If your muscles stopped growing, it's almost always one of these 6 factors: insufficient volume, no progression, inadequate recovery, too little protein, no plan, or wrong intensity.
Pelland's meta-analysis (2024, 67 studies): Below 10 sets per muscle per week, growth stalls. Most people underestimate their actual volume.
Same weight, same reps every week = no growth stimulus. Add 2.5kg or one more rep each week.
Muscles grow during recovery, not during training. Legs need 60 hours, chest 56 hours, arms 48 hours (Beardsley 2022).
Below 1.6g per kg bodyweight limits protein synthesis — regardless of training quality (Morton 2018).
Effective growth needs periodization: systematically increase volume over weeks (MEV → MAV → MRV), then deload (Painter 2012).
The sweet spot is RIR 1-3 — 1-3 reps before failure (Robinson 2024, 54 studies).
All 6 problems share one root cause: no tracking. When your volume per muscle, e1RM progression, and recovery times are tracked automatically, these mistakes disappear. That's what data-driven training systems like MUSCLE TECHNICS do — based on the studies cited above.