If you’ve been busting your hump at the gym and not getting the results you want, this is for you.
The good news is you’ve been putting in a lot of work. Your consistency and dedication are commendable. You can’t get results without them.
The bad news is if you’re not seeing the results it means all that effort is being pointed in the wrong direction.
That’s okay. I’m here to help you find your way. All it takes is a couple tweaks and you’ll be on your way to making true progress. You’ll look better, feel better, and be more capable.
Here are five mistakes that keep you from making progress and what to do about them.
Not training hard enough. You have to push yourself if you want to see progress. If your training never leaves you feeling sore, you’re probably not training hard enough.
Solution: Change involves bouts of feeling discomfort. Pushing yourself is uncomfortable. If you’re getting through all the repetitions in your lifts with ease, you’re not pushing yourself. Are you doing the same sets and reps, using the same weights week after week? You won’t see progress this way. The last 2-3 reps of each set should be really challenging. How challenging? They should require total concentration and effort to finish them with good form. In time, those last couple reps using that weight become easier. This is what you want to happen. It means you’re stronger. It’s time to add a little more weight to the bar and make those last few reps difficult again.
A quick note on soreness. Being sore after every workout isn’t a sign that you’re really kicking ass and on the way to progress. It will happen from time to time. Usually it happens more when you’re first starting out or when you’re trying a different workout. As you get used to working out, you’ll be less sore. It doesn’t mean the workout isn’t productive. Don’t use soreness to judge that. Instead, ask yourself if you’re gradually increasing the weights and sets and reps over time. That’s a true way to judge.
Training too hard. The opposite mistake can be just as bad in terms of hindering your gains. If every workout leaves you crumpled in a heap, you’re pushing too hard. There is a sweet spot where your workouts are challenging but not crushing. Remember, the idea is to stimulate your muscles to grow, not to obliterate them.
Solution: Going into each workout with the intention of crushing yourself is not a sustainable approach. You’ve probably heard lots of people encouraging it though. “No pain, no gain”? “No days off”? They’re good marketing, I guess. But they’re counterproductive if you’re looking to make progress.
Want to get stronger? Look better? Be more capable? You want to train hard enough to stimulate your body to adapt, but not so hard that your body has to do all it can just to survive each workout.
If you’re chasing the feeling of being totally crushed at the end of your workout, then you’re chasing an emotion. If you want progress, using emotions is a bad metric to choose. Instead, use more objective measures. Are you increasing the weights you’re using compared to prior workouts? Can you do more reps and sets? Do you need less time to recover between sets?
Winging it. Not having a set plan for each workout is a huge mistake. Ideally your time and effort compounds to make progress. A plan streamlines that process. If you truly want to see progress, follow a plan.
Solution: Heading to the gym and doing what you feel like is better than laying on the couch eating chips all day long. But there’s a difference between exercise and training. Exercise is a good thing. It’s physical activity for its own sake. Again, it’s good for you.
But it’s not going to get you the results you want.
If you want results - if you want to be stronger, leaner, and fitter - you want training. Training is following a specific plan targeted at specific results. In this instance the results are increased muscle and improved strength.
When you go for a workout but you don’t have a plan, what do you end up doing? Usually the lifts that you enjoy most, right? I know that’s true for me. I spent far too long thinking I was actually doing something when I was just doing a few sets of bench press. There’s nothing wrong with bench pressing either, by the way, it’s just not a comprehensive plan.
At a minimum, having a plan for each workout is a time saver. You show up to the gym and you can get right to work. No need to wander and wonder about what to do. But the true benefit of a good plan is it’s a roadmap to where you want to go.
Want to work your way to being able to do a chin-up for the first time? Great. Following a plan will focus you on strengthening your back muscles in a progressive way. That’s your primary concentration and you add in some complementary exercises to build strength and stability in your whole body. Week by week, you follow the steps that will build the strength you need to achieve that first chin-up.
That’s just one example. No matter what your fitness goal is, following a good plan is the fastest way to achieve it.
Ignoring recovery. You want to go hard in the gym 3-4 sessions per week. And you want to recover hard, too. You don’t get stronger while you’re in the gym. You stimulate your muscles through your workouts. Your body needs rest time to do the actual building of new tissue. And of course, they need the raw materials to build that new tissue, which means you have to make sure you’re eating the right things in appropriate amounts.
Solution: If you work out 3-4 times per week for an hour each time, that’s plenty. It actually doesn’t take much time per day to stimulate muscle growth. That’s 3-4 hours out of 168 total hours in the week. What you do with the other 164/165 hours is really important when it comes to making progress.
What you do in the gym sends signals to your body that it needs to grow muscle. But in order for that to happen, you need to give your body rest time and nutrients so it can do its thing. Do you have to eat “perfectly”? Absolutely not. Do you need to sleep 14 hours a night? Nope.
But you do have to do enough to give your body a chance. Otherwise you’re wasting your efforts.
Recovery matters every bit as much as what you do in the gym.
Eat enough food. Exactly how much is going to vary greatly between individuals. Eat an amount that suits your goals. That’s intentionally vague, I know. The calorie needs of someone whose primary goal is fat loss and whose day is mostly spent sitting at a desk are likely far different than someone whose primary goal is to build muscle and whose job has them taking 25,000 steps a day.
