Key Tips When Trying To Build Muscle!

1. Proper Form 

To prevent injury, you must have proper form and use slow and controlled movements. Practice with your body weight first until your form is perfect for each exercise. Ensure you get the most out of each repetition and don’t rush through the exercise or take any shortcuts; this will hinder your results.

2. Mind Muscle Connection

Mind muscle connection is one of the essential factors for seeing results and growth with any exercise program. So what is the mind-muscle connection? The mind-muscle connection is about learning to control your muscles while effectively contracting or relaxing specific muscles during an exercise. It is vital that during each exercise that you focus on contracting the particular muscle you are trying to grow while allowing other muscles to take a ‘back seat.’ Imagine doing a squat, and you want to focus on your glutes, but instead, you feel the exercise mainly in your quads. This is a common issue and most likely means you need to focus more on really squeezing your glutes and allowing them to do more work by activating your glutes properly prior (glute activation). I recommend practising mind-muscle connection by using a lighter weight (or no weight at all). The more you practice mind-muscle connection, the easier it will become, and the more you will be able to grow and see progress in desired areas.

3. Glute Activation

The term "Glute Activation" is essentially an extra warmup that focuses solely on "waking up" the glutes, ensuring that they'd get the highest possible benefit from the progressive overload exercises. Why is it necessary? Because people - even active ones - use their glutes primarily for one primary purpose: sitting down. And having groggy glutes means they are less prepared to handle strenuous exercise and transfer the added stress to other muscle groups. If you do not warm up your glutes before your workout, other muscles such as the lower back, quads, and hamstrings will compensate, which is why sometimes we see changes in these areas (big legs) and not much in our glutes. TIP: if you can't feel your glutes during your progressive overload exercises, activate your glutes again to get them fired up and jump straight back into the exercise. We have included glute activation workouts to carry out before starting each day. For glute activation, use the light bootee band.

4. Progressive Overload

 To build muscle, you need to challenge yourself and build strength. It’s essential to use a weight that makes it challenging to finish the last few reps. For example, if it says to complete 8-10 reps of an exercise, you should only complete 8, 9, or maybe ten reps. If you can do ten or more without much difficulty, it may be time to increase the weight to make it more difficult. As the weeks go on, you should slowly get stronger and stronger and continue increasing the weight by 5-10kg.

5. Resistance Training

Resistance training refers to any form of exercise where you lift or pull against resistance. Resistance bands are often an overlooked piece of gym equipment. Many people do not realise the full benefits of using resistance bands. Resistance bands provide maximum tension at the peak muscular contraction point when used correctly, providing huge training benefits, which means more activation and focus on the desired muscle. You can also add them in with your progressive overload workouts to give you extra tension on your glutes. Always keep your bootee bands with you, as it is the most crucial part of your training, especially when activating your glutes. Your bootee bands are your new bootee buddies, do not forget them!