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So you’ve enrolled in a gym and decided to finally gain the muscle you need to get the physique you’ve always wanted. You’ve spent hours working out almost every day for 3 months now but something isn’t quite right.

After spending so much time slaving away, you realize you’re actually not gaining the muscles that you want. What’s wrong? You’re working out, right? You’re spending hours at the gym almost every day. Why aren’t you gaining muscle?

The answer could be found in these 7 reasons why you’re not gaining muscle:

1. Overtraining

The common misconception in muscle building is that the more you train the more you gain. However, this isn’t quite correct. You need to give your body it is much needed time to rest and recover. When you overtrain, you actually lose more muscle.

When you work out, such as lifting weights, you’re actually ripping apart muscle tissues in the body. You need to repeatedly use strength to break these muscle tissues, so when you take the time to rest or sleep, your body does the best job it can to repair those ripped muscles, creating more muscle and giving you those definitions that you want.

Now, when you don’t actually take breaks or rest between days, your body will not have the ability to actually repair damaged muscle tissues – giving you pain and joint injuries, prolonged fatigue, exhaustion, insomnia, and worst of all – no muscle gains.

2. Lack of a Good Nutrition Plan

You can’t build muscle without proper nutrition. Protein and carbs are highly needed to gain muscle and you need to stock up on these. If you follow a perfectly planned workout program but eat junk food and drink beer every night, then spending hours at the gym during the day is worthless – it defeats the purpose.

Muscle building is useless without proper nutrition, so plan your meals right and use the right supplementation.

3. Following More than One Program

While you want to hit the muscles in every part of your body by implementing 1 or 2 programs to your workout, this actually reduces the effectiveness of your programs. You can’t build the muscles that you want if you change your routine every other day.

The key is to stick to one program for at least 3 months and then change it when you don’t see the results.

4. Not Being Consistent

If you think working out intensely once a week with a perfect muscle building program is more effective than light training 3 times a week, then you’re wrong.

The ideal schedule for working out is 3 times a week – the breaks are essential for your muscles to recover and repair. You can’t place 3 days’ worth of workouts into 1 intense day at the gym – it has to be timed right. And if you don’t follow the ideal schedule, then you won’t gain muscle.

5. Not Monitoring Your Progress

Sure, you’ve spent hours and hours at the gym for a couple of months, but do you actually know your progress? You may have a tighter and firmer body but are you getting the exact goals that you set to achieve?

You need to measure your progress in detail so you know what you’re doing right, what you need to eliminate, and to motivate you to work harder.

What gets measured, is what gets improved – so get the scales and tape measure and monitor your progress once a week.

6. Not Getting a Trainer or Social Support

One of the best ways to get things done is to tell people about it. You need to tell your friends and family that you’re hitting the gym or that you’ve improved your biceps after just 2 weeks of working out.

Having a trainer will give you the motivation as well as expert feedback on your workout program. Your trainer will also be the one to guide you if what you’re doing is right or wrong, and help you to improve on the things that you want to improve.

And telling your family or friends about your goals and efforts can also boost your motivation and confidence. Muscle building is more than just brawn – it’s about mental strength, too, which can be achieved through the help of your social support circle.

7. Too Much Cardio

While cardio is essential for giving you stamina and endurance, it’s not your #1 priority. What you need to focus on is resistance training. You need to lift weights to gain muscle. You can inject a little bit of cardio here and there but don’t make it a priority when your goal is to build muscle.

There you have it, the reasons why you’re not gaining muscle despite spending hours and hours at the gym. Check out your diet chart and exercise guides to see if you’re doing any of these mistakes and make the decision right now to change and finally get the muscles you’ve always craved for.