Make no mistake about it, building serious muscle is a 24-hours a day, 365 days a year venture that will fill your life with successes, failures, victories, and defeats. Not a day can go by that is uncalculated and every night must be undisturbed to maximize growth.
You can’t slip in and slip out of the lifestyle and expect much in the way of results. And you’ll undoubtedly miss a whole lot of fun once in a while, but if building the physique you want is priority number one, then you will definitely get out what you put in.
There are many different approaches you can take, and each path will be different from individual to individual, but at the same time, there are commonalities between us all that have made significant differences in our growth. Those commonalities are the mistakes we’ve all made trying to get to the top.
The following mistakes are the ones that I have made myself and have seen others make far too many times. If reading this article can save you some angst and speed up your progress, then great. If it affirms what you already know and have experienced already, then you’re not alone.
Here then are the top 5 mistakes.
Mistake #1: Weight Training and Cardio in the same Training Session
Two completely different energy systems are used for resistance training and for cardiovascular training. You’ll be calling upon your anaerobic energy system when lifting weights and your aerobic energy system when performing cardio. You can’t have it both ways when trying to build muscle while simultaneously trying to shed fat. Instead, focus on one at a time.
Start your day with some Max-OT cardio and then train with the weights later on in the day after you’ve consumed a few meals. This way you can put much more emphasis on improving upon each facet of your training.
Mistake #2: Not Eating Enough
You can’t be afraid to consume lots of calories that come from clean whole foods. Even if your life doesn’t allow you to sit down and eat a full meal every couple of hours, you still have the option of consuming a high-quality, protein-rich shake like VP2 at any time of the day for convenience sake. The more clean source calories you can eat, the more lean muscle you will gain.
Don’t be afraid of getting fat (because you won’t) and when trying to add lean muscle, never let yourself get hungry. You want to grow, so you have to feed your muscles to do so.
Make sure you eat 5-7 meals a day evenly spaced out every two to three hours and be as consistent with this as you possibly can to maximize results. You can’t eat right for a few days and then skip a few days and expect results.
Mistake #3: Guessing Your Portions
I can’t stress this enough; you can’t just guess at how much you need to eat at each meal. It should be precisely measured out for exactly what your body needs. If not, you could be underfeeding yourself or overfeeding which can wreak havoc on your goals.
Purchase a food scale and get yourself a set of measuring cups. It’s the only true way to know exactly what you’re consuming so that when adjustments are needed, they can be made decisively rather than rolling the dice by guessing how much you’re eating.
I find that people always overestimate their protein intake and underestimate calories. Keep a food journal. There are numerous apps available that make this easy and painless.
Mistake #4: Listening to too Many People
I completely understand that most people just want to help out and see you do well with your bodybuilding aspirations. I also know that there are many people out there who feel they know what they’re doing and have a lot to offer you.
Have you ever heard of the saying, “too many cooks in the kitchen?” Well, even though that is a cooking reference it certainly can apply to the number of people you choose to listen to for help.
There are many different ways to approach this lifestyle, and rather than getting caught up and always trying something new, stick with one approach and listen to one person you trust to guide you until it’s time to change that. Otherwise, you’ll never know what worked and what didn’t.
Mistake #5: Using Inferior Products
Not every supplement company out there is the same, and very few actually produce high-quality products that guarantee safety and results. One such company that does is AST Sports Science. They have been in business longer than anyone else and continue to be at the forefront of innovation, science, and technology when it comes to creating the highest grade supplements on the market.
Life is about making mistakes and learning from them. However, perhaps I can save you some painstaking time by sharing with you the mistakes I’ve made so that you can spend more time achieving the goals you have set out for yourself.
The key in all of this is to soak up all of the good and weed out the bad, and that can take time. Take heed to what I’ve mentioned in this article and then find the right course of action for you and don’t be afraid to make a mistake here and there. As long as you learn from them, then you’re doing things right!
