Only Gain a Half Pound of Muscle a Month

Training Bodybuilding
41

[quote]atg410 wrote:

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

[quote]atg410 wrote:

I don’t really see anything wrong or shocking about what the trainer said. In fact, he’s probably dead on for 99% of people. Strength gains are largely a combination of skill, mental fortitude and NEURO-muscular adaptation. Gaining size helps with leverage and other factors but it isn’t the end all be all of strength gains. The vast majority of people could probably do better with a maintenance diet and consistent heavy lifting rather than any kind of “bulking” plan both in terms of strength gains and physique goals.

Do not delude yourself that the majority of your gains on a “bulk” will be muscular. Unless you are very consistent in the gym I would in fact doubt that a significant percent of new size would be muscular.

[/quote]

Wrong. The MINORITY will do well eating maintenance calories. The EXTREME MINORITY. Because its no secret why muscles grow, or get stronger, or why fat is lost. Energy. If you eat exactly the amount you burn you will stop making progress as soon as your neural adaptation maxes out (which should happen pretty quickly).

If someone DOESNT gain mostly muscle on a ‘bulk’, then guess what, they did it wrong. So please be quiet about this stuff because you dont know what youre tlaking about, regardless of what your posse says.

Your comment about being ‘very consistent in the gym’ says it all. Go back to lifting for 3 hours a week and shut up. That qualifier makes your post one of the worst I’ve seen on this board in a long time. Pathetic. [/quote]

I’m going to apologize in advance for the threadjack.

Bonez,

You give a lot of great advice on these forums, seriously, you are clearly knowledgable and experienced and your wisdom is frequently combined with wit which is always a plus.

That said, you didn’t actually disprove anything that I stated, but that’s cool, that’s why I largely avoid posting on this board. Do you really think that a majority of people “bulking up” make the kind of gains they want or anticipate? Yes, some people have a great amount of success with this strategy. That still doesn’t disprove anything I said.

Did I tell OP not to bulk? Did I tell OP to eat at maintenance calories? Did I ever imply that eating at maintenance does not involve increasing calories as energy demands increase? Did you just say that CONSISTENCY is a PROBLEM in the gym? So OP should bust ass some days and slack off others? I lift consistently. I lift at a consistently high intensity, I consistently make it to the gym when I plan to, I consistently hit the numbers and reps that I plan for.

Please use some critical reading skills next time and save the insults for someone who gives a shit.[/quote]

I’m not bonez, but his whole point in that reply was to say that, NO, they won’t do better on a maintenance diet. Do you even understand what that means? A maintenance diet means you’re consuming the exact number of calories you expend. NEWSBREAK: You need excess calories to build muscle. Demand for energy won’t increase unless you just burn more calories.

His whole point was that if you’re telling people that eating maintenance is better than eating a calorific excess, you shouldn’t be giving advice.

42

[quote]Blaze_108 wrote:

[quote]atg410 wrote:

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

[quote]atg410 wrote:

I don’t really see anything wrong or shocking about what the trainer said. In fact, he’s probably dead on for 99% of people. Strength gains are largely a combination of skill, mental fortitude and NEURO-muscular adaptation. Gaining size helps with leverage and other factors but it isn’t the end all be all of strength gains. The vast majority of people could probably do better with a maintenance diet and consistent heavy lifting rather than any kind of “bulking” plan both in terms of strength gains and physique goals.

Do not delude yourself that the majority of your gains on a “bulk” will be muscular. Unless you are very consistent in the gym I would in fact doubt that a significant percent of new size would be muscular.

[/quote]

Wrong. The MINORITY will do well eating maintenance calories. The EXTREME MINORITY. Because its no secret why muscles grow, or get stronger, or why fat is lost. Energy. If you eat exactly the amount you burn you will stop making progress as soon as your neural adaptation maxes out (which should happen pretty quickly).

If someone DOESNT gain mostly muscle on a ‘bulk’, then guess what, they did it wrong. So please be quiet about this stuff because you dont know what youre tlaking about, regardless of what your posse says.

Your comment about being ‘very consistent in the gym’ says it all. Go back to lifting for 3 hours a week and shut up. That qualifier makes your post one of the worst I’ve seen on this board in a long time. Pathetic. [/quote]

I’m going to apologize in advance for the threadjack.

Bonez,

You give a lot of great advice on these forums, seriously, you are clearly knowledgable and experienced and your wisdom is frequently combined with wit which is always a plus.

That said, you didn’t actually disprove anything that I stated, but that’s cool, that’s why I largely avoid posting on this board. Do you really think that a majority of people “bulking up” make the kind of gains they want or anticipate? Yes, some people have a great amount of success with this strategy. That still doesn’t disprove anything I said.

Did I tell OP not to bulk? Did I tell OP to eat at maintenance calories? Did I ever imply that eating at maintenance does not involve increasing calories as energy demands increase? Did you just say that CONSISTENCY is a PROBLEM in the gym? So OP should bust ass some days and slack off others? I lift consistently. I lift at a consistently high intensity, I consistently make it to the gym when I plan to, I consistently hit the numbers and reps that I plan for.

