Please, can anyone help?

Question

I have been lifting for a while and I have been unable to gain any significant muscle mass. What am I doing wrong? What are some good tips when is comes to gaining muscle. I want to focus mainly on biceps and triceps. Thanks.

Answer 1

Have you gone to a personal trainer? Gaining weight depends on how you lift weights and what you eat. A trainer can help you set up a plan. If you are under 20, and still growing, this is a bad idea.

Answer 2

Well, it sounds like you could be going wrong in several areas such as, not lifting enough weight, not enough intensity, or overtraining. Without knowing what your doing, its kind of hard to specifically point to your mistake. Also, don't get the idea that more sets = bigger muscles. It isn't true if your training natural. If you want big biceps or triceps, it will require working with heavy weights w/reps around 12-14 (however, this could vary from person to person depending on the composition of their muscle, fast and slow twitch fibers). 14-16 works great for me, but lower might work for you. So, you will need to determine your ideal rep range. Focus on working with compound movements to give you overall size, ex. close grip bench press, under grip pulldowns, and deadlifts. Then, add some isolation exercises, like barbell curls and tri pulldowns. You will notice the biggest difference when your using very heavy compound movements, since it will boost the amount of weight you can handle with the isolation exercises.

Answer 3

Do biceps and triceps on the same day. Let me tell you what i do. Curl Bar with as much weight to get close to 10 but not quite.
Then Right away without break grab some light weights like 15 pounds in each hand and curl for 15 reps per arm, also without break go and do dips, as many as u can, then without break you run and do dips using a chair and ur feet up on another chair. Break for like 10 min and do the same thing but start with the tri exercises first. This whole thing counts as one set. Due 3 of these. Once youve done that rest for 15 min and go due concentration curls for 20 reps 3 sets each arm, and then rest 10 min and go attach a tricep bar to the back machine, get a grab on it with no more then one foot inbetween your hands and ur palms facing up, then do the tricep pulldowns, it wil be like a negative force barbell curl. Do this only on mondays and on thursdays. Good luck its hard but if you put ur all into it you shoulf feel the sweet pain of victory.

Answer 4

There are many techniques used in lifting weights; all with some what of a different result. The most common way to "bulk" up is to lift lighter weights with a higher rep count. As you are able to complete all the reps in a set go up in weight. Also rest in between your work outs is very important. You are actually tearing muscle fibers so you need to allow your muscles a chance to repair. Also 60% of your muscle in your arm is your triceps, so hit it at different angles by using different techniques.

Answer 5

Here's how it goes: to build mass you have to lift heavy, slow and fewer times, to tone you lift lighter but more time and quicker.

So you want to build mass, hence it's heavy, fewer and slow.
The idea is to break muscle cells, you want to lift a weight that is almost your limit, so you can only do ten lifts and the last one or two are the ones who break most cells, that's why on the last one when you just can't finish the lift you need someone to hold it up for you or you might hurt yourself. You also want to be warm and loose before you go for heavy so do some light stuff first.
I did heavy only at the very end to finish it off.

Then your cells will repair themselves and grow bigger in the process but you need one or two days rest in between. Muscle needs PROTEINS to grow, not carbs like some idiot might tell you, proteins are chicken, fish, red meat, eggs cheese.. but carbs are necessary to give you energy. Basically try and give your body what your body needs WHEN it needs it so you might want to eat pasta/bread/pizza/pulses the day you go to the gym but not after going or the day after. Those a protein days.
Don't do steroids, they simply aren't healthy, mess with your brain/personality and a whole lot of hidden issues you don't want to know about, like your sperm count. Steroyds are for people too dense/impatient to learn/wait or for the ones that want to look like crabs and do freak shows.
And don't go for muscle size only, I 'd recommend you do mainly toning and towards the end of your session just finish it off with a bit of heavy stuff. The main key is to be constant and respect the rules, give your muscles the chance to rest in between. Twice a week is good, you could do swimming in between or do stretching.(judo loosening up exercises are perfect for this).

I am surprised they let you use the weights without telling you this stuff first, what kind of a gym is that. it's easy to get hurt if you don't do it right and most gyms I know will oblige you to take one or two lessons to show you the machines and also give you some theory on it all. good luck

Answer 6

Ok this is where I was screwing up
When you lift a weight you may be lifting too fast and depending on momentum to carry you through the rep.
When you lift lift slowly. Make sure each rep takes 2-3 seconds up and 2-3 down

Answer 7

i condition all the time. I start with small weights and I do the same drill 25 times 2x so i do 50 all together. it doesn't matter if I'm doing arms or legs it the same amount. I lift 3x a week and run 2x a week. after 2 weeks of doing the same weight I increase the weight by 5- 10 pounds.

Answer 8

Well sometimes its hard to gain muscle mass. It depends on your build, some people just can't seem to gain the weight and make it into muscle. Just keep working on it and you could try something like a supplement. Nothing illegal just like those shakes or something.

Answer 9

use smaller weights, and lift longer. Like instead of lifting a 30 pound weight for ten minutes, lift a 10 pound wieght for....however long until you get tired. I have heard that the trick is large repetitions of small weights for good muscle tone.

Answer 10

Maybe you should look at your diet, You'll find weight gaining drinks for building muscle in your local health shop, my son used to take them and he seemed to put on a fair bit of muscle, if not increase your food intake .