Read the first part of the series here
You’ve been lifting for 6 months, and your progress starts to stall. You’re not growing as rapidly as you used to, nor are you progressing in your lifts as quickly as you were. This is completely normal. Your body gets used to the new stimulus, and your initial “beginner gains” slow down. Usually, you can get away with a lot of bad habits and still make impressive progress as a beginner. However, once you pass this stage, details start to matter. The changes that you make from here on out will separate you from the average Joe and pave the road to achieving your dream body.
Before you take any tips or advice to optimize hypertrophy, the first thing you need to do is make sure you’re actually training to absolute failure. Simply going through the motion will no longer give you results as it did when you were a beginner. You need to be lifting heavy, focused, and to pure failure. Usually, you reach mental failure before physical failure, so when you feel like you can’t go further, you can usually squeeze out another rep. A good rule of thumb is that if you aren’t making some stupid-looking face while lifting, you aren’t training hard enough. It’s also good to hype yourself up before a set. I personally tend to think of everything that’s gone wrong in my life before I lift, to really motivate myself to go as hard as possible. Training hard, however, does not mean sacrificing form or ego-lifting heavier than you can. Pick a weight you can fail at a consistent rep range( I prefer 6-10, but any range between 5-30 works), and overload over time. Keep in mind that progressive overload doesn’t build muscle; it’s the result of muscle being built. If you aren’t able to progress in your lifts, whether it be adding reps or weight each week, then your external factors (such as diet and sleep) aren’t dialed in.
As you’re progressively overloading, the most important thing you can do is keep proper form. You will always be able to ego lift heavier weights than what you’re working with, using momentum, and other joints to get the weight up. However, while it may look good and give you an ego boost (hence the name), ego lifting is arguably worse for your muscles than not lifting at all. Not only does it limit your muscle growth overall, but it shifts tension away from your targeted muscle group and makes you very prone to injuries. A small rotator cuff injury can take you out of the lifting game for weeks. On the flip side,100% strict form isn’t necessary, but your reps should be slow and controlled, and working through the full range of motion without any sort of momentum or other muscles being involved. Good form is the basis for getting seriously jacked.
It’s a known fact that your diet is one of the most important factors for building muscle, but there’s a chance you haven’t been tracking your calories. You might have been able to get away with it for the first few months of your lifting journey, but “That looks like about 500 calories” simply won’t work anymore. You want to find your maintenance calories (any online calculator will do), and eat a certain amount of calories to fit your goal. If you’re trying to lose fat, eat 200-500 calories below your maintenance, and if you’re trying to gain weight, eat 200-500 calories above. You also need to be tracking your macros. You should be getting approximately 0.8-1g of protein and 0.3-0.5g of fat per pound of body weight, and fill the rest of your calories with carbs. A tip that has helped me a lot personally is to eat on the slightly lower end of protein, about 0.8-0.85g, as this is more than enough to build muscle. This frees up calories in your diet to fill with carbs, which not only makes your diet more enjoyable but also gives you more energy in the gym. I strongly recommend you eat 50-100 grams of fast-digesting carbs 30 minutes to an hour before you work out. This gives you a boost that really helps push your workouts to the limit.
A common practice in this stage is to change your workout split for a more “optimal” routine. The most optimal split is really the one that you genuinely enjoy. The only thing you need to worry about is making sure you’re targeting each part of each muscle group, for example, training all 3 heads of your triceps. If you are doing that, just pick any exercise that you enjoy, and you know you can stick with for a long period of time. You will always achieve more gains getting really strong at one exercise than rotating 3 different exercises every session. While there are more “optimal” choices, for example, a lateral raise over an upright row, it’s better to do something you can stay consistent with, as long-term progression will always beat short-term optimization.
Once you get to this stage in your lifting journey, you will start to see muscles that are your “weak points.” These muscle groups lag behind the rest of your physique, and they require you to focus on them more. Focusing on a muscle group doesn’t necessarily mean adding more sets or training them more times in a week. Sometimes, simply training them earlier on in your session is more than enough, as the earlier in a session you train, the more energy your body has to use. Prioritizing them this way will help them catch up to the rest of your physique and give you that well-rounded look. Sometimes, a muscle group is underdeveloped simply because it isn’t fun to train (I’m a victim of this). You rush the lifts, and then see an incomplete physique. It may be helpful to change the exercise to something you enjoy, as this will drive more effort, which will overall lead to more growth.
At some point, you will experience a plateau. This is when you’ve been doing an exercise for multiple weeks without progressing at all. This is much more common than you think, and is completely normal. The first thing you should do once you notice a plateau is to make sure your external factors are dialed in. Make sure you’re eating right, tracking your calories, sleeping well, and staying hydrated. A non-science-backed tip that has definitely helped me a lot is to switch the exercise to something similar for a short period of time, before switching back to your original exercise. It is preferable to pick a less stable variant, but any similar movement works. For example, if you’re plateauing on a flat barbell bench press, it might be beneficial to switch to a dumbbell press for a month or two before switching back to the barbell. This allows your body to build muscle through the same movement pattern, while giving your joints a break from the exact same stimulus. A less stable movement also utilizes some stabilizer muscles and joints, which can make progressing easier once you switch back to your original exercise.
At the intermediate stage, building muscle is less about doing more and more about doing things right. Locking in your intensity, diet, and form will give you more gains than any pseudo-“fast results” program will give you. Progress might slow down, but it’ll never stop if you stay disciplined and consistent. This is the stage where most people give up. If you push yourself and stay determined, you’ll see gains others can only dream of. Every rep, bland meal, and drop of sweat will be something you’re proud of forever.
