More strength at the gym doesn't always mean more muscle

At Elite Fitness we have trained well over 3,000 personal training clients over the last 3 years and would say that this is a question that has cropped up more than ours.

Coach I’m getting stronger why is my muscle mass not improving on the in-body analysis?

When muscle mass is not improving there are usually two obvious answers with regards to why?

Firstly, let me point out that you get stronger not by the size of the muscle but by improvements in your ability to perform an exercise. You simply get better at doing the movement therefore you can lift more weight within that exercise. This specifically applies to beginners who start a new gym program. Muscle takes time to build over weeks, months, and years. Movement patterns can be improved within a few sessions.

Also, we can get stronger without gaining muscle when our nervous system and muscle fibers learn to fire more efficiently the more we perform an exercise or certain load.

Now we know why we can get stronger without gaining muscle. We need to address one of the major reasons why the muscle does not grow as you get stronger.

The number 1 reason is the lack of adequate calories specifically from good quality protein sources. At Elite Fitness we always provide our clients with a comprehensive individualized nutrition plan to help them build muscle and lose fat.

Unfortunately, many of our male clients, in the beginning, fail to reach the required 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight to maximize muscle recovery and possible muscle gain.

Remember when you lift weights you are breaking down the muscle fiber and causing microdamage. You are not building muscle whilst you are in the gym. What you are doing is giving yourself the potential to grow new muscle.

However, this is impossible if you are not providing the body with the required amount of nutrients to help it grow. This starts with the basics of eating protein at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The number 2 reason is that when you get stronger. You can lift more weight which causes more damage to the muscle. So common sense tells us that more muscle damage will cause more muscle brekadown which requires more protein so that we can build the muscle back up.

So if you are at the gym training hard and not seeing any muscle gain. Fix your protein intake and I’m 100% certain you’ll see new muscle gain.