How to Build Muscle: 11 Muscle-Building Mistakes to Avoid
Do you know what it takes to build muscle?
Do you know what you should be doing, and just as importantly, what mistakes you should be avoiding?
The concept of building muscle seems quite simple—lift heavy, eat plenty of high-quality food, and get enough rest.
Sounds easy, right? What could go wrong?
Well, a lot.
Packing on more muscle is deceptively simple, and actually rather complex. There are many factors involved that can influence your rate of progression.
The complexity of packing on muscle leaves plenty of room for mistakes to be made.
Mistakes that can derail your progress and make muscle growth occur at a frustratingly slow rate, leaving you discouraged.
Take a look through this list of common mistakes and ask yourself if you’re committing one or more of them.
Table of Contents
- You’re Consuming Too Many Calories
- You’re Not Consuming Enough Calories
- You’re Not Eating Enough Nutritious Foods
- You’re Not Eating Enough Carbs
- You’re Not Eating Enough Protein
- Your Training Sucks
- You’re Not Tracking Progress
- You’re Doing Too Much Cardio
- You’re Not Recovering Well
- You’re Not Consistent
- You’re Constantly Stressed
- Summary – What You Should Be Doing
1. You’re Consuming Too Many Calories
Taking in too many calories is a common mistake among lifters eagerly seeking more muscle.
They often associate more food and more weight gain with more muscle. They make the mistake of excessively overeating and packing on unnecessary amounts of body fat.
Think about what your goals are. To build muscle, or add body fat?
You don’t need to eat 1,000 calories over maintenance to build muscle.
Remember, you can not force more muscle growth by simply eating more and more food.
You can only gain so much muscle in a given time frame, even if you’re taking in a ton of calories.
Only a small portion of those excess calories will be put to good use and build some muscle. The rest goes to stored body fat.
Carrying too much body fat can result in poor insulin sensitivity which could potentially reduce your body’s ability to effectively handle nutrients.
In other words, your nutrient partitioning isn’t very good. Some believe your nutrient partitioning gets worse as your body fat rises, which makes it more difficult to build muscle, and easier to gain fat.
This is also known as p-ratios. This article defines p-ratios as…
“the fraction of an energy imbalance accounted for by changes of the body’s protein reserves. More simply, it means what portion of lean mass we gain (or lose) for every unit of body weight change”
Whether or not p-ratios are negatively impacted by carrying more body fat is still debatable. Here is a very in-depth discussion about this topic on the Jeff Nippard Podcast.
Another potential drawback of eating too many calories and putting on too much body fat is the increasing levels of estrogen in the body and declining levels of testosterone—the main muscle-building hormone.
If you gain too much weight too quickly, you’ll have to cut your muscle-building phase short and transition to a cutting diet to lose weight.
When you do try to lose weight, you’ll be spending a much longer time in a calorie deficit, taking away precious time that could have spent building muscle instead.
Don’t overeat. Eat just enough to support muscle growth. This is typically 200-500 calories over maintenance.
Related: “How to Lean Bulk: Build Muscle While Staying Lean”
2. You’re Not Consuming Enough Calories
You can’t build a house if you don’t have enough materials to build with.
Similarly, you can’t build a notable amount of muscle if you don’t have the materials to build with. Your materials are protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
If you’re not eating enough, you can expect to see very little to no muscle growth. Stay in a calorie deficit long enough and you may even lose muscle.
Start tracking your calorie intake if you’re not sure how much you’re eating.
A food scale and the nutritional facts of the foods you’re consuming is all you need.
It’s very simple, but very effective. When you know how much you’re eating, you can adjust your calorie intake to match your current goals.
Don’t be too fearful of gaining fat. It will happen if you’re looking to build muscle. Remind yourself that building muscle is a much slower and more challenging process than fat loss.
You can lose 6 pounds of fat in a month. Gaining 6 pounds of muscle in a month? No chance.
My point is, even if you gain some extra fat, it can quickly be removed.
Muscle however, is much more difficult to build.
Take the advice mentioned earlier and eat about 250 calories over maintenance and adjust as needed. This will help you build muscle while limiting fat gain.
3. You’re Not Eating Enough Nutritious Foods
Wild caught Alaskan salmon, grass-fed beef, nuts, eggs, sweet potatoes, and vegetables.
