Reasons Why You’re Not Gaining Any Muscle

So you’ve been going to a gym in Singapore for a while now and notice that you’ve stopped gaining muscle. You’ve always been a skinny dude and thought that going to the gym is a sure way to gain weight constantly. But now, you’ve hit a wall and are not gaining weight anymore! Here are some reasons why:

Not eating enough

This is probably the simplest answer as to why you’re not gaining weight and muscle. No matter how much work you put in the gym, you will not see progress if you don’t give your body enough nutrients. That means you’ll need to take in enough carbs, fat, and more importantly, protein, if you want to get bigger.

Although you should definitely eat more, it doesn’t mean that you can just eat anything. Junk food, pizzas, soft drinks, and the like either has too many calories or are filled with “empty calories”. That means they can give you more fat than muscle.

Not lifting heavy enough

Let’s say you’ve been training in the gym for about 2 months and have been gaining a few pounds but suddenly hit a plateau. After those two months, you’ve stopped gaining muscle. This could simply be because you’re not increasing the weight you’re lifting. If your body is already used to the weights, you’re not putting tension on the muscles anymore hence there’s no reason for it to grow. So, try to move up just enough to make your muscles feel sore but not too much that you can’t lift properly.

Doing too much cardio

The core idea of gaining weight is to take in more calories than you burn. This is why if you plan to continue gaining weight, try to limit your cardio. If you do too much cardiovascular exercise, you’ll expend more calories than necessary. You burn calories by lifting and even more calories when you add cardio to that. Which means you’ll have to eat a lot more to compensate. If you’re already eating below your required daily caloric intake, you will clearly end up losing weight. 

Lack of rest and sleep

Though you do most of the work in the gym, the muscle building process does not stop there. The growth of your muscles can be maximized if you are able to get enough sleep daily. This is because our HGH levels get a boost when we sleep. The Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is basically a hormone that plays an important role in body composition, growth, and cell repair. That being said, it would be good to get about 7-8 hours of sleep every day. This will allow the body to recover and you’ll feel better in your next visit to the gym.