Are you a beginner in the gym? Avoid these mistakes and gain more muscle!

Newbies in the gym do a lot of weird things and I'm not surprised, because the internet is full of misinformation and more and more people are forgetting the old school that has always worked best. Modern trends only confuse people and no one has come up with anything revolutionary since Arnold, trust me. Of course, we are not here to laugh at beginners, but to help them. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

Stick to a training plan

Being a beginner is actually a great thing because it's the only time in your fitness life when you can easily lose fat, gain muscle, strength and all at the same time. You don't even have to do things very efficiently. You can even be one of those clowns who does shoulder presses with leg presses and still get some results.

For a beginner, a big part of development is not just what they do in the gym, but the habits they form during that time. One of these is the ability to be consistent with your training program, trust it, and not jump from one training program to another when gains slow down. Yes, training needs to change, but the core exercises remain the pillar of your training and you need to give your plan time to produce results.

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Of course, if you start to stagnate, blame your training program because the gains will slow down. But the eventual slowdown in progress isn't because the workout you put together stopped working, it's because your motor skills are improving and your body is adapting to the stimulus. So growth slows down dramatically. You need to keep working and not replace effective exercises with other, even less challenging ones. Everyone, even those who focus on bodybuilding and pure hypertrophy, still needs to focus on developing efficiency in basic exercises and gradually adding more weight. If you do this, it will bring you good muscle gains.

Think of these basic exercises and include them in your training program (after the first few months of training, of course, and the associated preparation for more challenging exercises and workouts):

• Squats and deadlifts: Work on technique before you start adding weight to the barbell.
• Two pressing exercises: Everyone likes the Bench press, so choose it as your first exercise or swap it out for one-arm push-ups. The second exercise is dumbbell overhead shoulder presses. With proper technique, this exercise will help you build shoulder mobility that will serve you for the rest of your training days, which will help you in building strong shoulders.
• Two deadlift exercises: One vertical, such as dumbbell dips, and one horizontal, where I would opt for dumbbell pull-ups in a forward bend, or different variations of these exercises.
• Lunges: This is a unilateral lower body movement that is great for mobility, stability and hypertrophy. It's not my favorite exercise, but with a lot of effort and improvement, it yields great muscle gains until you've mastered hundreds of them.
• Bicep lifts and different variations: I probably don't need to mention, everyone wants big arms and you'll definitely be practicing them. Of course, it's not just the size of your biceps, but also the fact that the biceps stabilizes the elbow joint. And said joint tends to take virtually all of the push and pull movements of the upper body.

I know, basic exercises hurt, exhaust you, and aren't as fun as pulley pull-ups in the lying down position, seated position, or various machines. However, you can't do them without knowing the basic exercises. It's great preparation for bigger muscles in the future.

Don't sweat so that you gain fat

If you are a young man and you eat Mekac regularly every night and still have visible abdominal muscles, then excess calories will probably be fine, if you ignore your health. If you're not that kind of person, and you probably aren't, then you may want to rethink your strategy.

Too many guys think they can gain more muscle by eating an excess of junk food of any kind, but that's just not the case. Ask anyone who has been working out for a long time and has really gotten results. I'm sure they'll tell you it's not about a bigger waist size and a big fat body. Because then you often find when you diet that all the muscle you thought you had was just fat. Just as it is with a training program, it is essential to developing good habits to learn how to properly supply nutrients to your body so that it meets the needs for your muscle growth and is not an unnecessary excess of calories that will bring on fat stores.

Fat cells are estrogenic. The last thing you need when trying to build muscle is to increase your estrogen. In addition, the more fat mass you pack on, the worse the nutrient distribution becomes due to reduced insulin sensitivity. A proper insulin response to carbohydrate intake is essential for continued muscle gains.

The key is understanding that more body fat means:

• more estrogen
• reduced insulin sensitivity
• more inflammation
• higher cortisol levels

When you put it all together, it's the exact opposite of an effective environment for building muscle!

Don't try to go on a diet if you are still lacking muscle

After a few months of training, a lot of beginners can finally see their biceps and a little bit of back muscle in their over-the-shoulder selfie photos. A lot of them then declare it's time to cut it out for summer or vacation. I know you're thinking, because you've been working out for six months, that you're going to do some 12-week diet and fancy routine with lots of abdominal exercises and look like a Californian version of King Leonidas on the beach, but that's not going to happen. If you start a strict diet after a few months of training and there's not enough muscle on you, you can get the much dreaded skinny-fat look that you definitely want to avoid.

If you follow the nutrition and training guidelines above, keep track of how much you eat, don't eat excess calories in the form of junk food, are patient and keep working hard in the gym, you will definitely know when it's time to diet. It might be when someone notices that you are exercising and that you have really changed. And that can take a hell of a while.

Remember, when you're dieting, there's usually muscle loss. The fatter you are, the longer it takes to adjust your diet to achieve weight loss, which often leads to more muscle loss than desired. Therefore, even in volume, it is necessary to keep fat reasonably under control, build up a sufficient amount of muscle and only then try to improve the figure in the form of body fat loss.

Train more often, but not for long

The early years are the time when exercise will yield the best results. You won't have much trouble recovering from your workouts, as your strength will be the lowest it has ever been. Your ability to significantly wreck your nervous system and systemic fatigue will therefore be minimal. This is absolutely the best time to train more often because your ability to recover from your workouts will be excellent. Now you need to understand that this does not mean training marathons of around three hours of training, but it does mean only training more frequently and effectively.

Training initiates muscle protein synthesis. The more often you train without finding yourself overtraining (for a beginner, this simply means avoiding three-hour workouts), the faster your muscles grow. Training 4-5 days a week is fine because if the training plan is smart, you should see results very quickly. Enjoy the beginner's increments, it will go slower and slower over time and you will have to think much more about diet and training. Exercise intensely, without unnecessary equipment, try to focus on the training and connect the exercised muscle with your head. You need to feel the pumping of the exercised area after the workout and leave with a feeling of a job well done.

Other things to keep in mind

• The one rep max is not for you. I don't care how strong you feel. Do your sets and reps and let your body grow. Demonstrating strength has literally no training benefit. Are you in the gym to show your ego or to actually get better?
• You're not Arnold, so don't act like it. If you see a really pumped up guy at the gym or on the internet, never try to copy him. What he's doing in the gym right now is not what he did to get to that level. I know it shocks you, but you're not him. You're working with a completely different set of genes and you need to focus on what's best for you. Not trying to emulate what someone else who has been training for over a decade is doing.
• Pay attention to your lower body too. Whether you realize it or not, having strong legs and hips is important. These will be the muscle groups that your body carries throughout your life. Building strong hips and legs is not only important from a symmetry perspective.

I wish you the best of luck in your beginnings. If you need help with anything, feel free to contact me through Supertrener.cz Your start in the gym is the most important time and if you start doing everything right, your results will be good and you will keep improving. Moreover, your good habits will also benefit you in the future. Just don't fall in with those who gave up because they had poor results. Listen and take advice!

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