1. You are not getting enough calories.
Nearly 90% of athletes’ complaints about lack of muscle growth and / or strength are attributed to inadequate caloric intake. To maintain weight at the current level, the body requires a certain amount of calories. This indicator is called basal metabolic rate (BMI). OSI has a different meaning for each person and depends on total body weight, muscle mass, level of physical activity, age, etc. Consuming less calories than OSI leads to weight loss (calorie deficit). If the daily calorie intake exceeds the ITR, the person gains weight (excess calories).
How do you know the number of calories the body needs?
The easiest way to find your OSI is to use our Calorie Calculator . The calculator is based on the Harris-Benedict equation (the most accurate method), which calculates the daily calorie requirement. Go to the calculator page and find out your daily calorie intake. Most people don’t even know how many calories they need to cover the body’s daily energy needs!
Let’s get back to our goal. To gain muscle mass and volume, you must consume more calories than you burn. To do this, add 500 calories to the value obtained using the calculator. This is the number of calories your body needs every day to build muscle.
Example:
- Your calculated OSI is 2,760 calories
- You Must Eat 3260 Calories To Gain Weight
- You Must Eat 2,260 Calories For Weight Loss
2. You are not eating the right foods
Generally speaking, with a positive calorie balance and hard training, weight gain will not be long in coming. However, an unhealthy diet can limit your potential, causing your body to store fat rather than build lean muscle mass.
To formulate the right diet for muscle gain, you need to build on the protein / fat / carbohydrate ratio (BJU). It is believed that the optimal ratio of BJU for muscle growth is 30/20/50. That is, you should get 30% of your total caloric intake from protein, 20% from fat and 50% from carbohydrates .
Let’s take our 3260 calorie diet mentioned above and calculate:
- 30% of 3260 calories = 980 calories from protein. Dividing by 4 (this is the number of calories in one gram of protein), we get 244 g of protein per day
- 20% of 3260 calories = 650 calories from fat. Dividing by 9, we get 72 g of fat per day
- 50% of 3260 calories = 1630 calories from carbs. Dividing by 4, we get 408 g of carbs per day
Now you need to spread these numbers over 6-7 meals a day. For more information on diet formulation, see the Muscle Gain Diet article on our website.
3. You don’t eat often enough
“When” you eat is just as important as “what” you eat. The traditional “3 servings a day” is a thing of the past. Research shows that small but frequent meals can speed up metabolism and help maintain, lose, and gain weight. Imagine that your body is a wood-burning fireplace. If you throw too much wood in one fell swoop, the flame will be small and may go out. But if the wood is tossed up little by little – as the fire grows – the flame will burn brighter and brighter.
You should have at least 6 meals every day at regular intervals. It is desirable that all meals have the same calorie content, although in conditions of an acute shortage of time, it is allowed to eat a little more for breakfast / lunch / dinner.
You probably thought, “I won’t be able to eat so often.” If they gave me one dollar for each such answer, then I could already retire. In fact, you will succeed, you just need to make a small plan. There are many ways to prepare and store food throughout the day. After spending a couple of hours on the weekend, you can prepare meals and snacks for an entire week. Unleash your imagination.
Sports mixes are another great option. There is nothing easier than making a cocktail – just dilute a few tablespoons of the powder in water. One serving of a quality sports formula typically contains about 600 calories, including a decent amount of protein, branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) , glutamine and carbohydrates. This is “food in a cup” in the literal sense of the word. Before going to work, prepare a sports formula and bottle it – as many bottles, as many snacks. It’s simple.
4. You are not drinking enough water
Water is an amazing “additive” created by nature itself. Without it, the normal functioning of the body is unthinkable. Many athletes underestimate the need to maintain proper water balance during training. If the body is dehydrated immediately before training, it is too late to change anything – you will not have time to restore the water balance. You should take care of saturation of the body with water immediately after waking up. Dehydration is a serious problem that can be fatal in extreme cases. Among the main signs of dehydration are:
- Feeling thirsty (obvious)
- Fatigue. Breakdown for no apparent reason
- Dry mouth with possible sore throat
- Headache
- Lack of appetite
- Dark urine with a pungent odor
Drinking enough water is not difficult at all. Any excuses about this look ridiculous. You just need to carry a bottle of water with you at all times, taking sips regularly throughout the day.
A number of sports supplements (the same creatine ) stimulate the intensive excretion of water from the body. If you are taking creatine monohydrate, you should increase your water intake.
5. Your workout routine is bad.
Progress is impossible without choosing the right training program that matches your physique, training history and your goal. Many aspiring athletes copy training programs from sports magazines and articles authored by professional bodybuilders. But these programs are not meant for beginners. They will not bring anything except wasted time along with a decline in spirit and strength.
Principles for creating an effective workout program:
- Maintain adequate intervals between workouts for proper rest
- Distribute exercises to individual muscle groups in such a way that there is no overtraining
- Distribute exercises into individual muscle groups in such a way that all muscles are worked out as efficiently as possible
- Choosing the right compound and isolation exercises
- Perform a quality warm-up and cool-down
It is also very important to know and understand the characteristics of your physique. Each body type responds differently to different training methods. A workout program that helped your friend may not work for you.
