In my experience, there are three major points everyone needs to get absolutely nailed in order to start building a great physique.
These three are execution, strength, and intensity.
Firstly, without proper execution of exercises in the gym you're massively limiting how much progress you make.
Sure, there are those that can seemingly train like sh*t and still grow no matter what they do, but often these people are pretty genetically blessed, and may have been training for a long time & know what their body best responds to.
Execution is vital in my opinion before anything else, its essential to make sure you're contracting your muscles through a full range and applying constant tension.
After you've made sure execution is on point, you then can't stay lifting the pink dumbbells and being comfortable all the time because no one ever built biceps curling 2kg dumbbells.
If you're serious about building muscle, you need to go through a period of time where you're consciously trying to get stronger.
This doesn't mean going in the gym and testing your 1 rep max deadlift every 3 days, sorry bro.
Execution and even exercise selection can stay the same as usual, but you've got to really try to push the weights up week by week in a "progressive overload" kind of manner.
Once you've got a good level of execution and strength (note, these should be revisited every few months), you need to make sure you're actually working hard and pushing yourself in the gym.
If you're body isn't changing, it's because you're not doing enough to make it change.
It's massively cliché but the saying "if you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done" is true.
Every time you step in the gym you should be looking to beat your last workout, even if it's by 1%. Whether that's adding weight (while maintaining execution), resting 40 seconds instead of 1 minute, adding dropsets on the last sets, throwing in supersets, upping the reps, slowing the tempo... You get the idea.
Building quality muscle takes time. It's not gonna happen in 12 weeks like you'll see people posting on your social media feeds every week. (Continued in comments...)
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