How do you know when you reach your natural limit of building muscle?
Is there away to know this limit before you get there?
Technically speaking, this limit does not exist. But if you are looking for a reason to go anabolic, then I’d say right about the time you stop growing, minding everything else is in check, which is never the case.
It can’t be reached because there always is room for improvement somewhere.
People usually reach the limit of what they’re willing to do before they reach the limit of what they can do.
I suppose it’s fair to say that if you’ve been training at least seven years as an adult, and the last several have been very well-informed, well-dedicated, true quality training and only a few pounds have been added in those last couple of years, then while a limit has not been reached, neither is it reasonable to expect getting say 30 lb more muscular than that point naturally, unless the training wasn’t as good as one thought.
I.e., if doing things genuinely well and averaging only 3 lb per year the last couple of years, don’t expect to gain 10 lb a year for the next three years naturally unless you were simply wrong about how you had been training. So if you want to be 30 lb more muscular a year from now, fair to say it won’t happen naturally given your training history.
On the other hand, if you’ve been gaining five pounds true muscle weight or better each of the last couple of years, it’s hard to predict how long that might continue: it might do so for quite some time.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
<<< unless you were simply wrong about how you had been training >>>[/quote]
And or eating.
So everyone can continue to build muscle the rest of their life even if it’s 2-3 lbs. a year in the later years?
Sure work your A$$ off and dont mentally limit your self and you can aim to make progress forever but its natural you will go down hill as you get OLD. You are in a sense slowly taking that trip to the dirt nap things internally are wearing down not running as well, dieing off.
But hell just keep truckin no time to worry about that it will happen If you limit your self by some mental pre-thought limit well likely you will not progress
Phill
[quote]massarmor wrote:
So everyone can continue to build muscle the rest of their life even if it’s 2-3 lbs. a year in the later years?[/quote]
What I said did not imply that, no, nor is it the case.
Few, for example 25-year-olds who after many years, say since early teens, of good and diligent natural training and eating are at say a lean 215 at that point, will find themselves a lean 295-325 forty natural years of training later. Perhaps some may imagine everyone “could” do this but just fails to do so, but the evidence that everyone, or any substantial percentage, could do so is nil.
Your question perhaps has a presupposition that gains from training are a rate process, a question of exceedingly tiny rates such as averaging 1/100th of a pound LBM per day will add up, and this is how progress is attained. I do not believe so. This is why for example an anticatabolic supplement that might really decrease catabolism, and thus momentarily achieve a slight excess of anabolism over catabolism, is going to add 50 or 100 lb of muscle vs not taking it. It’s just not a question of accumulating slow rates over a vast period of time.
If I’m eating 8000 clean calories a day, sleeping 12 hours a day, working out twice a day 6 times a week, high volume, high intensity, and not making progress, I will believe I have reached my natural limit. Until that point, keep on trucking…
I thought that working out more than once a day can be catabolic?
What age does someone usually start to slow down in their muscle developement?