By: Emily Ing and Igor Klibanov
You want to have stronger, larger muscles. You love that look, and you want it. You want the confidence that comes with having more muscle mass. You love the feeling of heads turning, but there are just a couple of problems. Either:
1. You have no idea what to do.
2. You think you know what to do, but despite working out for months or even years, youre not getting the results that you want.
Dont worry. Were here to help. In this article well be going over a few factors to help you find a personal trainer that can help you achieve that head turning look. Heres a quick list of topics well be covering:
- Biggest mistakes trainers make with muscle gain
- Biggest mistakes consumers make when choosing a personal trainer
- Best exercises to build muscle
- How long it will take to see results
- Supplements
Before we dive in, you may be wondering who Igor is and if hes even qualified to be talking about all these things. Well to put your mind at ease Igor has worked with clients like Oren and Neil who respectively gained 20 lbs of muscle and 10 lbs of muscle while working with Igor. But those are only two examples, there are plenty of others and you could be the next one .
Without further ado, lets dive in.
Biggest Mistakes Trainers make with Muscle Gain
Everybody makes mistakes, but when its at the cost of time, money and possibly even health its best to try and avoid mistakes at all costs. One of the best ways to avoid them is by being aware of them and the consequences that accompany them. Here are 7 common mistakes personal trainers make when working with clients specifically with the goal of muscle gain.
Mistake # 1: Using Generic Programs and not Personalizing
Lets start off with one of the biggest mistakes personal trainers make in general: not personalizing programs to each client. Instead, they assign every client a generalized, generic workout routine that may or may not work.
Personal trainers are called personal trainers for a reason. Theyre supposed to personalize exercise routines and workouts that best fit your individual needs and goals. Because lets be real – if youre trying to bulk up and start looking like a bodybuilder, doing yoga and cardiovascular exercise as your main type of exercise probably isnt going to help you very much.
If you wanted a generic program that fits a lot of peoples needs, you would do a simple google search and pull up a YouTube video or two, not spend thousands on a fitness professional.
How would I know if its a generic program? youre thinking to yourself. Well, the biggest telltale sign is if your personal trainer has nothing written down. Theyre just making it up on the fly, not tracking progress as you go along and thinking Oh. This seems like it would work. or Oh which piece of equipment isnt taken at the moment?
Theres no thought process or planning ahead of time in generic programs. Its all just made up out of convenience of whats available at the moment and its really not that much different than what we like to call semi-high level babysitting.
Mistake #2: Not Being Scientific
In order to build muscle and train for muscle gain you need to start by knowing how much muscle youre starting with and what your baseline measurements are. A good telltale sign of whether or not a fitness professional is good for muscle gain is if they take your measurements periodically.
Youre not going to be able to know if youve made any progress visually if you dont measure your circumferences and skinfolds. These measurements should be done at the very beginning of your personal training program and throughout the fitness routine itself (we personally do it every 2-4 weeks with our clients).
Another mistake that many trainers often make and is a telltale sign that they may not be the best, is not using the exercise prescription principle (FITT). FITT stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type.
That may seem like nothing but a bunch of letters to you if youre just starting out. But the concept is actually pretty simple. Lets break it down letter by letter so you can see if your personal trainer is using it or not.
Starting with type. When we think of type in terms of the FITT principle, we just have to determine and ask ourselves what kind of exercise were doing: cardio, strength training, or stretching. Its that simple.
Moving on to time. This one can actually sound a little misleading since we arent directly dealing with time but rather how long or how many (ie sets and reps). So if anything, it should be called amount, but hey FIAT just doesnt roll off the tongue as easy.
Time refers to one of two things depending on what type of exercise youre doing. If its cardio, it refers to how long youre doing the cardio for (duration). If its strength training, it refers to how many sets and reps you do (volume).
Intensity in terms of the FITT principle means the same thing as it does in normal language. When we talk about intensity and how hard youre working we measure this in one of two ways also depending on what type of exercise youre doing. (See, type is really coming in handy ).
If youre doing cardio, the intensity measure we talk about is known as percent of maximal heart rate, which is the number of beats per minute (bpm) you want to reach during your workouts. To find your maximum heart rate all you need to do is subtract your age from 220. Lets take for example somebody whos 50 years old, to get their maximum heart rate all they would do is 220 – 50 = 170 bpm. So lets say they want to have a 50% intensity workout when they do cardio, so their target heart rate would be around 85 bpm.
