How to train stubborn muscle groups to grow
Everyone has a muscle group (or muscle groups) that they find hard to grow, are quite stubborn, or simply lag behind other faster growing muscles. Here’s some tips on how to get round this problem.
- Train the muscle group more often.
Sometimes training a particular muscle group just one time per week isn’t enough and you may need more. Try putting the muscle group you’re trying to grow at the start and end of the week, allowing sufficient time in between for recovery. Going from 1 to 2 sessions per week on that muscle group will give great results. - Train the muscle group with more intensity.
Constantly remind yourself of this when not just training your target muscle group, but any other session you have in the gym…when you think you’re training hard, you’re not…train harder! Having this mentality will ensure you’re giving everything you’ve got to your goal, not just half-assing it. - Strip things back.
This should be point number 1 to be fair, but here we go…FORM BUILDS MORE MUSCLE THAN JUST CHASING HEAVIER WEIGHT. You may think this isn’t the case, but jumping up in weight on exercise before you’ve mastered your form will often lead to sloppy, in-effective form on your exercises. Lower the weight, start over, focus on the feel and you’ll see HUGE improvements. - What works for others, might not for you.
This is true for any exercise. People are all built differently, for example if you’re using machines, your size, width, limb length all come in to play with how that particular exercise feels for you. This is why it’s massively important to trial and error exercises until you find the ones that you can do with great form and you actually feel the muscle working. - Be realistic.
You’ll often keep falling short if you want legs like your favorite celebrity, or abs like the person in the advert you saw. Focus on YOUR results and making small regular improvements to YOUR body. We’re all made up genetically different so it’s impossible to have replica muscle groups of someone. Take pictures at the start, work hard, then take pictures again later on…see how far you’ve came!
Next steps…
Feel like your plan needs some tweaking for certain stubborn areas? Talk to us in the coach chat in-app, we can create or edit your current plan for you to ensure you’re training for the results you want!
