Why You’re Not Building Muscle: 3 Killers of Muscle Growth

If you’re training hard but not seeing results, the problem is rarely effort. More often, it comes down to a few key mistakes that quietly kill muscle growth.

The Alan Carson Column

THE path to most goals isn't usually a straight line and that includes the goal of maximum muscle gains.

Life can throw many unexpected challenges and setbacks our way that can slow down our muscle-building progress, or even cause it to stall out completely for a time. That's life sometimes.

However, from my own experience and through observation, I've noticed that much of what's limiting our progress is often within our control. Some of these progress killers are glaringly obvious, others more subtle.

Of course, there are many reasons for lacklustre muscle growth. But let's take a look at these three major growth blockers, understand how they hinder our gains and discuss how we can avoid these pitfalls.

These things are much more detrimental to our progress than the occasional missed workout or being a few grams out on our macros here and there.

1. Staying too lean is limiting your growth

Whether it's buzzwords like 'Dad Bod' or the endless stream of shredded physiques on our social media feeds, there seems to be more pressure to stay lean and 'Instagram Ready' all year, especially for the younger generation.

Influencers are now pushing 'maingaining' – hovering around maintenance calories while trying to build muscle slowly – as a modern alternative to traditional bulking. And while it's a good idea not to gain an excessive amount of body fat in a gaining phase, in swinging too far away from traditional 'bulking', many end up under-eating. This seriously limits their muscle-building potential.

Today's social media can be a warped lens to look through when it comes to gaining muscle. Being lean looks good on a screen, but it's a lousy way to approach gaining muscle.

Trying to keep ripped abs is only going to slow muscle growth

Staying lean is fine if that's the goal. But if the goal is to add a considerable amount of muscle tissue to your frame, trying to keep those abs ripped all the time is only going to slow or stall progress.

Muscle doesn't grow under a microscope of daily mirror checks and Instagram posts. The reality is that building muscle is a slower process than cutting. And the visual changes aren't always that appealing compared to seeing those deeper cuts appearing in your abs week to week like you do when cutting.

Instead of obsessing over that constant lean look, I'm advocating for embracing a structured bulking phase, where your primary goal is maximum muscle growth. This means eating in a controlled surplus –providing your body with the necessary calories for muscle repair and growth – while keeping your food nutrient-dense.

This isn't an excuse for gluttony and indulgence. Quality physiques aren't usually built by dirty bulking on a diet of processed foods. They're developed through consistently disciplined eating and hard training. Muscle growth is a slow, steady journey that takes a lot of effort and an equal measure of patience. So don't sell yourself short on the quantity or quality of your nutrition when you're looking to gain muscle. Accept the temporary increase in body fat, knowing that when you strip back down, that extra muscle will make you look much more impressive.

2. Not recovering properly between sessions

There's a certain pride and sense of accomplishment we can feel when we're pushing ourselves hard in the gym. Speaking for myself, that's a feeling I chased in my early days of bodybuilding (and sometimes still do), often at the expense of my recovery and muscle growth.

If you're constantly hammering yourself in the gym without taking enough rest, you're not actually building your physique... you're just breaking it down and not affording your body the time and resources to recover properly. If you don't give your body adequate time to repair and replenish, you're constantly running on depleted resources and under-recovered tissues. This can lead to stagnation, burnout and even injury.

It's not being lazy. It's about being smart

Think of the ability to progressively overload as an outcome of adequate recovery and adaptation from previous hard training bouts. If your performance is declining, your pumps feel flat, or your joints are starting to complain, these are red flags that your recovery is suffering.

Rest days allow your body to super-compensate and come back stronger. I know it can feel like we're being lazy, but it's not. It's about being smart. I've come to value my rest days more and more with age, and so have my tendons!

3. Constantly changing your training programme

The best programme in the world won't work if you don't stick with it. One of the biggest progress killers is constantly jumping from one training plan to another, always chasing the next "secret" to muscle growth.

Social media has made this much worse. One minute, someone is convincing us that low-volume, high-intensity training is the key. And then the next, we see a celebrity scientist preaching ultra- high-volume. The result? Constant temptation to switch up your training, not staying consistent with one approach long enough to reap the benefits.

Muscle growth thrives on consistency and progression, not constant change. I joke that if you want to 'shock the body', maybe you should try eating once and training six times a day.

We need to give our bodies time to adapt to a training stimulus. Strength, hypertrophy and neurological efficiency all improve with repeated exposure to the same lifts over weeks and months. If we keep changing our training up before that happens, we can just end up spinning our wheels.

That doesn't mean you should never adjust your plan or experiment with different approaches. But rather than chasing novelty, focus on progressive overload – adding weight when you can, increasing reps and enhancing execution over time.

Stick with a well-structured programme for long enough to see measurable progress. Master the basics, execute them with intent and, as cliched as it sounds, trust the process.

The real "secret" to muscle growth lies in consistent effort and time.

About the Author
Alan Carson is a competitive bodybuilder and certified sports nutritionist based in Worcestershire. Competing since 2014, Alan secured the PCA British Masters Over 40s title in 2023 after returning to the stage following a four-year break. Alan works closely with a select number of clients, blending his expertise in nutrition, bodybuilding training and psychological aspects to help them reach peak potential both physically and mentally. With a passion for transformation, he's dedicated to helping clients improve their health, performance and physiques.