Strength training is slightly different since we talk about 1 repetition maximum (1RM) instead of percent of maximal heart rate. 1 repetition maximum is just the maximum amount of weight you can lift in a single rep. So to improve your strength, you would be best off by lifting 60-80% of your max weight for a lower number of reps. However, if youre wanting to work on endurance, it would be best to lift around 50-60% of your maximum weight for a higher number of reps (12+).
And last but definitely not least, the final part of FITT is frequency. Which is pretty self-explanatory but its just how many times a week are you going to be exercising. Simple, right?
Everybody is different and thats why almost never will two people have the same exercise prescription, or FITT prescription. Exercise is like medicine, its only good when its prescribed correctly. So keep this in mind when choosing your personal trainer!
Mistake #3: Using Outdated Techniques
Mistake number three happens a lot more often than most would think. You would think that fitness professionals, for the most part, keep up to date with the fitness fads, trends, research and whatever else to help improve fitness. However there are just some personal trainers out there that are stuck in their ways about what works and what doesn’t no matter what the research out there says.
3 of the most common outdated techniques that are still used to this day are:
There are definitely others that lots of personal trainers just wont give up. And maybe its not because theyre entirely stuck in their ways but rather because they just dont realize they arent effective.
The truth about these types of exercise is that they feel effective even though they arent. They give your muscles that tension and pump that youre always wanting when strength training. They feel like they really work your muscles.
Theres a difference between difficulty and effectiveness, and unfortunately a lot of personal trainers even have a hard time telling them apart. Difficulty for the sake of difficulty doesnt make sense. Difficulty for the sake of progress makes sense.
Mistake #4: Promoting False Beliefs
Have you ever seen those seemingly ridiculous ads online about eating some miracle food or doing some miracle exercise that will create muscles and definition in days? Well I hate to break it to you: they dont work. And no personal trainer should be promising those things with their help either.
Theres a science behind how much muscle somebody can gain in their entire life as well as how quickly they can gain that muscle. So if you come across a personal trainer thats promising results in the first 10 days of working with them Theyre probably lying.
The numbers behind the amount of muscle somebody can gain are actually quite fascinating. It differs by sex since males can gain about double the amount of muscle a female can. And all of these are based on natural training. Of course with the help of things like steroids or testosterone these numbers would most likely be a lot higher, but without the help of anything of that sort these are the numbers:
In a mans entire life they will be able to gain around 40-50 lbs of muscle, with 20-25 lbs of that gained in their first year (those are called “newbie gains”), 10-12 lbs in their second year, 5-6 lbs in their third year, and so on.
Meanwhile, in a womans entire life they will be able to gain 20-25 lbs of muscle with 10-12 lbs of that gained in their first year, 5-6 lb in their second year, 2-3 lbs in their third year, and so on.
One other false belief that has been around forever is the 8-12 rep range for muscle growth. Every wannabe bodybuilder “knows” that for muscles to grow, you have to train in the 8-12 rep range. Fewer than 8 reps, and you’re building strength without mass. Anything more than 12, and you’re building endurance. So it was taught for decades. Now we know better. Much more important than the number of reps you do is how close you come to failure, even if you’re lifting lighter weights, or doing some heavy lifting.
Mistake #5: Not Addressing Nutrition
Its no secret that your diet has a huge effect on your health and progress when training. So a personal trainer that almost entirely ignores the nutritional side of things might be a red flag. There are two big components to your diet when youre trying to gain muscle: protein and total amount of calories.
Somebody trying to put on muscle is going to need a higher protein intake on average than a typical person whos not particularly trying to put on muscle. How much more? Well, over the years this number has changed quite a bit.
Previously, the recommended amount was about 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. So if somebody weighed 150 lbs then they would need 150 grams of protein each day. However, some more recent science has actually found that there isnt much benefit past 1.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. Yes, I wrote kilogram, not pound. There isnt any harm that can come from going over that, there just might not be much if any benefit.
Total calories is the other major nutritional factor at play. In the past bodybuilders used to use this technique called the bulk and cut. Its a technique that was used where they would bulk by eating a lot of calories, so they would put on a lot of muscle along with a lot of fat. Then, they would cut their calories and try to lose all that fat that way. The only problem is that they would also lose a lot of muscle in the process of cutting. Gaining a lot of muscle, along with fat, followed by losing the fat, and along with it, 50-80% of the muscle gained is a colossal waste of time and not healthy, either.
