In this instructional video, seasoned lifter and coach Eric Roberts shares the three most common mistakes that prevent lifters from building muscle efficiently, drawing on his 13 years of personal experience and coaching over 25,000 clients. 1. Mistake #1 – Conflating strength with muscle growth: He explains that increasing the weight lifted (strength) does not automatically increase muscle size (hypertrophy). Using a car analogy, he clarifies that strength is like a more powerful engine, while muscle is the larger body of the vehicle. For hypertrophy, he recommends the 6‑15 rep range performed close to failure, noting that very low reps (3‑5) primarily train the nervous system and very high reps (20‑30) become more cardio‑like. He cites client Michael (already strong) and Mallory (beginner) who both saw visible physique changes after shifting to this rep scheme. 2. Mistake #2 – Poor set sequencing: The typical gym habit of starting light and ending with the heaviest set wastes the early sets and leaves the final set fatigued, limiting the weight that can be lifted. He proposes doing 1‑2 light warm‑up sets (2‑4 reps) then performing the heaviest working set first while the “tank” is full, followed by lighter subsequent sets if needed. He illustrates this with a hack squat example where the first set is the heaviest, and the weight is reduced for later sets. 3. Mistake #3 – Skipping regular deload weeks: Constant high‑intensity training leads to plateaus, injuries, and burnout after several weeks. He introduces the concept of a “slingshot” deload week every 4‑8 weeks, where weight, reps, and possibly sets are reduced by 10‑25% to allow over‑recovery. This intentional reduction enables stronger performance in the following training block. He shares his own experience of stagnation and injury before adopting deload weeks and the subsequent performance boost. Throughout, Eric uses analogies (cars, gas tanks, slingshots) to make concepts relatable, provides concrete numeric guidelines, and briefly promotes his online coaching program and a related viral video. The video’s purpose is to educate lifters on optimizing training variables to build muscle efficiently while avoiding common pitfalls.
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I've been lifting weights for 13 years and made every mistake you could probably ever make. Plus, after coaching over 25,000 clients, I've seen complete beginners to advanced trainees make mistakes at different stages of their journey. So in this video, I'm going to give you the 3 most common mistakes to avoid so you can build more muscle and not waste time. Let's start with the first one, which I know you have experienced. And if you're somebody who you're lifting heavier weights, but your body still looks the exact same, this one is for you. And this is frustrating because maybe you've been lifting for a couple of months or even a couple of years. The actual weight you lift is increasing, but you take your shirt off, look in the mirror, and you look exactly the same. You don't notice abs, you don't notice shoulder or arm definition. And here's what nobody tells you. Building strength and building muscle are 2 different things. Think of it like getting a faster car versus a bigger car. You could take a Honda Civic and tune up the engine and give it a new turbo, and the car would be faster, but it's still a Honda Civic. From the outside, it looks exactly the same. Now compare that to a Cadillac Escalade. The Escalade isn't always faster, although sometimes it could be, but it's twice as The size. You pull up to it and immediately you know it's a bigger vehicle. Strength is the engine. Muscle is the body of the car. You can keep tuning the engine forever, lifting heavier, adding weight to the bar, and the engine can get stronger, but the car won't get any bigger. To grow the car, you have to do something different. And here's the part that messes people up. When you're a beginner, you'll get stronger because you get better at the skill of lifting weights. Your form gets better, you have better balance, and automatically your strength will go up. It's kind of like getting better at riding a bike. You don't grow new legs, you just get better at riding the bike. Plus, how you work out matters. Usually doing lower reps, like 3 to 5 reps, mostly trains your nervous system. Your brain learns how to fire your muscles harder, and you get stronger faster. But your muscles usually don't change in size that much, because you'd have to do like 5 sets of every exercise, which usually you just get burnt out from, or you end up getting injured because the weight is so heavy and you're doing so much of it. To actually grow muscle, you usually need a little bit of higher reps. The sweet spot is around 6 to 15 reps. Now, for all the nerds out there, they're going to comment, Eric, you can build muscle in any rep range. Yes, I know that. But too heavy and too low reps has the problems I just said. And when you start doing 20, 30 reps, you turn it more into a cardio workout than you do a muscle building workout. So within these 6 to 15 reps, you also need to be pushing yourself close to failure. The last couple of reps, you should be fighting for your godforsaken life and making those ugly faces. And we had a client named Michael come to us where he was already pretty strong as it was, but he wanted to see a difference in his physique. So we had him change up his workouts to more of what I'm telling you. And as you can see, he's made some pretty good progress. Same with our client Mallory. She was more of a beginner to lifting weights. And so she was getting stronger, But wasn't seeing her body change. And so when I implemented what we're talking about now, you can see she has now changed her body. So the lesson is, make most of your sets in the 6 to 15 rep range, and the last 1 to 3 reps should be hard, challenging reps. That way you'll build strength and muscle in the most efficient manner. And speaking of most efficient, that brings up mistake number 2, and it's the exact opposite of what your gym buddy has been telling you to do. If you walk into any gym across the world and watch how people warm up and exercise, they start light, they add a little bit, and then add a little bit more so it's kind of difficult. And then the last set that they do, that's when they go the hardest. That is backwards, and it's why most people stop getting stronger and building muscle. And here's the trap. If you have 3 sets of an exercise and you're doing squats, Let's say set 1 is 100 pounds