Question

Answered by Jamie Kerem

You work hard. You lift heavy and you eat clean, and you do it day in day out. So how come every time you step on the scale, the number flashing back at you taunts you with stagnation? Why do you look exactly the same after a month of intense training as you did when you started?

You’ve probably heard that building muscle happens outside of the gym. Well I think it’s time I drive that point home. When you are in the gym training with utmost intensity (as you should be), you’re breaking down the muscle you have. You’re causing micro-tears in the fibers of your muscle, and you’re essentially “prepping” them for rebuilding and re-growth. What you do in the gym is only the first stage to muscle growth and the next can be considered even more important.

First off you need rest – and plenty of it. You are not a machine and your body needs some well deserved R&R to recover from the stress you placed on it, as well as time to rebuild itself. If you’re training more than 5 days a week at an hour and a half a session, chances are you’re not fully giving your body a chance to recover.

Second, you need a surplus of calories. This means you need to eat more than you burn off. If your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) burns 2300 calories a day, you need to be eating 2600 calories a day. Of course this can be tweaked for different people and body types, but the point is you need an excess amount of calories so your body can utilize them to rebuild the muscle you just broke down.

Note that not all calories are created equal so eat clean!

I know it may seem counter-intuitive at first, but train less, eat more (of the good stuff), and watch your body grow.

It’s not what you do in 1 hour at the gym that builds muscle; it’s what you do in the 23 others outside of it.