Which is why smart trainers (which unfortunately are in the minority) have moved on from that method. In modern times, we have found ways to avoid putting on too much fat as you gain muscle. The main one is keeping your calories low enough, and your protein high enough.
But how do I know how many calories I need? you ask. Im glad you asked because the way to find out is really simple. All you have to do is multiply your bodyweight in pounds (yes, pounds, not kilograms) by about 15-17.
How does protein tie into that number? Well 1 gram of protein is equal to 4 calories. So, for example if you were to eat 150 grams of protein, you would have eaten 600 calories.
So to recap how to find out how many calories you need. All you do is multiply your current body weight in pounds by 15-17. Then, lets say you need 150 grams of protein. You multiple the grams of protein by 4 to find out how many calories that is, in this case its 600. Subtract your protein calories from your total number, in this case whatever your total number was minus 600. And the remaining number is how many calories you need to consume from whatever else youd like.
Mistake #6: Not Addressing Rest
Another very common mistake is not addressing rest. Although it may feel unproductive to take a day off from training after training for a week straight, its very much necessary. Dont let it fool you. You dont grow when youre training, you grow when youre resting.
Anybody who does strength training knows that their first set is their strongest, their second set gets a bit weaker, their third set gets even weaker, and so on. So youre not growing while youre exercising, youre growing when youre taking the time to let your muscles recover from the exercise.
There are a million and one ways that somebody can rest, some are really fancy while others arent. But the most basic, and honestly most effective is sleep.
Somebody who strength trains is going to need more sleep than somebody who doesnt strength train at all or who doesnt strength train properly. People doing strength training should be aiming to get 8-9.5 hours of sleep per day. And if youre having trouble sleeping, you should get those issues addressed. It can be things like getting a sleep test done, getting tested for sleep apnea, using supplements to help you sleep, etc.
Mistake #7: Training Beginners like Advanced Bodybuilders
The final common mistake well be talking about is training beginners like advanced bodybuilders. The thought process of personal trainers that do this is Oh, The Rock used to train like this, or Arnold Schwarzenegger trains like this, why not train my client like that too.
Heres the problem with that. By the time Arnold Schwarzenegger or The Rock got to training how they did at their peak they already had 10-15 years of training leading up to that point. If a personal trainer wants to train their client to become like Arnold Schwarzenegger or The Rock, they have to train their client like how Arnold Schwarzenegger or The Rock trained when they had the same amount of experience as the client does.
Oh, and problem #2: theyre both steroid users. You cant train a natural trainee the way you can a steroid user.
A smaller mistake that also is fairly common that branches off of this one is only training one muscle group at a time. So arms one day, legs another, back another, etc. So each muscle group only really gets one day per week of stimulation. This happens because most of the time when you see professional bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger, this is how they train.
But as weve already learned, you just cant train beginners as if they were Arnold Schwarzenegger or The Rock. Its much more beneficial for a personal trainer to train a beginner by using full body workouts so that theyre working the same muscles, maybe different exercises, but the same muscles 2-4 times a week.
Biggest Mistakes Consumers make when Choosing a Personal Trainer
Although personal trainers can make a lot of mistakes, as the person choosing your personal trainer you can also make some mistakes. Here are 5 of the most common mistakes people make when choosing a personal trainer, especially for muscle gain.
Mistake #1: Looking for the Biggest Personal Trainer you can find
This mistake only really happens for people who are looking to bulk up. Oftentimes when beginners walk into a gym looking for a personal trainer with the goal of muscle gain, theyll look for the biggest guy around. Thats not necessarily good most of the time.
Just because theyre big and bulky and have the look you want, doesnt exactly mean they can help you become that way. Think of it this way, if you were training to become a boxer would you want to be trained by Muhammad Ali, one of the most famous and well respected boxers of all time or would you want to be trained by the guy who trained Muhammad Ali? Of course you would probably want Muhammad Alis trainer, not Muhammad Ali himself. Just because hes a good boxer, doesnt mean he can be a good coach.
Since the skill sets of gaining lean muscle on yourself and helping others gain muscle are so different, its important that when youre looking for a personal trainer that you look at their other clients and not the trainer themselves.
