4 reasons why you might not be seeing results from strength training
Gareth Mansfield
Musculoskeletal and Sports Physiotherapist
Everyone over the age of 18 is recommended to participate in muscle strengthening activities on 2 or more days in a week by The Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (1). It’s no secret that resistance training can build muscle strength, reduce injury risk and improve mental health along with many other benefits (2). But when you’ve given it a go, you aren’t quite getting the benefits as advertised: here might be a few reasons why.
1- Exercise progression
Your body adapts in many ways to meet the demands you put on it, for example a carpenter might develop calluses on their hands from gripping materials and tools. Just like the carpenter’s skin adapts to get tougher, our muscles adapt to get bigger and stronger if we perform activities that demand it. Resistance training is vital in improving muscle strength, but you can only build bigger and stronger muscles if you keep increasing the demand- you can’t expect to get much stronger by keeping your exercises at the same difficulty (2).
Increasing resistance is the easiest way to add demand to muscles. For machines, increase the weight on the stack. For body weight exercises, hold a weight or move onto one leg instead of two. For free weights, increase the weight you are using. Increasing resistance every time you try the exercise (even by the smallest amount) will keep demanding more from your muscles and cause them to continue adapting.
You might start to struggle adding resistance every time you try an exercise. It’s ok to lower the number of sets and/or repetitions or increase your rest between sets; you can always change them back in your next session whilst keeping the weight the same (2).
2- Effort
You’re now making your exercises a little bit harder each session but still not seeing any changes. This might simply be a case of you not sufficiently challenging your muscles. Muscles grow when they are put under a lot of tension and this is only possible when pushing close to complete muscular failure; this is where you physically cannot complete another repetition (3). This might seem intimidating but don’t worry, stopping at the point where you could complete one or maybe two repetitions before failure will stimulate enough growth whilst keeping yourself safe (2,4,5).
3- Stimulating muscle growth
You’re now pushing really hard, but you feel the thing stopping you is the aching in your legs and getting too out of breath. You’re probably doing too many repetitions with too light a weight; you will get more muscle tension by completing 6-12 repetitions with a high resistance. Save going below 6 repetitions for when you are more experienced in training and injury-free. Multiple sets of exercise are also recommended per session (between 3 and 5) (2,5).
If you find yourself doing 50 body weight squats, that might be great for endurance of your leg muscles, heart and lungs, but it won’t do too much for making you stronger- it’s time to add some weight!
4- Recovery
You’ve worked your socks off by making your exercises harder, pushing close to muscular failure, and keeping your repetitions low; muscle soreness is normal following effective strength training. Your muscles need time and fuel to build muscle and repair any micro-tears that can be a result of high muscular tension.
One resistance session per muscle group per week is enough to get stronger provided you are following these above tips. However, you will get a bit more benefit from doing 2-4 sessions per muscle group per week, increasing volume as you get more experienced (2,5).
Protein is responsible for repairing and building muscle so having a high protein diet is important to building strength. You can get protein through foods like meats, dairy, pulses, legumes and protein supplements. The Australian Sports Commission recommends your daily protein intake is 1.2-1.6g per 1kg of bodyweight (6). If you want to gain muscle mass, you will need to eat more calories than you are burning. If you want to lose weight, it is important that you are burning more calories than you are consuming but make sure you still have plenty of protein so that you don’t lose muscle!
Ensure you are getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night with regular bedtimes and wake up times to facilitate recovery (1).
There is so much information out there about strength training but, for most people, there is no need to complicate things with super-specific exercises and ultra-precise tracking of diet and exercise. Make sure that your sessions are harder than the last time, be consistent, and meet your basic recovery and diet guidelines (the odd treat won’t kill you!).
Supervision and coaching as a novice can build your confidence, ensure you are minimising injury risk and give you the tools you need for effective self-management. At Kinetic Sports Physiotherapy, we offer 1-2-1 sessions and class-based sessions with access to highly knowledgeable staff who are eager to support your resistance training journey.
References:
1. Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. (2026). 24-hour movement guidelines for all Australians. Available at: 24-hour movement guidelines for all Australians | Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing [Accessed 19 Jun. 2026].
2. Currier, BS. et al. American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand. Resistance Training Prescription for Muscle Function, Hypertrophy, and Physical Performance in Healthy Adults: An Overview of Reviews. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 2026;58(4):851-872. Available at: Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise [Accessed 19 Jun. 2026].
3. Van Every, DW. et al. Load-induced human skeletal muscle hypertrophy: Mechanisms, myths, and misconceptions. Journal of Sport and Health Science. 2025;15. Available at: Load-induced human skeletal muscle hypertrophy: Mechanisms, myths, and misconceptions - ScienceDirect [Accessed 19 Jun. 2026].
4. Refalo, MC. et al. Influence of Resistance Training Proximity-to-Failure on Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis. Sports Medicine. 2023;53(3):649-665. Available at: Influence of Resistance Training Proximity-to-Failure on Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis - PubMed [Accessed 19 Jun. 2026].
5. Currier, BS. et al. Resistance training prescription for muscle strength and hypertrophy in healthy adults: a systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2023;57:1211-1220. Available at: Resistance training prescription for muscle strength and hypertrophy in healthy adults: a systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis | British Journal of Sports Medicine [Accessed 19 Jun. 2026].
6. Australian Sports Commission. (no date). What is it? Available at: What is it? | ASC [Accessed 19 Jun. 2026].