3 Reasons Why You Aren’t Making Gains from Your Workouts
Hitting a plateau where you stop making gains is a frustrating, but normal, part of any fitness journey. You might miss the rapid “beginner gains” or find that your progress has stalled, leaving you stuck.
Your body is an incredibly efficient machine that prefers equilibrium, or homeostasis. When you try to force it to build new muscle, it naturally resists. The key is making the right kind of change to kickstart new growth.
In my decades as a certified strength coach and sports nutritionist, I’ve seen a few common culprits. This guide will break down exactly why you aren’t making gains and give you the proven strategies to get back on track.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to treat or diagnose any condition. It is recommended that you speak with your doctor before starting any exercise program, changing your daily nutrition, or adding any supplements to your regimen.
Table of contents
Key Takeaways
- Fuel Your Body: To build muscle, you must be in a consistent caloric surplus of 300-500 calories and consume adequate protein, ideally 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight.
- Vary Your Stimulus: Avoid training plateaus by applying the principle of progressive overload. Systematically increase weight, reps, and sets, and change your exercises every 4-6 weeks.
- Prioritize Recovery: Muscle grows during rest, not in the gym. Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night and allow at least 48-72 hours of recovery before training the same muscle group again.
3 Main Reason You Aren’t Making Gains
Below are some of the main reasons you aren’t making gains. It can be frustrating, which is why we want to help you avoid making these common mistakes.
1) Your Nutrition Isn’t Optimized for Growth
This might seem obvious, but you need to eat more calories than you burn to build lean muscle. This is called a caloric surplus. However, this is not an excuse to “dirty bulks” and just eat anything. A “dirty bulk” will lead to excess fat gain, which you’ll only have to diet off later.
For clean, sustainable gains, aim for a modest surplus of 300 to 500 calories above your daily maintenance level. This controlled approach supports muscle growth while minimizing fat storage.
You would be amazed how many people eyeball their food and drastically underestimate their intake. I recommend everyone track their food for at least a week to get a true baseline. An app like MyFitnessPal is a great starting point, as it has a massive food database. Log everything you eat after each meal prep.
Eyeball your portion, then weigh it on a food scale before logging it in the app. This simple exercise will reveal just how accurate, or inaccurate, you really are.
For macronutrients, a solid guideline for muscle growth comes from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN). They suggest a protein intake of 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. In my experience, setting protein at about 1 gram per pound of bodyweight is a simple and effective target for most people. The rest of your calories can be filled with quality carbohydrates like oatmeal and green vegetables, and healthy fats from sources like nuts, avocados, eggs, and fish.
If you struggle to hit your protein goals with whole foods, a quality whey or casein protein powder is a convenient option. I generally advise against most protein bars, as many are high in sugar and are essentially candy bars with a little protein sprinkled in.
To calculate your starting calorie needs, you can use the formulas below to estimate your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the energy your body uses at rest.
Men:
BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) + 5
Women:
BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) – 161
Once you have your BMR, multiply it by an activity factor to find your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). Be honest with your assessment.
- Sedentary (little or no exercise): BMR x 1.2
- Lightly active (light exercise 1-3 days/week): BMR x 1.375
- Moderately active (moderate exercise 3-5 days/week): BMR x 1.55
- Very active (hard exercise 6-7 days a week): BMR x 1.725
- Extra active (very hard exercise and a physical job): BMR x 1.9
This final number is your estimated daily calorie maintenance. Add 250-500 calories to this to create your surplus for making gains. This should result in a gain of about 0.5 to 1 pound per week.
2) Your Workouts Have Become Repetitive
Is Monday always international chest day for you? If your workout routine is predictable, your body has likely adapted to it. Muscle growth is a response to new stress. If you do the same exercises, with the same reps and sets, week after week, you remove the stimulus for change.
The core principle you need to embrace is progressive overload. This means continually increasing the demands placed on your muscles to force them to adapt and grow stronger and larger.
Many gym-goers on forums like Reddit’s r/fitness swear by the “2-for-2 rule.” If you can successfully complete two more reps than your target in the final set of an exercise for two consecutive workouts, it’s time to increase the weight.
You must change your routine often, but not randomly. A structured approach called periodization, which involves planning your training in cycles, works best. But you don’t need a complex plan to start. Just focus on introducing new challenges.
Ways to Apply Progressive Overload:
- Increase the Weight: Lift heavier loads while maintaining good form.
- Increase the Reps: Add more repetitions to your sets.
- Increase the Sets: Perform more sets for each exercise.
- Decrease Rest Time: Shorten the rest periods between your sets.
- Change Exercises: Swap out an exercise every 4-6 weeks to introduce a new movement pattern. For example, switch from a barbell bench press to an incline dumbbell press.
If the person at the front desk knows you’re going to train back and biceps just because it’s Tuesday, you’re too predictable. Embrace change, because that’s what drives results and is key to making gains.
3) You Aren’t Getting Enough Rest
One of the biggest mistakes I see is neglecting recovery. Your muscles don’t grow while you’re lifting weights. They grow when you are resting, repairing the damage, and adapting to the stress. Overtraining is a very real roadblock to making gains.
When you train a muscle, you create microscopic tears in the fibers. The recovery process repairs these tears, making the muscle bigger and stronger. If you train that same muscle again before it has fully recovered, you are just breaking it down further. This is one step forward, two steps back.
As a general rule, a muscle needs a minimum of 48 hours to recover before it should be trained hard again. From my own experience and current research, 72 hours between sessions for the same muscle group often hits a sweet spot. This allows you to hit each muscle group roughly twice a week, which studies on hypertrophy have shown to be highly effective for growth.
Sleep is the other critical component of recovery. This is when your body releases key muscle-building hormones like Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and testosterone. A landmark 2011 study from the University of Chicago found that limiting sleep to five hours per night for just one week lowered testosterone levels in healthy young men by 10-15%.
You should aim for at least 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep per night. While some people can function on less, for optimizing recovery and making gains, this is the gold standard.
More training is not always better. The time you spend recovering is just as important as the time you spend in the gym. Prioritize your rest, and you will see much better progress.
FAQs About Making Gains
How do I know if I’m in a calorie surplus?
The most reliable way is to track your body weight. If you are consistently gaining 0.5 to 1 pound per week, you are in an effective surplus for lean mass gain. If your weight is stagnant, slowly increase your daily calories by 100-200 until the scale starts moving up.
Can I build muscle and lose fat at the same time?
This process, known as body recomposition, is most feasible for beginners, people returning to training after a break, or individuals with a higher body fat percentage. It requires a very precise diet, often eating at maintenance or a very slight deficit, with a high protein intake. For more experienced lifters, it’s generally more efficient to focus on separate bulking and cutting phases.
How important is workout intensity for making gains?
Intensity is crucial. To stimulate muscle growth, you need to train close to muscular failure on most of your sets. This means pushing until you can only complete one or two more repetitions with good form. If your workouts are not challenging you, your body has no reason to adapt.
Putting these concepts into practice will help you add quality mass to your frame. Building muscle requires time, dedication, and consistency. With the right tools and strategies, you can break through any plateau and achieve the gains you’ve been working for.
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