re going to spend time and effort doing your workouts, it would be in your best interest to ensure that you’re getting the most out of it. What I went through in this video are just a few ways you can do just that. But for a complete, step-by-step science-based program that shows you exactly how to train and how to eat week after week such that with the effort you put in, you’re maximizing the gains you make and fat you lose, then take the analysis quiz to discover which science-based program would be best for you and where your body is currently at below:
https://builtwithscience.com/your-potential-realized/?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=23%2F05%2F2021&utm_content=3%20Sneaky%20Gain%20Killers%20(Likely%20In%20Your%20Workout%20Routine)

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