Mistake #2: Hiring Someone Without Experience Working with Muscle Gain
A common mistake that people make when choosing a personal trainer is not choosing one who has experience working with muscle gain. Or, even if they have experience its also important to note if they were helpful and effective.
It would seem quite silly to hire somebody who has stated they have worked with a lot of people for muscle gain, but all their success stories have a suspiciously low amount of pictures or if there are pictures, they arent very impressive
In order to get the job done right, you need the right tools. If a personal trainer has only ever worked with seniors looking to become stronger to complete everyday tasks I dont think theyre going to have much knowledge on how to help you bulk up.
Somebody who has never worked with specific goals isn’t going to know how to handle experimenting and personalizing programs in order to fit your specific needs.
Mistake #3: Confusing Likeability and Competence
Confusing likeability and competence is a very understandable mistake that consumers make. A majority of trainers are fun, outgoing, and enthusiastic people who almost have this magnetic energy to them. But just because you like spending time with someone doesnt mean that they know what theyre doing. Theyre fun to be around and can carry a fantastic conversation, but can they talk about physiology, anatomy, exercise program design, and personalize their programs so its just right for you?
Sure, you get to spend time with this enthusiastic person whos just a blast to be around but whats it costing you? Money? Definitely. But what a lot of people forget is that money isnt the only cost in the world, its also going to be costing you time and possibly even health.
Were not saying you need to find a grinch of a personal trainer. You should still like to be around them since youre paying them so much and spending so much time with you. But its just a matter of finding a good balance between knowing what theyre doing, and still being a fun person to spend time with.
Mistake #4: Looking for the Cheapest Personal Trainer
This mistake happens a lot more often than most would think. Looking for cheap personal trainers has a few problems with it. The main one being, a personal trainer is almost never cheap and good. Its one or the other, you just cant get both most of the time.
Something to always keep in mind when choosing a personal trainer is the cost beyond the money aspect. Yes, you are paying them a pretty good amount of money. But thats not the only thing that youre going to be spending. Youll also be spending time with your personal trainer, which is another cost. And if the personal trainer you choose isnt a good one, theres a high likelihood that health will also be a cost.
If you want to read more about why a more expensive personal trainer is usually better check out that article.
Mistake #5: Not Hiring a Personal Trainer
Last but definitely not least, probably the biggest mistake consumers make when it comes to personal trainers is not hiring one at all. The thought process is somewhere along the lines of oh, I can do it myself, find an exercise routine for myself, find a diet that works by myself, etc. by myself. And were not saying that its impossible to do all these things by yourself with time and effort. But thats where the problem lies.
Almost everybody has had a time where they struggle with finding time, motivation, and a routine for themselves. But even if they had a routine and were fairly consistent with it, there will always come a time when you may barely be able to pull yourself up to complete the routine. And that is exactly why you should hire a personal trainer.
See, when you hire a personal trainer youre taking that first step to almost guaranteeing that youll be consistent. Why? Because if you arent, youre wasting money. And the fear of wasting money is a lot stronger than the want to sit on a couch all day and eat chips. Not only that, but as mentioned before it will almost automatically fix the struggle that you may have faced when it comes to time, motivation and even routine.
And maybe those arent the reasons you havent hired a personal trainer yet. But instead youre more concerned about the money aspect of it. Yes, personal trainers can be very expensive so why hire one when you could theoretically do it on your own? The reason is cost is more than just money. Cost is also time and possibly health. If you dont spend money on a personal trainer then youre spending a lot more time playing trial and error to find the perfect routine for you, when a personal trainer could do that in half the time, if not less.
Health is another cost that can come up. Yes, you can do it yourself but if you dont do it right then it may come back to hurt you. Its impossible to replenish time and much harder to replenish health than it is to replenish money.
Best Exercises to Build Muscle
Unfortunately there is no magic exercise that will work miracles and instantly bulk you up. And there also isnt necessarily a best exercise since there are so many factors that make an exercise best for you. But here are some criteria and exercise suggestions to help you identify your personal best exercise and to help you get started.
Criteria:
- Tension in the stretched position
- This just means that even when you arent actively doing the exercise and are in a neutral position, your muscle is still working and is tense.
