Peter Fitschen’s Tips On Building Muscle

7 Reasons Why Do Some Muscle Groups Grow Faster Than Others

by Peter Fitschen

Building muscle is the goal of many men and women who hit the gym on a regular basis.

1 Genetics
Some individuals have better or worse genetics for building muscle overall.  Some also have muscles that are huge without even training them and others that may take work to build.2

2 Mind-Muscle Connection
Oftentimes if you ask someone what they feel when training a weak body part, they will not feel the target muscle.  For example, my chest has always been one of my strong body parts and I can literally get a pump just warming up.  Back has always been a struggle to feel and a weak body part, but once I really started feeling it doing what it was supposed to do my back grew.

3 Exercise Selection
Picking exercises where you feel the target muscle working is key.  For example, I do not get much out of a BB Row; however, T Bar Rows, DB Rows, Meadows Rows, Chest Supported Rows, etc. feel great and are better movements for me.  Similarly, you want to pick movements that really overload the target muscle group.  For example, if you are an advanced lifter and have weak rear delts, doing a bunch of extra overhead pressing likely is not the answer and you are going to need to pound direct rear delt work.

4 Training Intensity
Many people like training their strengths more than their weaknesses and therefore push harder.

5 Training Experience
If you are someone who has weak legs, but started off not training legs the first 5 years you were training, your upper body has a head start and you may need to play some catch up.

6 Training Volume
Are you giving the weak / slow to grow muscle group adequate volume or are you just doing more for your strengths / things you are good at.

7 Overall Structure
This one is genetic as well. For example, someone with a better bicep peak could have a smaller arm circumference yet have arms that appear bigger than someone with larger arms and a poor peak.

Although these are all reasons why some muscle groups may be weaknesses or appear to grow slower, it does not mean all is lost. If you use movements you feel in the weak muscle group, train them hard, allocate extra volume to them and do that for an extended period of time while not dieting, you will see progress.

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