Donuts, pizza, cake, chips, fast food, processed foods, and soda.
Which do you think you will be more effective at building muscle?
Having a variety of high-quality, nutrient-dense foods is very beneficial for those seeking more muscle growth. Quality protein sources contain essential amino acids, the building blocks of protein.
Calcium assists with muscle contractions. The B vitamin choline also contributes to muscle contractions and supports your nervous system.
Vitamin B12 helps deliver oxygen to muscles. Vitamin C boosts immunity, acts as an antioxidant, and can help synthesize collagen.
Vitamin E also acts as an antioxidant, protecting your muscles from free radicals. Zinc supports healthy testosterone levels.
I could go on and on as there are many more beneficial vitamins and minerals that play a role in a supporting a healthy, strong, and muscular body in some way.
Vary your sources of protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
Cut down on low-quality processed foods that are loaded with saturated fat and refined sugar. These lack vital nutrients and don’t benefit the body in any way.
Experiment in the kitchen and learn how to cook if you think eating healthy is too bland. Eating well does not have to be boring.
4. You’re Not Eating Enough Carbs
Unfortunately, the belief that carbohydrates make people fat still exists.
Just like some people mistakenly consume too few calories in fear of fat gain, many people also do the same with their carbohydrate intake.
They eat too few carbs on a regular basis which impacts the quality of their workouts, recovery, and stunts muscle growth.
Maybe you aren’t even intentionally eating an inadequate amount of carbs. Maybe you aren’t aware of the carbohydrate content of the foods you’re eating, making it difficult to know if you’re eating enough of them.
If you’re not sure what your carbohydrate intake is, start tracking your macronutrients. You might find you’re not eating as many carbs as you thought.
There are many ways carbohydrates can help you build more muscle. This essential macronutrient replenishes muscle glycogen and aids in recovery. Your training intensity and endurance rely on muscle glycogen.
The quality of your workouts and recovery could suffer if your glycogen stores are too low. For this reason, it’s important to eat enough carbohydrates.
If you’re concerned about eating too many carbs and want to limit your intake, then only eat carbs twice per day at the two most important times—pre and post-workout.
Carbohydrates consumed post-workout triggers an insulin response. Insulin levels rise and shuttle nutrients into cells, levels of the catabolic hormone cortisol are lowered, your immune system function is restored, your muscle glycogen stores are being replenished, and you’ve initiated the recovery process.
Make sure to consume roughly 1.5-2 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight if your goal is to build more muscle.
Those who are much more active than most of us, have a very fast metabolism, and handle carbs very well may need up to 2.5 grams per pound of body weight.
5. You’re Not Eating Enough Protein
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and proteins are the building blocks of muscle.
Without enough protein, you could struggle to recover well and build muscle.
Aim for about 0.8-1 grams per pound of body weight will do. If you weigh 200-pounds, aim for around 200 grams of protein.
Complete proteins—also known as animal proteins—are some of the highest quality sources of protein. These contain all 9 essential amino acids. They are considered essential because your body cannot produce them, so they must be obtained through your diet.
Vegans may find it more difficult to meet their protein needs. Vegans do not eat animal proteins, so their complete protein options are slim.
If you don’t consume any animal products of any kind, be sure to eat a wide variety of incomplete proteins. This will help you obtain all 9 essential amino acids since different foods contain a different amino acid profile.
Related: “Incomplete vs. Complete Protein: What’s The Difference?”
Eating enough protein is required for muscle growth to occur. Muscle protein synthesis must exceed muscle protein breakdown, resulting in a positive net protein balance.
Will you immediately lose muscle of breakdown exceeds synthesis? Not at all.
However, your muscle-building progress will become stagnant if muscle protein breakdown is equal to or greater than muscle protein synthesis on a regular basis.
Track your protein intake if you’re not sure if you’re consuming enough. Aim for about 1 gram per pound of body weight. Vary your protein sources.
6. Your Training Sucks
Training to build muscle isn’t the same as training for football, CrossFit, strongman, or powerlifting.
If you want improve your physique and build more muscle, knowing how to train properly is incredibly important.
Unfortunately, there’s plenty of room for mistakes to be made. Bad form, poor mind-muscle connection, unorganized programming, inconsistencies in training, no warm-up, and lack of effort and intensity are just a few examples.
