It starts with nutrition. The ratio that has worked well with my clients in terms of daily caloric consumption for lean muscle mass gains and minimal fat gain is the 16 calories per pound ratio. For example, if you're a pound person and you're on a calorie-per-pound bulking diet, you would consume 3, calories at a ratio of 40 percent protein, 40 percent carbs, and 20 percent fat.
It also leans on exercise. Even when I've trained clients whose goal was to put on lean muscle mass, I still had them doing sprints at least days per week, minutes per day. Check out Dr. Wilson's article: Mass vs. There he touts short-duration, high-intensity activities as the key to fat loss and muscle preservation.
In fact, sprinting was actually found to increase muscle size if limited to roughly 20 minutes per day. You don't need to lift the whole gym to make your muscles grow, but you want to lift heavier.
You have to add stress and tension to muscles to make them grow. I advise a client to train at 80 percent of their one-rep max for each set. A rep count should be reps.
It is amazing how many muscle-building programs out there promise that you'll look like the incredible Hulk if eat more than 5, calories each day. Sure, you'll look like a hulk Many of these programs cause you to gain an enormous amount of unnecessary fat, giving the illusion that you put on muscle.
Sure, the huge guy on some fitness website got good results from endless sets of hammer curls—because he was doing them with 45 lb dumbbells. Anyway, on to the question: do you have any rough guidelines as far as the strength required to see gains? What are your thoughts on when that typically happens? I came across this article after searching the web for an answer to a question of mine. You see, I have started working out with two friends of mine just 10 days ago. Our regimen consists of 20 minutes of lifting done in sets, effectively pushing for endurance and an increase in our max , 30 minutes of general weight lifting also done in sets , and 30 minutes of cardio.
It was today that I finally decided to check my weight, and to my surprise I found that my weight has jumped from pounds to pounds weighed in the morning. Could you please explain this jump? My eating habits have been the same for years, and the only real difference is minor carb loading before working out and then a protein shake after the fact. I am asking this as a result of my own skepticism that what have I gained is truly muscle, even though everything indicates that this is the case.
This discrepancy is accentuated by the statistics referenced in the above article; that men average substantially less than what I am purporting.
Are my genetics just crazy? Am I attributing this weight gain incorrectly? On a side note, I am 16 years of age, so I suppose testosterone would be a contributing factor, but I feel as if I am doing this wrong.
Happens every time. More stuff that might affect your weight on the scale. Your data contradicts itself… You say a man can gain 50 pounds in his life but that he can build two pounds of muscle a month, obviously this adds up to be far greater than your first number in just a few years.
Not quite. That man will build muscle at that rate or really slower and slower over time until they hit their genetic limits at which point they will just stop building additional muscle. However, his gains will slow after that first year, so he might gain about ONE pound of muscle per month in his second year.
No contradiction. Reread the article more carefully. Hello Thanks a lot for all the clean info and am glad that i have found your website and stopped hitting my head without any progress so far months on machines and crapy diet. So regarding on your answer above about the cal surplus i am confused alittle. The last couple of weeks i am trying to find my maintence which is So as a begginer start lift before 2 weeks i expect to have better muscle gains ideally closer to 0.
I have read almost all of your articles and i love your writting and honesty. Thanks a lot! Sorry for my English i dont speak well Greece here! Hey jay, if you can expect to gain aprox pound of lean muscle a month, what would be the total amount of weight you should expect to gain per month?
Thanks for all the info you provide! I am looking to change my lifting regime. I currently do body part split x 5 days a week. I am interested in adding lean muscle mass. Question: can you give me an upfront best opinion? I want to purchase your new book, but I feel I will once again be left with paralysis of overanalysis!
Thank you, Giovanna. But the truth is, both options can work equally well and it really comes down to picking whatever best suits your schedules, needs and preferences.
Would my very first attempts going to the gym which were fairly unorganised and unproductive and only lasted for about 9 months count as my beginner gains? Was that the year I had the greatest potential and fluffed it up? Hopefully this year that I have started now is where my beginner gains are actually kicking in and I have my maximum potential — I have been progressing fairly quickly the past few months, even on a caloric deficit.