Please use some critical reading skills next time and save the insults for someone who gives a shit.[/quote]

I’m not bonez, but his whole point in that reply was to say that, NO, they won’t do better on a maintenance diet. Do you even understand what that means? A maintenance diet means you’re consuming the exact number of calories you expend. NEWSBREAK: You need excess calories to build muscle. Demand for energy won’t increase unless you just burn more calories.

His whole point was that if you’re telling people that eating maintenance is better than eating a calorific excess, you shouldn’t be giving advice.[/quote]

I am just glad Bonez got to it first because if I had responded, he would have thrown more of a tantrum.

That is why you don’t get advice from jackasses who aren’t big and don’t even train to be. You shouldn’t have even needed to correct someone about that. Anyone that in the dark to think you make muscular gains by eating maintenance calories AND THEN speak down to everyone else after it as if we need to adjust our comprehension has some serious issues.

43

This is ridiculous, and I’m not even knowledgable on this stuff. But common sense tells me if I wanna get big, I need to eat big cause thats how I’m gonna build the muscle. With protein, and energy to process the protein - and enough energy to do everything else my body needs.

44

Sorry, still not disproving my points. Do YOU understand what eating at maintenance means in the context of progressive resistance training? If I’m constantly lifting more and heavier I will need to increase calories to support those energy demands. This is still eating at maintenance. Did I say anything about scale weight? You’re talking weight, I’m talking energy. Lets leave out the fact that this whole conversation started with a conflation of neuro-muscular strength adaptation and increasing size. They are not correlated. They are not linear.

Lets look at two examples.

guy 1 -
Works out 3 days a week at moderate intensity. He eats 2000 calories above those required to maintain his weight.

guy 2 -
Works out 5 days a week at high intensity, he constantly adds more exercise as his body adapts to the demands placed on it. He eats at or slightly above the caloric demand created by his energy expenditure.

Who do you think will look better in two years?

I never told OP not to eat a caloric surplus. I apologize if the word maintenance is confusing you, maybe “eat a homeostatic diet regulated by energy expenditure” would be more appropriate. Most people would be best served by eating at maintenance and driving up energy demands, increasing caloric intake to accommodate that demand. Note that I also said that if you want to gain weight, you must eat at a surplus. Which of those points would you like to disprove?

Anyway, this argument is all ready too subjective and is likely going to be a circular “I’m bigger than you so my opinion is righter” sort of thing, so I’m going to leave my defense at what I’ve written so far. If you don’t believe me, or think what I’ve written is without merrit, that’s cool, you keep doing your thing, I’ll keep doing mine. If we both bust ass I’m sure we’ll both be happy.

just my $.02

45

[quote]atg410 wrote:
Sorry, still not disproving my points. Do YOU understand what eating at maintenance means in the context of progressive resistance training? If I’m constantly lifting more and heavier I will need to increase calories to support those energy demands. This is still eating at maintenance. Did I say anything about scale weight? You’re talking weight, I’m talking energy. Lets leave out the fact that this whole conversation started with a conflation of neuro-muscular strength adaptation and increasing size. They are not correlated. They are not linear. [/quote]

Dude, just stop. You are just making it worse. Maintenance means calories taken at a level that maintains calories in vs calories out. Period. You can not change what the fucking definition means. If you aren’t taking in MORE calories than you need to function, you will not be gaining muscle at an optimal rate or at all past maybe during the initial few weeks of training as a beginner.

You are speaking to people who know this better than you and who don’t fall for bullshit that easily. Just fucking stop.

46

[quote]atg410 wrote:
Sorry, still not disproving my points. Do YOU understand what eating at maintenance means in the context of progressive resistance training? If I’m constantly lifting more and heavier I will need to increase calories to support those energy demands. This is still eating at maintenance. Did I say anything about scale weight? You’re talking weight, I’m talking energy. Lets leave out the fact that this whole conversation started with a conflation of neuro-muscular strength adaptation and increasing size. They are not correlated. They are not linear.

Lets look at two examples.

guy 1 -
Works out 3 days a week at moderate intensity. He eats 2000 calories above those required to maintain his weight.

guy 2 -
Works out 5 days a week at high intensity, he constantly adds more exercise as his body adapts to the demands placed on it. He eats at or slightly above the caloric demand created by his energy expenditure.

Who do you think will look better in two years?

I never told OP not to eat a caloric surplus. I apologize if the word maintenance is confusing you, maybe “eat a homeostatic diet regulated by energy expenditure” would be more appropriate. Most people would be best served by eating at maintenance and driving up energy demands, increasing caloric intake to accommodate that demand. Note that I also said that if you want to gain weight, you must eat at a surplus. Which of those points would you like to disprove?

Anyway, this argument is all ready too subjective and is likely going to be a circular “I’m bigger than you so my opinion is righter” sort of thing, so I’m going to leave my defense at what I’ve written so far. If you don’t believe me, or think what I’ve written is without merrit, that’s cool, you keep doing your thing, I’ll keep doing mine. If we both bust ass I’m sure we’ll both be happy.

just my $.02[/quote]

Enough. Eating slightly above the caloric demand is not maintenance. Go away, what youre doing is called “trolling”. Or do you want to redefine that word also?

