5 Myths About Increasing Muscle Mass In Men

Training for “failure”
Setting a repetition goal that is unattainable or that leaves you exhausted at the end of the workout is not the best way to gain muscle mass. Feeling tired at the end of a session or exercise is good, but if for each set of exercises it’s a struggle against your potential, it would be better to lower the level a little. The goal is certainly to complete the training and improve but the important thing is to be able to do it in total safety, without taking the muscles beyond a certain limit, thus risking damaging them forcing us to stop. It is always crucial to stay in tune with your body because only we truly know it can handle it.
 

Cardio training: the enemy of muscles

Whether it’s a HIIT workout, a run or a long walk, one might think that cardio workouts hinder the increase in muscle mass: nothing could be more untrue. Resistance training is at the core when you are in a phase of gaining muscle mass, but it would be useful to add low-impact cardio sessions to your routine as they are important to make resistance training easier to perform.

 
This is because cardio training allows us to strengthen the muscles of the heart, stimulates circulation and also helps improve recovery times, allowing us to then perform a more efficient workout in the weight room.

It is necessary to “shock” the muscles often

Have you ever been told that it is important to change resistance training so that your muscles adapt? Yes, it is important to change workouts sometimes, but in this case the important thing is progressive overload. Progressive overload simply means increasing the amount of stress placed on the muscles over time, which essentially means lifting heavier and heavier weights. If you lift the same loads, with the same number of repetitions and the same time, then yes, you are unlikely to see muscle growth.
 
Instead of changing the routine every time and puzzling with new and complicated workouts, it is the small adjustments that make the difference, one idea could be to increase the weight and the rep range, or to change the speed of the lifts. For example, it could take you 3 seconds to get down into the squat, pause once you go down for another 3 seconds and come up quickly, increasing the timing of the movements from time to time.
 

You cannot gain muscle mass and lose fat at the same time

A common misconception, however, the truth is that yes you can build muscle and lose fat and certainly the two are not mutually exclusive. But one thing to keep in mind is that it is quite difficult if you want to lose a lot of weight and hope to gain a lot of muscle. The most important thing is to incorporate both cardio and strength training, making sure you don’t miss out on either. And, while exercise is key, losing weight is a matter of proper nutrition.
Surely one of the best choices is to incorporate a lot of proteins and the right balance of carbohydrates and fats into your diet in order to ensure the right nutrients for the muscles and achieve the desired fitness goal.