To be successful, you need to have discipline and consistency.
True discipline is the choice to work hard week in and week out and put in maximum effort, even on those days when you want to stay home and lie on the couch.
For almost everything, I agree with the old adage “80% of success is showing up.”.
There’s nothing different about trying to pack on muscle mass.
One of the most important things you can do is to stay tight to your workout schedule, even if you aren’t into it. It’s a big no-no to miss a workout if you want to pack on muscle mass and build your strength as quickly as possible….
Is it really true?
Look….
Yes, consistency is good. If you are trying to pack on muscle mass, you need to stick to your workout schedule most of the time. Skipping your scheduled workout at the gym because you’re lazy is totally unacceptable.
However, there is an interesting quote from the late Mike Mentzer that goes “Rituals have nothing to do with science.”.
One thing to consider is that the human body is a very complex biological “machine,” and all workout and recovery periods are not equal.
So, just because you’ve decided that you have to pack on muscle mass on days X, Y, and Z, this won’t always be the optimal pattern every single week of the year.
If it’s a training day and you wake up tired with muscles that still ache and you’re not motivated… don’t you think you should listen to what you’re body’s telling you?
Obviously, you need more time to heal, so forcing yourself to pack on muscle mass is not the best plan as your efforts will be subpar. If you try to pack on muscle mass in spite of what your body, muscles, and mind are trying to tell you, you are doing yourself a disservice.
In truth, your recovery phase is when your muscle tissue works to heal itself and that’s when muscles are being formed, so it doesn’t make sense to add more intense weight training which is extremely demanding on the body as a whole….
Why would you even consider ruining the time when your body can pack on muscle mass? The key here is to take that time off to recover, and head back to the gym only when you really are ready to do so.
What harm could there be?
You need two or more weeks of inactivity to lose size or strength, so there’s no fear of that happening. Instead, you stand to gain positively in terms of recovering from your previous workout and maximizing your performance in your next workout.
All you have to do is listen to your body.
Rest if you need to—rituals do not have anything to do with how you pack on muscle mass.
If your body is not ready for another battle with the weights, don’t make it fight. There’s no reason to push through a workout you’re not ready for just because some muscle building guru told you to “never skip a workout”; that’s not always the best approach.
Watch how you choose to handle this freedom, though…
Remember, this isn’t permission to only train to pack on muscle mass when you want to, because you may start delaying your workouts and telling yourself it’s okay when in fact it is not.
There are many times that you won’t want to train to pack on muscle mass just because you aren’t up for it mentally, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
Just take a day off when you need to from a physical point of view.
Bear in mind… there’s no long-term harm if you take an extra day off to rest, but there can be immediate harm if you train your body to pack on muscle mass when you are not ready. there is no long-term harm in taking an extra day of rest, but there IS the very real and immediate harm of training your body to pack on muscle mass without being fully recovered first.
Remember, if your body is begging you to, you need to take the day off!
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