If someone has been training for years but has not reached anywhere near their genetic potential, say for example only putting on 10lbs or less of muscle over that period due to poor diet would your rate of gains have diminished to that of someone who has been training for 4 years therefore very slow gains. Or would you be looking at quicker gains closer to pounds a month? If a guy has the potential to build 40lbs of muscle in his lifetime, that potential is always there.
The only exception is age. Would shooting for lbs a month be out of the question? I am in the process of following your beginners workout with the intention of going onto the upper lower split. Hitting a calorie excess a day. Great website btw, There is so much crap on the web and this really is the best site I have come across in the past 4 years! Wish I had seen it sooner! Read this. I will be asking my teacher the same question but its always nice to have a second opinion.
Okay so, I have always been fairly skinny. I read the article and found you can gain. I would like to at least become a healthy looking body weight. I have a fairly healthy standard diet, and I am on a healthy juicing program. Is there anything you suggest adding to a diet or can you point me in the direction of a good article for a diet that will help me gain weight at a good pace? Thanks for your time and consideration.
If your goal is to build muscle while gaining the least amount of body fat possible along the way, a guy should ideally shoot to gain a total of lbs per month.
If you did a year with a diet to maintain muscle and trained and build few muscle,will you build muscle with a caloric surplus as fast as if the first year was a bulking diet instead of a maintenance muscle diet? Or would you build more muscle? Basically, if the starting point is the same same strength, same muscle , progress in both areas would be similar in both scenarios.
My last question is: can you build muscle if doing only bodyweight exercises push ups,pull ups,sit ups… with a TUT of and a proper caloric surplus? What is the routine for maintenance? I use now the routine of fat loss with no diet deficit feel that is probably good volume for me to sustain but wonder if that is correct. Thank u for answering. Many thx. You mean if your goal is to just maintain your currently levels of muscle and strength?
In that case yes, that routine will be perfectly fine for that. Another question is: if I want to lose fat by using your fat loss routine. Will it definitely happen that gradually i can lift less rep.
And low ever weight? If it happen it happening with me shall i aim for same weight lower the rep or lower weight but same rep with perfect gesture? I always try to aim for the high end of rep as you instructed and now I start losing more and more in the 2nd and the third set. I hate to cheat so i start to lower the weight with smallest scale to keep the high rep. Is that correct? Thank you for answering. I usually eat above maintenance calories surplus. Daily fluctuations in weight from one day to the next is usually nothing worth caring about, and certainly nothing worth adjusting your diet because of.
I was wondering if your recommended pounds gain per month is a bit too conservative, especially for people within, say, 2 years of training, and that should cover of your audience. So maybe progress goes slightly better, but fat gains get slightly worse. Which is why I find the sweet spot in this case for both maximizing growth and minimizing body fat gained is 2lbs gained per month, or about 0.
And for people who feel they have below average genetics, or people who are more advanced, the sweet spot drops down to 1lb per month. And with supplements like creatine and sometimes whey protein. Thats actually my goal! Details here. Thanks for a straight to the point article, though most of the stuff is what I imagined, there were definitely a few mild surprises.
I have this thought going on in my mind, finally found a place to ask it. Or do people with natural mass have kind of a kick-start advantage over skinny ones? If two people who have never trained before start training at the same time with the same body fat percentage and the only difference is that one person already has more muscle mass than the other, it would be a sign that this person may have better genetics than the other or this person is average and the other person has below average genetics.
Sounds a bit odd to me. If I have the potential to put on 40 lbs of muscle in my lifetime, would training lower body slightly less mean that more of that 40 lbs could be distributed to my upper body? Each body part basically has its own genetic potential. Im a 39 year old, ive never trained in my life, i weigh around lbs and have seriously let my self go…. Thank you for your reply, that gives me more confidence than i had…Can i ask one more question, i am planning to train on mon,wed,fri with rest days in bewteen and progressively use more weight, on rest days are sit ups, push ups ok, or swimming, or should the rest days be just for recovery.
Something like swimming… maybe. Additional details here. It seems that it takes a long time to tone and define. Is there hope past 50 to regain lost muscle mass? One other question if I want to gain muscle but prevent gaining fat should I keep my calories at my usual and just add more protein? As a beginner, maybe. I lift and i love it but even though may be fact the way you have put it is enough to demotivate anyone to even bother.
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