“I LIFT BUT DON’T LOOK LIKE IT” (The 5 Reasons Why)

Do you lift weights every week? Twice a week? Three times? More? But are your arms, chest, or whatever muscle you’re trying to make bigger not growing? Well listen up, because with regards to “training” I’m going to show you 5 common lifting mistakes that explain why people who lift consistently see no muscle growth in a month (or for years on end). And if any of those muscle building mistakes describes you, also how to fix each one – so you build the muscle mass you desire.

The first of the muscle building mistakes: you are not training with sufficient effort. While it’s not “necessary” to train to absolute failure every set, you do need to get close enough to it. During each of your sets, you need to push hard enough such that you’re at least 1-3 reps short of the point where you could not possibly do 1 more rep with proper form. But many people miss the mark on this one by: 1) simply not pushing hard enough during a set to reach this 1-3 rep short of failure zone, or 2) overestimating how close they are to reaching this zone. For example thinking that they just did a set with only 1 rep left in the tank before they reached failure, but in reality could have done 5 more if they really pushed.

The second of the common lifting mistakes is not training with enough intensity. For a long time it was believed that the most muscle was built in the “hypertrophy rep range” of 6-12 repetitions. This concept has since been disproven many times over and it appears that similar muscle can be built across a wide range of repetitions. But, it does appear that there is a limit to how high reps you should go before muscle growth is compromised. As a general rule, if you can perform more than 30 repetitions with a given load, even if it is to failure, you likely need to increase the weight to drop the reps or else you will be leaving gains on the table.

What was once hard enough to help you build muscle mass when you started working out will likely not be hard enough after a few weeks or months. The easiest and most straightforward way to make sure you continue to push yourself is to periodically try and increase the weight of an exercise. For example, if you used 30lbs last week and performed 10 reps, try to use 35lbs this week and perform 10 reps. Now this strategy works very well for new lifters, but as you become more trained it is unlikely that you will be able to make noticeable progress on a week by week basis. For more advanced individuals, a more likely scenario is to try and increase the number of reps.

As you continue challenging your muscles and pushing harder than you used to, you need to ensure that your technique remains on point. Many make the mistake of trying to do too much too soon and sacrificing good technique to use more weight or add another rep. Thus, explaining why there’s no muscle growth in a month (or months). So even if you haven’t been making mistake #3, you could be “artificially” getting stronger and improving your sets and reps every week but compensating by using more momentum or shortening the range of motion. This minimizes the tension and growth that your target muscle will experience. Many of you watching will actually need to reduce the weight that you’re used to using and focus on improving your form.
If you’re sure you’ve rectified the above mistakes, and your desired muscle groups (e.g. arms) are still not growing, then and only then should you start considering your training volume. However, the training volume you need to grow the fastest is highly variable and what will be enough for one person to grow may not be enough for someone else. Based on current research it appears as though at least 10 sets per muscle group per week is a rough estimate of where to start, but once again, this will be different for everyone. If you find yourself in a place where you need to increase volume, then a good rule of thumb is to increase whatever you are currently doing by 20-30% to stimulate more growth.
And that’s pretty much it! If you’re not experiencing the gains you know you should be, then go through this checklist. Odds are you’ll find at least one culprit that may be the reason why. But, keep in mind it’s also absolutely essential that you pair all of this with a solid nutrition plan to fuel and support your recovery and growth. And for a step-by-step program that does all of this for you, by showing you how to train and how to eat week after week to maximize growth and strip off excess fat, then take the analysis quiz to discover which science-based program would be best for you and where your body is currently at below:

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Music - Lakey Inspired

[snappycattimesten]

1. Effort: Go within 3 reps of failure.
2. Intensity: Lift heavy. No more than 30 reps.
3. Overload: Progressive overload.
4. Execution: Keep proper form.
5. Training volume: 10 to 13 sets per week.

[menknurlan]

Your forget one of the most important ones: SLEEP.
People sleep way too little these days. We stay up late watching movies or playing video games or whatsoever and thereby decrease the time for our body to recover. Sleep is underrated

[neilpatel]

I'd also throw in nutrition. Personally found myself stuck for years just because I wasn't giving myself any sort of caloric surplus.

[mrez]

So many people miss the mark cause of their nutrition. Specially if you’re carrying excess fat, it can look like you’re not growing cause it’s hard to tell small gains over week by week. I personally dropped like 10% body fat and looked like I gained 10kg of muscle, whereas all I was concentrating on during the cut was to not lose the muscle I already had.

[sEndro]

reason 6: you don't look the same, but it seems TO YOU that you look the same

[lucasdelrosario]

I don't know why the idea of Jeremy spending hours in photoshop making himself look smaller for the thumbnails is so funny to me 😭

[simulki]

It's wierd to for some people, lowering weights is considered "taking one step back",

No! Proper form with full muscle concentration, no matter how low the weight is as a beginner, it will benefit so, so, so much more!
Thank you, Jeremy

[hugoperez]

Love watching you bro because you’re not like some of these other guys who put out a video and then spend half the video talking about a product they made or are sponsored by. You only make content that is true and honest and that is beneficial to anyone who watches it. Love you man keep it up🤝

[rasalresid]

Diet is a crucial thing guys, without it exercise won't help at all. Many beginners struggle to find a proper diet because they want fast results and they end up with no results at all, less money in their pockets and health problems. I encourage you to do a research and find a diet that will work for you. If you still don't know where to start, consider Dietarize as your starting point (first one comes with workout plan which I find convenient as it doesn't require going to the gym at all). This way results are guaranteed. 💪💪💪

[BeeSquared]

I'm at the gym watching this and this video is golden! My personal shortcomings have been sacrificing form for weight in some exercises AND not going to failure in others. It feels like jumping over a hurdle and I'm so stoked to keep going.

Thanks Jeremy!!! Much love my man =D

[Grottsa]

I found this channel pretty recently and enjoyed many of the 2-3 year old videos. Im really glad you are still around making new content!

[farkinarkin]

100% with you on this. Back in the day, what we saw the most was a lack of INTENSITY.

[ashmaypt]

Such a good video, stop stressing about what type of bicep curl you're doing and focus on getting the fundamentals right first 💯

[kgbblk]

1.Effort
2.Intensity
3. Progressive overload
4.Execution
5.Volume

[Sub-Zero]

This video really came in clutch. I'm 16 but I've stayed the same size for almost 8 months. I will use all these techniques and make sure I put maximum effort in

[dondiibnob]

Too many “you’re doing it all wrong” videos from juicers are hurting our gains.

[ColonelAngus]

I found I was facing this issue when I started doing squats again. I would always do other leg activities because I hated them. My roommate loves leg day so I would join him, hated it, but kept going because he'd call me out. He loved squats, so I would join him. And I wanted bigger legs. So now I've kept it up and my legs are growing. But I really had to put myself out of that comfort zone for the first time in a while. My other workouts have seen the same pattern. I started going the extra mile if I could, because I wanted the same satisfaction I got from leg day. One month later and I've been noticing improvement all around. It's crazy that that's what it took. You gotta really push yourself every time.

[CallMeMicahT]

Instead of going a certain amounts of sets, I lift until the point of almost failure so this is really good to hear. My body has definitely changed, I think I just need to switch up the exercises and also need to start hitting the gym almost everyday instead of everybother

[ltlocus]

You're one of the real nattys looking out for fellow nattys and I thank you

[woodlandbiker]

Been lifting for years and one of the things I've noticed most fitness/bodybuilding people fail to tell you is the importance of mind muscle connection. Without mind muscle connection you are half assing it. Make those reps count.