Just Train Hard: Why You’re Not Growing Despite Doing Everything “Right”

So, you’ve been adhering to your favorite fitness influencer’s protocols exactly, so why aren’t you stepping on stage with Sam Sulek or Derek Lunsford?

You’re doing everything "right." You’re cranking out prone single-arm cable rows with a 15-degree offset and a 3-second eccentric. You’re keeping every set three reps shy of failure, resting no longer than 90 seconds, and tracking your heart rate to stay in a precise zone. You film every rep of every set, uploading the footage to an app that analyzes your movement patterns. You do fasted cardio, weigh every gram of food, jump into cold plunges, soak in red light, wear blue light-blocking glasses, follow a 90-minute bedtime routine, and even get weekly blood panels.

So why aren’t you growing slabs of muscle or torching off buckets of fat? Why are you still a pencil neck?

The Answer Is Simple: You aren’t training hard enough.

According to the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), the body adapts (i.e., grows bigger and stronger in terms of training and performance) only when a sufficient stressor (your training) is applied. And what happens if that stimulus isn’t strong enough? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

We all know the guy who walks in, grabs the 80s, and hits 3 sets of 10 on incline presses because that’s what he always does. He’s got the stringer made from an old Metallica T-shirt, a bandana fashioned from the sleeves, and a genie wish list that ends with drinking free beer with Hulk Hogan. And guess what? He looks the same today as he did five years ago, and he’ll look the same five years from now. Why? Because he’s actually not training hard.

But Wait "Studies Show..."

Yes, some studies suggest training with three reps in reserve (RIR) can produce similar muscle growth as training to failure, with less fatigue. But here’s the catch: accurately gauging RIR is very difficult, especially for beginners. The farther you stay from failure, the worse your guess tends to be. Most people think they have three reps left when they actually have seven.

Your mental state can affect performance. Take, for example, Eddie Hall's famous 500kg deadlift. That level of strength came from a state of near-hysterical adrenaline. Your brain perceives a threat, triggers fight-or-flight, and floods your system with hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. The result? A massive boost in strength.

So if one session you’re daydreaming about fast food deals on the drive home and the next you're lifting like someone threatened to burn your Hello Kitty notebook, your strength output is going to be vastly different.

What Drives Muscle Growth? Mechanical tension. In other words: load on the bar.

If you’re just going through the motions, hitting your influencer-assigned RIR without ever pushing, you’re not generating enough mechanical tension to create a growth response. That means no gains. That means you stay the same.

So Are All the Influencers Lying?

Not exactly. The minute details they obsess over are helpful after you’ve built a foundation. For now, those hyper-optimized strategies are like putting 110-octane race fuel into your stock Honda Civic. Sure, it’s high-performance fuel, but until your engine can actually utilize it, you won’t see much benefit, and you are just wasting your money.

So what should you do?

Train. Hard. Like. Really. hard. Like you drive home with the music off, contemplating life, and that set of squats kind of hard.

Learn what true failure feels like. That way, when it is time to use RIR or other advanced tools, you'll actually know what you're doing. Go into every gym session with a goal: beat last week’s reps, add weight, cut rest time, or throw in another set. Training should be hard. It should be uncomfortable. And that’s what drives growth.

Years from now, when your gain train slows down, revisit the nuances. Until then?

Lift heavy. Push yourself. And no matter what:

Put more weight on that bar.

References

Mahaffey, K. (2022). General Adaptation Syndrome in Fitness Explained. NASM Blog. https://blog.nasm.org/general-adaptation-syndrome-explained

Remmert, J. F., Laurson, K. R., & Zourdos, M. C. (2023). Accuracy of Predicted Intraset Repetitions in Reserve (RIR)... Perceptual and Motor Skills, 130(3), https://doi.org/10.1177/00315125231169868

Vandergriendt, C. (2020). What Is Hysterical Strength & How Does It Happen? Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/hysterical-strength