5. Sticking to the same exact routine for months
Challenging your body is part of the muscle growth process. And although having a routine will give you direction, you should change it up every few weeks to avoid a plateau, according to Fried.
"Ultimately, in terms of muscle growth, the thing that you need is progressive overload [meaning] you need to constantly be growing the volume that you're doing," Fried said. She said you could increase your volume by changing the reps, adding weight, adding sets, or modifying exercises to make them more difficult by adding resistance bands, for example. Fried also recommended having a full new program every six to eight weeks.
"There are a lot of people who have one program written down on a piece of paper, and they follow that and do the same 15-pound dumbbell rows every single day, and at that point your body has already adapted to that workout," Fried said. "If you're not actually moving up to that 20-pound dumbbell or going heavier, you're just going to plateau so one way or another, even if you're following that same workout on the same piece of paper, you need to [increase] your volume and progressively overload your muscles."
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