Common mistakes to avoid.

Everyone's different!

The two problems with sport and diet are that everyone has their own opinion and that most of the time, after a few months of practice, many people think they know more than anyone else. The second problem is that everyone is different and a rule that seems obvious to you may be just the opposite to those around you. So you need to question yourself regularly and not take anything for granted. On the other hand, you can try out your partners' training and diet, not to bet on the result, but for the information and experience you can gain. But you will evolve, change your figure, improve and get older! So there's no guarantee that everything you take for granted this year won't change in 1 or 5 years' time. Remain open to questioning. Gaining muscle mass very often requires regular fine-tuning.

Internet

Not everything on the internet is the truth! But you can use it to do more in-depth research on the subject that's worrying you! When you find the same idea approved by scientists on several sites, there's a good chance that you're getting closer to the truth.

You can also find training programmes and testimonials (although be careful!).

Every sport requires its own specific training!

No matter what sport you do, you'll need certain qualities that will develop in the sport itself or in bodybuilding if you hope to make a comeback or transfer to your favourite sport. You'll need strength, endurance, stamina, flexibility and coordination.

Each sport therefore requires its own specific training and weight training.

When you go to the gym, don't judge the guy training next to you who doesn't take half your weights. Does he look like he's training badly too? Ask him! Maybe he's a 10,000 m champion with a completely different approach to you. He may not be a great weight-training athlete, but don't try to keep up with him in the race.

The ectomorph mistake

If you're an ectomorph, you often claim that you can eat whatever you want but that you won't gain muscle or fat. If you want to build muscle, the rules are the same for everyone: a minimum of protein, water and slow sugars. But as far as you're concerned, once you've already eaten what you need to build muscle, you can also eat 'anything'. Within reasonable limits, of course. Alcohol is not within these limits. What's more, over time, some ectomorphs remain slim, but with a small belly. So be careful if you want to keep your figure for a long time.

Work on your flexibility 

If you want to avoid under-performance, lower back pain and hamstring injuries, you MUST take the time to work on your flexibility. Sometimes a few minutes is enough. Of course, as you've realised, not everyone is equal when it comes to this muscular quality. There are several schools of thought, and everyone has their own ideas on the subject: some recommend working cold, others hot, some on days when you're not training, others on training days. Some work statically, others dynamically. Which is the right way?

Let's take a look at the most flexible sportspeople. Without question, it's dancers and gymnasts. We can therefore say that their work is effective in achieving good flexibility. And what do they do to stay flexible? Well, they exercise their flexibility before training, after training, and sometimes even during training, by performing entire movements (not just halves). They do a lot of dynamic flexibility as well as static flexibility.

Now try and tell me what the best way is?

What's certain is that if you don't work on it, sooner or later you'll be exposing yourself to lower back pain, strains or, more seriously, tears.

Too much training

Too much is the enemy of good. Thinking that the more you do, the more you'll progress is a mistake that many beginners, and sometimes even experienced athletes, make. How do I know if I'm training enough or too much?

It's really very simple: if you're making good progress, your training and diet are appropriate. If you're stagnating, you don't feel like training any more, you're abnormally tired or you're injuring yourself, then it could be that you're over-training.

The only solution is to rest! But when you rest, you stop making progress, so it's a good idea not to let your body over-train.

So be careful, when you want to increase your muscle mass, to remember that "too much" is the enemy of "good"!

don't warm up

To avoid injury, you should never perform a heavy or difficult exercise without appropriate preparation: the warm-up.

Ideally, you should do a general warm-up with a cardio exercise, as well as a few exercises that will gently but progressively work the area targeted during the session.

The older you get, the more important it becomes to warm up. The elasticity of tissues decreases from year to year and prevents them from adapting to too sudden an effort. The result is micro ruptures in the muscle fibres, which can become macro ruptures in the event of a muscle tear.

So never start heavy bodybuilding training without warming up first.

No "miracle" products

Supplements are what they claim to be: a supplement to a suitable diet. One mistake that many people make is to replace their entire diet with shakes! Try to vary your diet, vary your meals, give your body foods with different nutritional values. It will benefit from more vitamins and minerals, and it's also more pleasant to eat a variety of foods.

Including one or two shakes a day in your diet seems reasonable to me, but drinking nothing but shakes is excessive and reduces the variety of foods absorbed, resulting in an imbalance. This doesn't seem to be beneficial to good weight gain.

Conclusion

Everyone makes mistakes. But everyone can also correct them. The Internet gives you access to information, but sometimes that information isn't accurate. If you think that an athlete who posts photos of his six-pack all year round is really in condition all year round, nothing is less certain. It could be true, but it could also be that he did a shoot in the summer and is diluting his photos on his account all year round. So be careful! Be prepared to question yourself and the information you receive. Don't hesitate to consult experienced specialists to confirm or refute your research.

The progress you make will be your only truth: as long as you're making progress, it's because you've found the right solution at the right time for mass development. If you don't make progress, have the courage to question what you've read, what you know or what you've been told. It may not be the right thing for you to do to build up your mass.

We'll be happy to answer any specific questions you may have.