5 Things You Need to Make Gains in The Gym

Do you have the right mindset and attitude to transform your body?

Building muscle isn’t about the equipment that you use at the gym.

Building muscle isn’t just about what exercises you are doing or what foods you eat. Obviously, these play a crucial role, and there is a lot of fitness content out there talking about it.

But, what people don’t talk about so much is the mindset and attitude required to implement the right habits to build muscle.

It’s why many people fall off the fitness bandwagon so quickly.

It’s not as easy as people think to transform their bodies. It takes more than just turning up to the gym a few times a week — you have to be in the mental space to devote yourself to that goal.

In this article, I will explore five things that you need to make gains in the gym.

Purpose

First, you need the right mindset to build muscle. You need purpose.

Why do you go to the gym? Why is it so important to you?

What’s your purpose for training?

Having a purpose serves as your motivation to get better.

Motivation levels can go up and down depending on your circumstances. However, a purpose should remain constant.

Many people who go to the gym don’t really have a purpose — they just want to look a little better. Therefore, their training can become a bit lacklustre.

Setting goals will help to train with purpose.

Don’t estimate or generalise — you will need to be specific, as this is what will help hold you accountable to follow through and see results.

Aim to improve on something every workout — whether it is…

• doing one more rep at the same weight as last week
• increasing the weight for the same reps
• improving your technique for the same weight and reps
• doing more total sets of a given exercise for the same weight or reps

Finally, don’t compare yourself to others.

Instead, let your own goals and journey be the focus to become the best version of yourself. There are always going to be people stronger and with a better physique. Comparing your own progress could serve to demotivate you.

Remember, everybody starts from being a newbie in the gym.

Knowledge

Knowledge is power. Exercise science evolves as we learn more about how our bodies work.

Twenty years ago, very little science was available on maximising muscle growth.

One gym-bro passed down gym and diet advice to the next.

However, advice often came from bodybuilders using steroids, who grow muscle regardless of their exact gym methodology.

Sadly, it doesn’t work like that for a natural. Our training and diet must be optimal to build a large amount of muscle.

With knowledge, you avoid bad practices. Young trainers are prone to take the advice or copy what bigger guys are doing.

YouTube is your friend —some of the fitness content coming out of this platform is fantastic. Check out the article below for five of my favourite YouTube fitness channels.

Don’t let others influence your training practices. If you’ve done the research and found a good source of information that you trust, stick to it.

Also, keep a progress log to help you be more accountable with reaching goals. You need to know your current strength in order to improve it. Use a log book or app such as My Fitness Pal.

Planning

Achieving goals require a plan.

Once we have a purpose and the right knowledge, we can set the plan to give ourselves the best chances of reach these goals.

If a workout regime lacks planning, it will lack direction.

“Oh, I think I’ll train chest today.”

If you sporadically choose what muscles you train and what exercises you do, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Training should be structured and methodological.

Take a long-term approach and set micro-goals. Then, your plan includes a strategy on how to achieve these goals.

Training should always aim to maximise your chances of achieving a specific goal. It shouldn’t be a mish-mash of different training styles.

If you want to build muscle, design an exercise routine that maximises your chances of doing so.

For example, for an advanced lifter such as myself, I might aim to add 5 kg (12 pounds) to my overhead press over a period of six months.

We must progressively overload to force adaption and muscle hypertrophy (growth).

“Muscle hypertrophy — defined as an increase in muscular size — is one of the primary outcomes of resistance training.” — Schoenfeld, 2020

Progressive overload is a gradual increase in the weight a person can lift, an increase in the frequency of doing a given exercise, or an increase in the number of repetitions at a given weight. See the article below for more.

To maximise your ability to progressively overload, you need a framework of exercise and nutritional habits to coincide with this goal of building muscle.

Keep moving forward with new goals providing a stimulus for progression and growth. Complacency with your results often results in a reduction of training intensity and a plateau of improvements.

Finally, your plan must also consider rest and recovery, or you’ll burn out fast and increase your risk of injury.

Dedication

You could have all the knowledge in the world and the perfect exercise plan and diet. But, if you don’t consistently train, you won’t reach your goals. It takes commitment to regularly smash your body in the gym and eat the right foods. It takes the right attitude.

If your workmates are going out for drinks after work, you might have to skip it.

You might have to go to the gym before work. You might have to go on your lunch break. You might have to fit in 2–3 sessions over the weekend.

Fitness takes sacrifices.

Fitness can be self-indulgent and even selfish… In the eyes of others anyway.

But you have to prioritise your gym time. You have to prioritise your diet. Dedicate yourself for the best chance of building muscle. Or you won’t get your desired results.

It will also take patience. Fitness is a long-term pursuit and needs to become a lifestyle — it’s not a short-term fix.

Focus your mindset on creating positive long-term habits that empower your fitness goals.

To keep making progress with gaining muscle and changing body composition, it takes months and even years of consistent training once people reach the intermediate and then advanced level (2–5 years of serious experience in the gym).

I dedicate around 10 hours to the gym a week, whether lifting weights, doing cardio or stretching.

Some days you won’t make it to the gym, and that’s okay. But don’t let this become a habit. Otherwise, it’s clearly not a priority.

Always consider how you can improve your fitness routine.

Before you go to bed, think about your session and how you could improve it.

Application

You have a purpose — to build muscle.

You’re empowered with some knowledge and have an exercise plan you paid $100 for from some bodybuilder on Instagram (probably not a good plan, FYI).

And you’re dedicated to attending the gym five days a week.

Great!

Now you’re at the final step — application.

But, you train like a pussy. You get distracted by having conversations with your newly found gym friends.

Many people are dedicated to the gym but don’t experience great results.

Why? Because they don’t apply themselves and train hard enough.

Embrace the pain. Don’t feel embarrassed about making funny faces as you push through that last rep.

Training intensity matters. We need to create a strong enough stimulus to force our bodies to adapt.

To build muscle, you must train close to failure and consistently hit personal records (PRs).

Therefore, for every workout, we need to be mentally prepared with a positive mindset about reaching our goals.

FOCUS!

Get better at the core lifting movements such as a squat or bench press. Get better at establishing a mind-muscle connection.

Don’t get distracted.

If you train with somebody, ensure they have similar goals and are equally dedicated. The number of people I've seen over the years train in groups that have really shitty workouts that take 2–3 hours…

One big issue is both of you will have different strength levels; therefore, you need to use a different weight for the given sets. You either have to keep changing the weight and cause extra fatigue, or the stronger person is training at a weight that isn’t sufficient for progressively overloading.

Final Thoughts

In this article, we have explored five things that you need to make gains in the gym.

You could call them gym soft skills.

They are purpose, knowledge, planning, dedication and application.

If you don’t have these attributes, your journey to building muscle will be a difficult one.

Good luck!

Thank you for reading.

If you enjoyed the content, you might be interested in this article about the five exercises you should be doing to build a v-tapered physique.

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