Let’s take a look at what are arguably the two most common mistakes that hurt progress the most.
Bad Form and Poor Mind-Muscle Connection
If you struggle to properly perform an exercise, it’s likely you’ll also struggle to effectively target the specific muscle you’re training. You won’t be able to feel the muscle doing the work and moving the weight.
Bad form can cause other muscle groups to takeover that shouldn’t be involved. The muscle you’re attempting to target won’t be faced with the high amounts of stress that are needed for it to adapt and grow.
Consistently poor form can cause injuries, aches, and pains that could have been avoided had you done the exercise correctly.
This can negatively impact your training, also impacting your ability to build muscle.
Drop the weight if you have to. Take videos from different angles.
Get your form right, make the targeted muscle(s) do the work through a full range of motion, and place maximum amount of stress on the muscle(s) working.
Lack of Progress and Consistent Programming
Following the principle of progressive overload is key for building muscle and increasing strength. You need to give your body a reason to change.
You need to consistently challenge it and force it to adapt and grow. You can’t do the same thing every time and expect your body to change.
Shoot for more weight, more reps, add an extra set, increase the time under tension, decrease rest periods, or increase the range of motion.
You need to train hard, but you also need to let your body rest and recover. That’s also part of the program. If you can’t recover from your training, then you won’t be building muscle from it.
Incorporate phases of training where you lower your training intensity and volume to give your body a break from intense training. This is commonly known as a deload week.
You also don’t want to have too much variety and constantly change your workouts. This is called “program hopping.” This makes tracking progress much more difficult. Stick with a program for around 8-12 weeks and strive for progress on the lifts you’re doing. If you’re consistently improving on the program you’re following and you’re eating and resting enough, you will gain muscle.
7. You’re Not Tracking Progress
If you aren’t tracking your progress, then how will you know when to add weight? By how much? How many reps and sets to do? How will you know when you’ve improved?
Applying the essential training principle of progressive overload is much more challenging if you aren’t tracking your progress.
If you want to step up your game and pack on more muscle, start tracking your workouts.
Use an app on your phone, write them down on a notepad, or do what I do and manually punch in all of your workouts under the “Notes” section of your phone. Keep track of the date, the exercises done, reps, sets, weight used, any training intensity techniques used, and rest periods.
Now you will know when you’ve improved and where to make adjustments and by how much. Building muscle will become less challenging when you track your progress and consistently improve.
Related: “4 Ways Tracking Your Workouts Helps You Build More Muscle and Strength”
8. You’re Doing Too Much Cardio
Cardiovascular exercise is great for your heart and overall health and well-being.
Just like most things in life, too much can be a bad thing. People often forget that exercise, especially strenuous exercise, is a form of stress.
Stress releases cortisol. In short durations, cortisol isn’t a problem. Consistently being under too much stress over long periods of time is when problems arise.
Cortisol levels are constantly elevated, suppressing your immune system, decreasing amino acid uptake by muscle cells, and disrupting protein synthesis. Elevated cortisol levels can mess with your sleep and hormones as well.
Now, most people aren’t doing enough intense exercise to actually place huge amounts of stress on their body and elevate cortisol levels so much that it’s harmful, but it can happen. Especially if your calories are low, you’re not sleeping well, not recovering well, and you have other stressors in life affecting you.
Too much stress placed on the body and not enough recovery can take a toll on your body and prevent muscle growth.
Besides the possibility of overtraining when you combine heavy and intense resistance training with taxing cardio sessions throughout the week, you also run the risk of burning too many calories. Burn too many calories and you won’t have enough left over to build muscle.
There is a simple solution to this besides reducing your cardio—consume more calories. The problem with that solution is that not everyone has the appetite to consistently eat that much—especially from nutrient-dense, quality foods.
Let’s take a look at two scenarios:
✓ Person A is putting themselves through intense and physically demanding resistance training sessions 5 days per week. They’re doing a bit of cardio for the health benefits—four 30-minute walks at 3 miles per hour and throws in a HIIT session on the bike once every 10 days.
✓ Person B is doing the same exact resistance training sessions—same exercises, sets, reps, rest periods, weight used, etc. They’re identical, but this person is doing way more cardio. Three to four high-intensity interval training cardio sessions per week on the bike for 30 minutes, one day on the StairMaster for 45 minutes, and every Sunday he plays 2 full-length games of basketball.
