Don't be your own worst enemy

You worked hard for that muscle, don't you want to keep it? Then stop doing things that cause your body to become catabolic. More is not always better, pain does not ever equal gain, and a lack of balance can cause your results to fall right over. Are you your own worst enemy? Read on and find out.

How much sleep do you get a night? Researchers suggest that at least 7 hours are needed for the body to be fully rested. Insofar as muscle growth is concerned, it simply will not happen if you're not sleeping, for it is this time of the day that hypertrophy (muscle growth) occurs.

Are you stressed? If so, you may be releasing high levels of the hormone cortisol. If your cortisol levels are too inflated, protein synthesis can be interrupted and muscle building will be greatly impeded.

Are you failing in the gym? That is, are you taking every set to complete failure (the point where you cannot do even one more rep, even if you squirm and twist and do everything possible to cheat)? Pushing the body to this extreme on a routine basis can lead to an overall fatigue of both the peripheral and central nervous systems; the former responds by aiding in protein breakdown (which is a bad thing to have happen), while the latter causes an increase in muscle-eating hormone processes (which is even worse).

Do you always do the same thing? As I mentioned in a recent post, your body is extremley adaptive, particularly when it comes to working out. In as little as two weeks, your central nervous system already begins to respond differently to the impact of the same workout. If your results seem to have reached a plateau, or even worse, seem to be regressing, it may be time to change your workout.

Is your workout balanced? Maybe its a guy thing, but we hate training our legs. Women, on the other hand, seem to target their legs with the greatest frequency during resistance training workouts. This is likely due to the fact that men tend to gain weight in and around their midsection, whereas women do so in their hips, thighs and butts. Still, it is vital that both men and women follow a workout that is balanced. The dude with the jacked shoulders, huge arms, and gorilla-like chest wouldn't look so ridiculous if his legs weren't as skinny as Don Knotts's. Just the same, the woman with the very toned lower body would look far more proportioned if her arms were not flailing about like the sail of a Spanish galleon. By not working your entire body, whether it be in the same workout or separated over the course of a week, you are doing yourself a great disservice and denying your body its potential for appreciable increase in growth hormone.

These are just some of the many muscle killers out there. You work hard to get in shape. It's no easy task, not by a long shot. So, don't curtail your results by doing things to make it any harder.