Read Alan Carson's previous columns HERE.

Lee Priest interview: “If you’re on your phone in the gym, you’re not serious”

IFBB Pro bodybuilder Lee Priest believes phone use in the gym is one of the biggest signs of a lack of focus, arguing that serious bodybuilders approach training with intensity and purpose. In this interview with FrontDouble, he also discusses off-season food and why the NABBA Universe made him nervous

By Gary Chappell

LEE PRIEST has told competitive athletes: "If you're using your phone in the gym, you are not a serious bodybuilder."

Priest is currently in the UK as part of The Unholy Tour and recently told fans he thought current Mr Olympia Samson Dauda would not beat the likes of Paul Dillett or Flex Wheeler from the 90s era.

And he has had his say on the current gym habit of mobile phone usage, with some sitting on machines scrolling and working out their thumbs more than their muscles.

He said: "If you're serious about being a bodybuilder and you've got your phone in the gym, you're not fucking serious. Unless you're a heart surgeon on call. People say, 'Oh, but Lee, I use it for music'. If you have to use your phone for cardio, that's fine. Back in the day, people would talk to each other in the gym, help each other out. There was a comradeship in the gym. Now everyone's in their own little world with their fucking headphones in.

"Guys are training and I'm like, 'don't you talk and spot each other? You've both got your fucking headphones on in your own little world'. They're like, 'well I use it for music' and I'm like, 'there's music in the gym'. I couldn't even tell you what song was playing because I'm so focused on the training.

Picture: Anthony Chia-Bradley

"It's like when people say, 'you've got to look at yourself in the mirror'. OK, when I squat seven plates I don't look at myself in the mirror and think, 'oh, Lee you're so strong'. You see an image there but you're so focused on the exercise, you're just going up and down. And I was the same with music.

"So I don't buy the excuses of 'I just want to listen to my music'. You go to pick a song, you look at your phone and you've got messages – 'I'll just have a look'. Whatever's on your phone, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, it's going to be there an hour or two later. That's why I love it when I go on a plane somewhere. It might just be an hour flight but, as soon as the plane lands, what do you hear? Ding, ding, ding. You're like, 'fuck, what did I miss'? People are so glued to their phones, it's just crazy. So just leave it out, you'll have a better workout without it.

"I'll go in the gym now and I'm not training crazy but sometimes I'll do two different exercises and one guy's only done two sets and I look over his shoulder and he's on YouTube or something. But they think you're just 'old fashioned' and blah, blah, blah. No, you're focused in the gym. What other sport would you see someone doing that? Mike Tyson, or any fighter, sparring, ding, ding, bell's gone and then they're sitting in the corner scrolling through their phone.

Why phone use kills serious training

"Back in the day, you saw someone struggling you'd go over and just give them a spot. You don't see that any more. People are in their own little world. It's just stupid. As I said, phones and listening to music is good for cardio but if you're serious about your training that's just a distraction all the time."

In a previous interview, Priest revealed how he "hated competing" but still did at least 11 shows one season. But he also detailed how competing at the NABBA Universe in 2013 made him more nervous than any other show.

He said: "I remember getting ready for the Universe in 2013. I was kicked out of the IFBB, so I took seven years off. But I thought, 'if I make a comeback and don't look good, or even if I look good and don't do well, I don't want to read the internet the next day'.

Picture: Anthony Chia-Bradley

"So when I started getting ready for that the pressure I was putting on myself was quite high. I was single and all I thought about was training, dieting and I was burning myself out mentally. Then I met a girl who had four kids and she moved in with me, but it was a good distraction because I could go to the gym and train and when I got home I'd take them to the beach and stuff, come home, have another meal, go to the gym.

"So it was good having that other thing on the side just to keep your mind off it, because if you're constantly talking about eating, talking about drugs, talking about training, you're just going to go crazy and it's going to drive people around you crazy. As long as you've got your training done and you're sticking to your meals, you can still go and do other stuff. Your muscles are not going to disappear."

In between the clean food, I'd throw in some shit food

Building those muscles came with mountains of food. Priest is known for blowing up in weight during his off-seasons back in the day. And he provided a little insight into how he ate.

"Generally, most days breakfast might have been scrambled eggs on toast. But then two hours later, McDonald's," he said. "Then after that I might have had steak and rice, then two hours later a big Chinese meal. It's almost like you're doing a clean diet but in between the clean diet I'm just throwing shit food in. So there might have been two and a half thousand calories of clean food and three thousand of shit food. Then when it comes time to diet, I just take the crap in between out.

"I still liked drinking full cream milk or half and half where it's like milk and half cream that sort of stuff, so I might just sit down and have a liter of milk, a loaf of bread and a whole load of chicken and stuff. In the off season, the biggest my waist became was 44 inches and when I dieted down it would be 29."

Pictures by Anthony Chia Bradley. Visit his website here.

More dates for Lee Priest, The Unholy Tour can be found here.