and it was pretty easy. Set 2 was 150 pounds and it was kind of difficult, but not really. And then set 3 is 185 pounds. And now you're like, wow, this is really heavy. You're thinking you crushed it and made a lot of progress because that last set was really tough, but you left gains on the table big time because by the time you got to set number 3, you were already— Tired. tired. Your tank was like half empty. So 185 felt heavy, not because it was actually the heaviest you could go. You were just already tired. Think of your energy in the gym like your gas in your car before a long road trip. You wake up, the tank is full, and you're ready to go. If the very first thing you do is stop off at the side trip to get some coffee, and then stop to drop off a package, and then stop to pee, by the time you actually start to get on the road to your destination, half of your gas tank will be gone. And most people who work out spend their first 2 sets running side trips. It's not a warm-up, but it's also not heavy enough to actually stimulate muscle growth and strength gains. So you're kind of just wasting those 2 sets, and then your 3rd set isn't as heavy as you could possibly do. And so smart drivers get to the important trip first while the tank is full. Smart lifters lift their heaviest set first while the tank is full. Now, you should still do 1 to 2 warm-up sets, but these are very lightweight at like 2 to 4 reps, and you don't want to spend a lot of time resting in between because these sets are only to get the form down and warm your body up so that your first working set can be the heaviest because that's when you're the most fresh. And I already hear you, well, Eric, I'm not going to be able to do that same weight for all 3 sets. That's okay. Most people think if they're not lifting the same weight for the same reps every set, then you're doing something wrong or failing. It's the exact opposite. If you can do the same weight for all 3 sets, usually Your first set wasn't heavy enough. Your first set might be so heavy that you have to drop down in the weight after that. I'll give you an example of my hack squats. After my warm-up sets, my first working set was 5 plates and a 25 on each side. I did it for 5 reps, and there was no way I was gonna do that weight again. So I dropped down to 4 plates and a 35 on each side so I could still get the reps that was programmed in my workout. And I did that weight for the last 2 sets. That's because I pushed so hard in that first set, I couldn't keep it up. And that's okay. So make your heaviest set first, push close to failure. And if you have to drop down in weight after that, that's okay. But now if you're training like that every workout, there's one more mistake you need to avoid or else everything will fall apart. And you'll likely be out of the gym for months at a time. Because here's Here's what happens to people who work out really hard. You're going in and you're lifting heavy, you're pushing yourself. You're doing this multiple times a week because you're working out multiple times a week. And the first few weeks you're fine, you're crushing it, you're seeing good progress, everything's great, you feel good about yourself. And then around week 5, week 6, week 7, something starts to happen. Your knees ache a little bit, your shoulder is kind of starting to get hurt, maybe your elbow is starting to flare up, or maybe you're just not feeling as motivated to get into the gym, and your numbers and your strength might actually be going down, not up. And most people see this, they start to panic and think, I need to push harder, I need to power through it. But that just makes it worse, because that's how you either burn out or get injured that would then put you out of the gym for weeks or months at a time. Your body is screaming at you that it needs something that we call a slingshot, And I want you to think of your strength and muscle building like a slingshot. When you fire a slingshot, you don't just put the rock in and it goes forward. You have to pull it back first. And the harder and farther you pull back, the farther the rock will go forward. This slingshot week, or what is actually called a deload week, this is where you'll intentionally lift lighter, not push yourself as close to failure, do less sets and reps per exercise. I know this sounds like you're closing your ears. This sounds like, what are you talking about, Eric? I'm going to lose all my progress if I do that. But the pullback is what allows you to slingshot forward for the next 4 to 8 weeks because your body will over-recover when you take this deload week, and then you'll be able to push as hard as you can for another 4 to 8 weeks. And that's where you'll blow past your old numbers, lift heavier, push yourself more, build more muscle after the deload week. So every 4 to 8 weeks, you're going to take one full week where you're still in the gym doing your workout because you don't want to lose the skill of doing the exercises, but you're going to back the weight off by 10 to 25%. So if you're lifting 100 pounds, You would do 80 pounds. And then you're also going to back off the reps that you're doing. So if you were doing 10 reps, you'll do 7 reps. And last, you may even back off the number of sets that you're doing. So if you were doing 3 sets, you'll do 2 sets. And you're going to feel like this is wasting a week. It's not, I promise you. And I'm speaking from experience. I am somebody who— I love working out. It's why I'm a coach. And I never used to take deload weeks. And I'm telling you, my progress stalled out. I And always got injured. And my New Year's resolution for 2024 was to actually take deload weeks. During that year, I saw more progress than I ever have, and I've kept it up since. Because you don't get stronger when you lift weights. You get stronger when you recover from lifting weights. But if you're always pushing hard, you can't recover. And by the way, if you're like, wow, this actually makes sense, and you want somebody to set all of this up for you and take out all of the guesswork while being there to guide you, answer questions, and hold you accountable, This is exactly what we do in my online coaching program. You can click the link in the description below of this video to learn more. And if you're thinking, okay Eric, what else have I been doing wrong with my weightlifting? Well, I actually made my most viral popular video ever with everything I wish I knew before I started lifting weights. You can click right here to watch that coming up next.
