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Kim Schewitz
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Harley Pasternak
Harley Pasternak has spent 30 years helping people build strength and muscle.
In that time, the 51-year-old Los Angeles-based personal trainer, who has worked with Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, and Robert Pattinson, has seen people making the same mistakes, which keep them from making the gains they want to see.
Progressive overload, which means challenging your muscles more and more over time, whether through heavier weights or more reps, is crucial to building muscle, but there's more to it than just that, Pasternak told Business Insider.
Rest and a thoughtful workout plan are also important if you want to build muscle, he said. For Pasternak, that means strength training for 20 minutes, six days a week, and focusing on two muscles per workout.
Pasternak shared the common mistakes he sees people make.
Worrying about looking 'bulky'
Pasternak said he often sees women holding back when lifting weights because they are worried about looking "bulky."
"It's very difficult to put on muscle," he said.
Building muscle requires eating more food than you burn, also known as a calorie surplus.
Regardless of how it changes your body shape, lifting weights also carries many health benefits, including reducing the risk of osteoporosis.
Doing full-body workouts
Pasternak isn't a fan of full-body workouts if people want to build muscle.
Training lots of different muscle groups in one session can mean that by the time you reach the final few exercises, you are too fatigued to work those muscles hard enough to make meaningful progress, he said.
"There's a great quote, 'I fear not the man who knows a thousand different kicks. I fear the man who knows one kick a thousand times,'" he said.
If you're training 15 body parts in one workout, "you're probably not giving much to the last five body parts," Pasternak said.
Not giving muscles enough time to recover
Training hard is only one part of building muscle. You also need to give your body enough time to recover, Pasternak said.
Resistance training creates micro-tears or injuries in muscle fibers. During recovery, those fibers repair, becoming stronger. "That's how we adapt to the stimulus," he said.
But if you train the same muscle again before it has fully healed, it can interfere with that process, stalling your progress, and possibly leading to injury, he said.
Muscles also tend to recover faster than connective tissues such as tendons, he said, so pushing the same body part too frequently can cause problems even if the muscle itself feels ready to go again.
Pasternak said people who train with a meaningful amount of intensity should leave multiple days before working the same body part again.
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Kim Schewitz
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Kim Schewitz is a health reporter who covers our growing obsession with health optimization and -maxxing, and how it influences pop culture and Big Business.Since 2023, she has interviewed dozens of doctors, researchers, and dietitians about their science-backed health advice, often focusing on the gut microbiome and the Mediterranean diet, and reported on the rise of young colon cancer and how its impacting the lives of patient in their 20s, 30, and 40s. She has previously written for VICE, The i paper, and GLAMOUR UK.
- Fitness
- Exercise