- Ability to make small changes in load
- In order to improve you need to constantly challenge yourself. The best way to do this is adding a small new change to your exercise in order to continually make it more challenging. This could be adding another rep or two, or adding an extra pound. There are a lot of exercises out there thats weight can only be increased by 5lbs each time. If youre going from 90 lbs., to 95 lbs., its not that big of a deal. But if youre going from 15 lbs. To 20 lbs., its a very big jump. So try and find exercises that allow for small 1-5% changes.
- Tension throughout the entire range of motion
- There are a lot of exercises out there that have gravity play a huge part in helping you out and in turn making the exercise less difficult. For example, triceps kickbacks are a bad exercise because for the majority of the start, there isnt any tension in your triceps, since gravity is helping pull the weight. A fairly easy fix for most exercises is to use cables instead of using free weights.
- The target muscle is under stress
- Finally, this may seem obvious but it happens a lot because its fairly easy to misunderstand. Lets say for example, youre doing deadlifts. Deadlifts are supposed to work your glutes and hamstrings mainly, but if your forearms get tired and give out before your glutes do, well. I hate to break it to you, but that was a forearm exercise, not a glute exercise.
Good Exercises for Each Body Part
As mentioned in the previous section, many exercises are better with cables because it changes the line of pull of gravity (straight down). So unless specified otherwise, all the following suggestions are recommended to be done with cables instead of dumbbells.
- Biceps
- Curls
- Front of forearms
- Wrist curls
- Back of forearms
- Wrist extensions
- Triceps
- Overhead triceps extensions
- Shoulders (deltoids)
- Lateral raises
- Pecs (chest)
- Dips
- Bench press
- Flys
- Lats (latissimus dorsi)
- Lat pulldowns
- Lat prayers
- Abs
- Machine crunches
- Dragon flags
- Hamstrings
- Seated hamstring curls
- Quadriceps
- Squats
- Knee extensions
- Calves
- Standing deficit calf raises
How Long Does it Take to See Results?
This is very similar to what we talked about for mistake number 4 of mistakes personal trainers make. But as a reminder, it really depends on your gender.
In a mans entire life he can gain a total of 40-50lbs of muscle. 20-25lbs of that will be during his first year of training, 10-12lbs will come from the second year, 5-6 in his third year, and so on.
On the other hand, women only really gain about half of that in their whole life, with their maximum being 20-25lbs. 10-12lbs coming during their first year, 5-6 in their second, 2-3 in their third and so on.
All of these numbers are assuming that theyre training naturally. Of course, with the help of things like steroids, testosterone, and others, these numbers can be higher. But without the help of those things these are what the natural numbers are.
Overall though, a pretty good guess is that if you dont see at least a little bit of change in your build by 1-2 month point as a man, or the 3-4 month point as a woman, you might want to reconsider some things.
Supplements
There are only really two supplements that work really well for muscle gain: creatine and protein powder.
Creatine is something our bodies make naturally in our kidneys but if we take it as a supplement it can help build muscle. But that doesnt go for everyone. There are about 20% of people that even if they take creatine as a supplement, it doesnt really do anything. These are mainly people who eat a lot of red meat since red meat already contains a lot of creatine, by taking more Its not going to do anything.
Protein is only beneficial as a supplement if someone isnt getting enough in their natural diet, so if theyre getting less than 1.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. If theyre below that amount, taking more protein is very very beneficial. But if somebody is at 1.8 grams/kg of bodyweight or higher, taking more isnt better. Its not going to do anything.
Creatine and protein are the only two supplements that work really well for muscle gain. But there are a lot of people who recommend things like BCAAs (branched chain amino acids) and glutamine. These are helpful in some cases, but most of the time they arent for muscle gain.
Conclusion
That was a lot to take in, so lets recap a little bit. Most trainers make a lot of mistakes but so do consumers. Its best to try and avoid those mistakes, but of course we are only human so its going to happen. But when it does, its good to know and be able to identify them and then change something to fix those mistakes.
Its also important to remember that there isnt an overall best exercise out there since it differs from person to person depending on things like goals, ability, and experience. So if a personal trainer tells you this one exercise is the end-all-be-all and has worked on all their clients I would check with the clients.
And finally, dont forget that everything takes time, especially results. Dont expect to see results the day after your first session. And remember that rest is when the most growth happens, so get enough of it.
A good trainer is like a fitness doctor, all theyre doing is trying to help you find the best prescription for your goals. Not all personal trainers make these mistakes, but there are a lot out there that do. So try your best to find one that helps you find and create the best medicine for you.