Who do you think will have an easier time building muscle? Person A.
Person A. This person is doing enough cardio to reap the benefits, but is still focused on their top priority—improving their physique by adding more muscle to their frame.
Person B is much more active—burning way more calories, placing his body under more stress, possibly negatively impacting his ability to recover from his strength training sessions, and increasing his chances of getting injured. He now also has to eat more food to make up for the calories burned, but might not have the appetite for it.
So, how much cardio is too much?
Pay close attention to how you feel.
How are you sleeping? How are your energy levels?
Are you moody? Is your motivation dropping?
Are you getting that sore and achy feeling that occurs when you’re getting sick?
Do you feel like you’re having a hard time progressing and recovering?
Are you losing weight when you’re trying to gain weight?
Ask yourself these questions and make any adjustments to your cardio as needed.
9. You’re Not Taking Enough Rest Days and Recovering Well
Recovery is an often overlooked aspect of building muscle, increasing strength, and improving your physique.
Many people believe more is better—more training days, more volume, more weight, and more time in the gym.
This must produce better results, right? Not necessarily.
Your results are dictated by how well you recover. You can train as hard and as much as you’d like, but if you are not recovering, you won’t be building much muscle.
Many people underestimate the power of a good night’s sleep. Testosterone and growth hormone levels peak while you are asleep. Muscles grow, injuries heal, your central nervous system is recovering, and your body is restoring itself to it’s normal, high-functioning state.
Your body is revitalized. You’re ready to take on the day and train hard.
Sleep and rest days from training benefit your muscles, central nervous system, joints, tendons, ligaments, and even your psychological state.
Ever been out of the gym for a couple days then find yourself feeling refreshed and extra motivated? Yeah, me too. That’s an example of rest having a positive impact on your mental state.
Your age, nutrition, genetics, stress, sleep, the use of recovery techniques, supplementation, and training duration, intensity, and frequency all affect how well your body recovers.
Age
Someone who’s 40+ years old will have a reduced ability to recover compared to someone in their early twenties. Protein becomes increasingly important as one ages.
Nutrition
Not only do you need enough calories to sufficiently recover, but you also need to be eating a variety of nutrient-rich foods. When you’re eating high-quality foods, you’re providing your body with the nutrients it needs to carry out the processes that keep your body running smoothly. Eating processed foods loaded with refined sugar and saturated fat won’t do you any good. Intense training with the goal of building muscle requires high-quality fuel and building material.
Genetics
Some people simply recover better than others. They can handle more weight and not get sore joints. They can workout harder and longer than the average person and still recover in time to train that muscle again in less than a week. Pay attention to how you feel after training, throughout the week, and after several weeks of training to gauge your ability to recover.
Stress
Stress is detrimental to your overall health and well-being. That includes your ability to recover from strenuous workouts. Stress increases the catabolic, muscle-wasting hormone called cortisol. Cortisol disrupts protein synthesis and reduces your body’s ability to handle amino acids. Your sleep can suffer, resulting in decreased testosterone levels. This can impact your appetite, causing cravings for sugary, high-fat foods. Stress sets off a cascade of issues that can quickly compound and damage your body.
Recovery
Massages, alternating hot and cold (contrast) therapy, magnesium flakes, stretching, foam rolling, and other forms of self-myofascial release can be helpful ways to speed up recovery, avoid injuries, and stay flexible and mobile.
Supplementation
Whey protein, creatine, glutamine, fish oil, vitamin D, and vitamin C are some supplements that can aid in recovery. Also, keep in mind natural lifters won’t be recovering as well as those using performance enhancing drugs.
Training
Train too hard for too long without adequate amounts of rest and you’ll run yourself into the ground. Am I saying don’t train hard? Absolutely not. Know when to go all out, and know when to pull back a bit.
Incorporate deloads into your training. Deloads last one week, sometimes two. This is a period of training that involves reducing your training intensity and volume. The purpose is to give your body a break from the demanding workouts.
Listen to your body and use them as needed. Remember, more isn’t always better. Stimulate the muscle just enough to trigger muscle growth. You don’t need to feel completely spent and exhausted after every single training session.
