A number of factors influence the body’s ability to pack on gains—your sleep schedule, your diet, your fitness program, even your state of mind. You could seriously go crazy trying to figure out what went wrong. To help you get to the bottom of things.
Here are the most important 8 reasons why your muscles stopped growing.
You are training too hard
Every time when you train your muscles intensely, you are actually breaking down your muscles. So your muscles need to recover from the damages you inflicted on them. So train each muscle group only once or at most twice a week.
Your training sessions are too long
While you should maintain high level of intensity, your training sessions should not exceed the hour mark. This is due to the fact that cortisol levels rise after 45 minutes of intensive workout. One of the nasty properties of this hormone is that it destroys the muscle cells.
Not working your big muscles
This is another common one. So many people are going to gym and doing nothing but curling. Or nothing but benching. Ok, remember..your legs and chest are your main biggest muscles. There is no way that your body will ever allow your smaller muscles to be bigger or stronger than your big muscles (the exception is steroids). It’s a natural hierarchy that applies to everyone’s body. Working out your biceps 3 hours a day will never make them grow bigger than your chest. If your biceps are growing try working out your chest. Believe it or not, you CAN get a bigger upper body by getting a bigger lower body. Train your big muscles (especially your legs) to allow room for your smaller muscles to grow. It just works that way!
You are not getting enough sleep
Good night sleep is one of the topmost requirements for good muscle growth. Sleep provides the muscles with time to recover and grow. Providing your body with 8 hours sleep every night will prompt muscle growth.
You are abusing alcohol
Alcohol is known to break down muscle mass plus many other body destruction ability.
You do not change your workout routine
You must change your workout routine every 6-8 weeks. Your muscles adapt to your routine and stops growing.
Bad Diet
Your muscles will never grow if you do not feed them the carbs and proteins they need. Do not just eat proteins. Proteins help muscle growth, but you still need carbs to give you energy to use those big muscles! And bigger muscles need alot more energy!
You are not applying progressive overload to your muscles
To achieve steady muscle growth you need to gradually increase either the reps or the weight each next training of a specific muscle growth. Otherwise, you rob your muscles of the reason to grow.