For many athletes, muscle build-up is the decisive reason for regular training units and a consistently healthy diet. Nevertheless, over time many athletes reach a point where they build up no or very little muscle. Often the training career begins with a rapid increase in performance and mass, but this quickly subsides and possibly leads to frustration. Here are five common reasons why you do not build up muscles.

You have probably heard countless times about how important nutrition is as an athlete. However, it cannot be emphasised enough that all the effort you put into training will be virtually ineffective if you eat the wrong kind of food. The main focus here is not on protein intake, but rather on the calorie balance. Of course, proteins are also an essential factor in building muscle. They are practically the building blocks from which not only muscles are made. There is a simple reason why we still put calorie intake over protein intake. If you take consume calories, you will almost automatically consume enough protein. On the other hand, if you concentrate only on protein, you will not automatically consume enough calories.
It is very difficult to give concrete figures on how many calories you should eat every day. This depends on too many factors. Apart from age, height, weight and muscle mass, other factors also play a role, such as your activity at work and in your free time. Last but not least, every athlete reacts differently to an excess of calories. A rough guideline is usually an excess of 300-500kcal calories per day.

It is of course obvious that the training plan plays a decisive role in muscle building. With a half-hearted workout you will not be able to achieve success. However, it is not only about the intensity of the strength training. Many athletes are very ambitious and give their all in every session. Nevertheless, progress is very limited. If you take a closer look at the training plans of these athletes, you will often find serious mistakes in the structure. It is not for nothing that there are qualified trainers and, with sports science, there is also a course of studies that deals with progress in strength training, among other things. A sensible and effective training plan must be based on a number of indispensable principles.
Surely you are familiar with the usual range recommended for hypertrophy training. To stimulate muscle growth, you should work with 6-15 repetitions, often a safe middle range of 8-12 repetitions is chosen. What you may not know is that it is not so much the repetition that matters, but rather the "TUT" - the "Time Under Tension". This term refers to the time your muscles are under tension during a training set. With the aim of hypertrophy, you should aim for a tension time of 20-40 seconds. For example, if you do eight repetitions but complete them in record time and the set is over in twelve seconds, you are not providing enough stimulation for your muscles to grow. As a rule, you can play it safe if you plan at least three seconds for each repetition.

Another common mistake within training plan design is progression. Your muscles have the ability to adjust and adapt to stress. If you set the right stimuli during strength training, your body will recognise that it needs to make provisions for future stress, which it does by, among other things, building up its muscles. Once your body has adjusted to this stress, there is no need to make any further adjustments. You therefore have to set new stimuli. So if you work with the same repetitions and weights for months, you cannot expect any progress. The progression has to be designed in a sensible way, and it is not always just a matter of increasing the weights. A progression can also be achieved by varying the number of repetitions, varying the exercises or changing the speed of movement. First and foremost, it is important that a progression is given and that it is sensibly built into the plan.

There is a reason why all reputable sources say that progress in strength training depends on diet, training and recovery. Unfortunately, the last point in particular is all too often neglected. Anyone who publicly admits to sleeping more than eight hours a day is envied on the one hand, but on the other hand is looked at in a funny way. But sleep is the most important regeneration measure. Besides sleep, other measures should not be neglected. You can get a massage, go to the sauna or take relaxing walks in your everyday life. All these measures increase the blood circulation in your muscles and therefore speed up regeneration. At the same time, they reduce stress - a factor that is absolutely undesirable for building up muscles. Because stress creates a hormonal situation in your body which counteracts the build-up of muscles. Therefore, you should avoid stress as much as possible.

Already at the beginning of this article it was mentioned that most athletes make very big jumps at the beginning of their training career. At some point, progress decreases and muscle growth may even come to a standstill. It is perfectly normal that the progress is less over time. Absolute beginners in strength training can make the greatest progress. This makes it all the more important to pay attention to all the aspects mentioned in this article right from the start. But even after years of strength training you can still build up muscles. However, you should not have any false ideas about the extent of muscle growth. The professional bodybuilders, who are tanned on stage, are not good role models. It is no secret that in professional bodybuilding is helped with illegal substances. If you now measure yourself against these athletes, it can quickly appear that your progress is lousy. But maybe they are not. Make sure that you take your measurements regularly to record your actual progress. Progress on training weights is also useful. If, as an advanced athlete, you can gain 2-3 kg of muscle mass in one year, this is already an excellent figure. Higher values without illegal aids are reserved for rare people who are naturally blessed with a body that responds particularly well to strength training. The vast majority of us have to be content with 2-3 kg per year.