Muscles don’t grow in the gym. That’s where they are stimulated. The growing occurs outside the gym through proper nutrition and plenty of rest.
Train hard, but train smart. Eat well and manage the stress in your life. Take care of your body and get plenty of sleep.
10. You’re Not Consistent
This may be the number one reason people don’t get the results they desire.
They lack consistency in both their training, nutrition, and recovery.
It’s the high level of consistency and gradual improvements over time that ultimately lead to big changes. But people are impatient and want it immediately.
They go to the gym consistently for a month, then fall off for a month. They program hop, never sticking with a program. They’re good on their diet Monday through Thursday, then do enough damage Friday through Sunday to take a few steps back. These people are running in circles and never progress.
Being consistent is actually easier than NOT being consistent.
Things become habit and routine and it just becomes part of who you are and what you do. For the inconsistent folks, they’re always trying to get back on track, never progressing, always frustrated, and confused why they’re not getting results.
Building muscle is not easy. It’s a complex process. There are many factors that determine your rate of muscle growth, or whether you even gain any muscle at all. Be consistent with your training, nutrition, rest and recovery.
If building muscle were easy and didn’t require so much commitment and consistency, there’d be many more muscular physiques walking around.
11. You’re Constantly Stressed Out
Stress is also known as the silent killer, and for good reason. Stress negatively impacts nearly every system of the human body. As previously mentioned, it increases the catabolic, muscle-wasting hormone called cortisol. Cortisol disrupts protein synthesis and reduces your body’s ability to handle amino acids.
Your sleep can suffer, resulting in decreased testosterone levels.
High stress levels also impact your appetite, causing cravings for sugary, high-fat foods that lack nutrients.
Your energy levels, mood, and motivation could all take a hit if you’re chronically stressed. This could reduce your desire to train and affect the quality of your workouts.
Stress sets off a cascade of issues that can quickly compound.
Control your stress before it controls you. Don’t let it get in the way of your physique goals. Reduce or eliminate the stress in your life and build more muscle.
Ask yourself if you’re committing one or more of these common mistakes.
What You Should Be Doing
✓ Consume just enough calories to support muscle growth while minimizing fat gain. This is typically 200 to no more than 500 over maintenance. I’d rather play it safe and start at a 200 calorie surplus and increase as needed.
✓ Don’t be so afraid of fat gain that you eat too little calories and carbs. Some fat will be added as you build muscle, but don’t worry. Losing fat is much easier than gaining muscle. If you’re concerned about carbs, then limit them to pre and post-workout.
✓ 80-85% of your diet should be quality, nutrient-dense foods with minimal ingredients. These provide the nutrients and amino acids that are the building blocks of muscle. Low-quality, highly processed foods loaded with refined sugar and saturated fat lack nutrients and do very little good for the body.
✓ Eat about 1 gram per pound of body weight. If you weigh 200 pounds, aim for 200 grams of protein. Consumer a variety of protein sources since different foods contain different amino acid profiles. If you’re vegan or vegetarian, eat a wide variety of plant proteins (incomplete proteins) in order to get all the essential amino acids.
✓ Train hard and train smart. Don’t just go through the motions without a purpose and lack of focus. Track progress, apply progressive overload to your training, be mindful of your form and how you’re performing each rep of each exercise. Nail down the mind-muscle connection. You have an opportunity to practice it with every rep.
✓ If you’re primary goal is to build more muscle, don’t do so much cardio that you interfere with recovery from your weight training. You also need enough calories to build with. If you do a lot of cardio and burn a lot of calories, make sure you have the appetite to make up for the lost calories so you can still be in enough of a surplus to gain muscle.
✓ Take your rest days to recover. It’s good for you mentally and physically. This is when your body is repairing and recovering. Especially during sleep—aim for 7-9 hours. Also keep stress levels low. Stress can tear apart your body in many ways and negatively impact your training, progress, recovery, and health and well-being.
✓ Be consistent. Build habits and routines that help bring you closer to your goals. Motivation comes and goes, but when training and eating well become a part of who you are and what you do no matter what, you don’t need motivation. It’s just what you do.
Regularly ask yourself if there’s anything you could be doing better to get the most out of the effort you’re putting in. This is how you maintain self-awareness, recognize what you’re doing right and wrong, and get the results you want. Learn from you mistakes and keep moving forward.