Eat plenty of protein, lots of vegetables, and fruits. Whole food sources of carbs are not the “enemy” either. Rice, potatoes, and pasta are not inherently bad for you*. You want to consistently eat enough food for sufficient energy for your workouts and your recovery.
Drink plenty of water. Staying hydrated improves the function of everything in your body. There’s no set amount to prescribe. Drink when you’re thirsty. Your urine doesn’t have to be clear but if it’s dark, you’re likely dehydrated.
Get enough rest. You know you feel better when you get 7-8 hours of sleep per night than when you only get 4-5, don’t you? There are sometimes legitimate reasons why you might not be able to get a full night’s rest. Do the best you can to get good quality and a good quantity of sleep most nights. Ask yourself if you really need to stay up an extra half-hour scrolling on your phone? Streaming yet another episode of your favorite sitcom (that you’ve already watched 10 times)?
Active recovery is a really underrated part of the process, too. It’s far better than doing absolutely nothing physical during your time away from the gym. Active recovery is just movement that’s intentionally non-taxing. It’s supposed to be easy. A brief walk or some light stretching or mobility movements are great examples. The idea here is to increase blood flow to the muscles to aid in recovery.
When you’re feeling sore or stiff from your workouts, active recovery will increase the blood to those areas which facilitates their repair. The blood both takes away waste from those cells and brings nutrients to them. Ironically, the best treatment for being sore or stiff isn’t laying like a mummy. It’s getting in a few minutes of light movement. If you don’t believe me, just try it. Just try a ten-minute walk and see if at the end you don’t feel better than before you started.
[*Let’s set aside the emotional and ritualistic aspects of food for a moment. Food means many things in many contexts. Family, fun, and celebration are just a few examples. This aspect of food is meaningful and should not be disregarded in the big picture. But just for the purposes of this, imagine food as just fuel: carbs are your body’s preferred energy source. You want to eat enough food, including carbs, to fuel both your training and your recovery]
You stimulate the adaptations by what you do in the gym. Your recovery is when those adaptations actually occur. You have to give your body the opportunity to make the changes if you want to see the changes.
Focusing on the wrong lifts. Spending most of your session doing isolation exercises like calf raises and wrist curls is wasting your time. The truth is you don’t need to do a ton of exercises to get strong if you’re doing the right ones. Compound lifts are your best bet. Stick with deadlifts, squats, presses, chin-ups, rows, and carries. That’s really all you need until you are advanced in your training. Another huge mistake holding you back is believing cardio is the best method to get leaner.
Solution: You might think you have to do a bunch of different exercises to ensure you hit “every” muscle. If your goal is to hit the stage in a bodybuilding show then you’re going to have to do tons of reps of isolation exercises targeting each muscle to maximize development. If that’s not your goal - if you just want to build some muscle to look, feel, and move better - then it’s not at all necessary.
Isolation exercises such biceps curls or leg extensions work a specific muscle group. Compound exercises like squats or push-ups work groups of muscles together. You want to base your workouts on compound exercises. You can do isolation lifts if you want, but think of those more like a condiment. They’re the sauce, while the compound lifts are the steak and potatoes.
It’s not that isolation lifts are bad. They’re great if you want to bring up one muscle group in relation to others. For example, if you’re happy with the size of your thighs but want to grow your calves in relation, adding isolated calf exercises in addition to your normal leg workout would be worthwhile. But if you’re thinking, “well, I want to grow my calves, my butt, my arms, and my back”, it’s inefficient to focus your workouts on isolating all those muscles instead of working several groups simultaneously.
Focus on getting really strong at the compound lifts (with great form) and you’re going to love the results. It’s a more efficient way of training for this goal. When you do deadlifts, you’re working your legs, butt, and back all at once. Squats train your legs, hips, core and back at once. When you do presses, you build strength in your shoulders, arms, and chest. Doing chin-ups or rows works your back, shoulders, and arms. Carries are another full-body exercise.
As for cardio, it is great for keeping your heart and lungs healthy, but in terms of making your physique leaner or muscular, you are way better off lifting weights.
You can train all the big muscles in your body with only a few lifts. Once more, if you get really strong at these you’re going to love how you feel and look.
Bonus tip. Be consistent and patient. None of this happens overnight. So stick with it and use objective measurements to keep track. Use an app or keep a workout journal. It’s your way of keeping stats. “I did 3 sets of 8 reps with 50lbs. last time. This time I did 2 sets of 10 and 1 set of 9 with 50lbs.” for instance. Seeing your stats go up over the weeks and months is motivating. While keeping your overall goal in mind, you can set short-range goals along the way. Maybe you want to go from being able to lift the bar with half your bodyweight, to full bodyweight, to double your bodyweight, for example.
Being consistent just means you show up and give your best effort for your workouts, week after week. Intellectually you know the results don’t happen instantly. But emotionally we expect them to. The results will come only after a prolonged period of consistency.
Be patient with yourself. There really is no rush. If you keep pushing yourself consistently, you’ll achieve your fitness goals.
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