47

paraphrasing:

“no guys but listen! If I wanna lift more and lift heavier then I need to eat to support the new strength gains with more food so thats my new maintenance right there! I’m ‘maintaining’ my strength and size gains. G’s guys… surprised you didnt know that”

lol

48

[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:

[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
I think most people her do not realize how tremendous 25 lbs of muscle is.[/quote]

Honestly one of the best statements in this thread, right here.

A 200 lb male with %10 body fat has 180 lbs of lean body mass. This includes water, bone, organs, skin, hair, teeth, etc. Of that, some small percentage is actually muscle, lets say for our purposes it’s 50 lbs. To gain 25 lbs of muscle means you’re increasing your total amount of muscle by %50, a tremendous increase. And then to say that you’ve done it in 5 months…

Or, to put it another way: Go to the store and grab twelve 2 lb containers of ground sirloin and start slabbing them on to you, that’s what 25 lbs of muscle would look like.[/quote]

Oh for the love of all things sacred. I’m talking about lean body mass. NOT pure muscle. How would I even KNOW if what I gained was 75% muscle on my most recent bulk? I’d have to know what my bones, teeth, tendons, & organs weigh. I’m not sure how much clearer I can be on the issue. Regardless, to imply that when I gained 25 lbs. of lbm that only a half pound of it was muscle is ridiculous.

49

[quote]gregron wrote:
paraphrasing:

“no guys but listen! If I wanna lift more and lift heavier then I need to eat to support the new strength gains with more food so thats my new maintenance right there! I’m ‘maintaining’ my strength and size gains. G’s guys… surprised you didnt know that”

lol
[/quote]

LOL “If I take in maintenance level calories and then somehow gain LBM through dark magic I’ll have to increase my calories taken in even though I was only at maintenance and couldn’t have gained any muscle without using a voodoo doll of some sort”

50

I think that what the guy told you is right. But i sure think that the body is not linear.

In the past, naturaly, i gained 20pounds in 2month, bodyfat lv went lower( 11% to 10,5%)(170 to 190). Believe me or not, i dont care. I was really focus, i gained near 100 pounds on my squat (first time 315pounds) and maybe 40 or 50 on the bench. I eated like a freak, 7 meals a day, 2liters of milk a day etc. But, after those fast gain, i was so pumped up. I’ll be 210 very fast if it goes at the same rate but no… I did the same thing for 3 month after that with no gain at all. And now, it’s been 2 years since that and i gained like 10 pounds… I’m not more lazyer than before…

Anyway, i told the story for you to see that maybe you did great for 5 months, but maybe you’ll have a big plateau after that. Let say, if we can gain 10 pounds of muscle a year, maybe we can gain those in 3 month and gain nothing for the rest of the year. THib said something similar in the past too anyway.

Sorry, english is not my first language. Hope you all understand:)

51

find some before and after shots of pros who have put on 25 lbs LBM, it’s crazy.

if i looked into the future and found out that in 5 years i’ll have added 50 pounds of LBM to my body, i’d be so fucking happy.

lets be realistic here, you dont grow over night and it takes a lot of time to put on substantial amounts of muscle. if we grew like some people claim, everybody would be a 300 pound freak in a few years…ain’t happening especially natty.

slow consistent gains added up over years equals some big gains…this isnt a sprint, and most people who treat it as such get fat while and remain weak.

52

[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
find some before and after shots of pros who have put on 25 lbs LBM, it’s crazy.

if i looked into the future and found out that in 5 years i’ll have added 50 pounds of LBM to my body, i’d be so fucking happy.

lets be realistic here, you dont grow over night and it takes a lot of time to put on substantial amounts of muscle. if we grew like some people claim, everybody would be a 300 pound freak in a few years…ain’t happening especially natty.

slow consistent gains added up over years equals some big gains…this isnt a sprint, and most people who treat it as such get fat while and remain weak.[/quote]

Why do you think anyone here is clueless about what that much lean body mass looks like? How many times has the OP written that he is talking about total weight gain?

I don’t have to look at pictures of pros. I have gained way more than that in lean body mass so no, this is not some foreign concept. I was measured at 11% body fat at 150lbs when I first started (caliper test at Bally’s). That comes out to far more than just 50lbs of lean body mass gained.

No one here has written that he is expecting all weight gain to be 100% dry weight in muscle.

I am sure no one is expecting someone on the level of a pro bodybuilder to pack on mass as fast as someone with decent genetics but at a much earlier stage of their training life…which is what you seem to be implying by even telling people to look at pros for this.

At that stage, a 5lbs gain in a year is good progress…BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY FUCKING HUGE.

53

I didn’t read a post in this thread, besides a brief scan of the OPs original post.

However, being on TNation long enough I can assume what was written on the previous pages.

And people think wayyyyyy too much, and that’s why the majority of posters won’t make it anywhere.

These arguments are so dumb, like who cares what someone tells you. Does every little sentence that is spoken to you make or break what you can and can’t do in life. Someone says something stupid to me, I completely ignore what they have to say and continue on with life.

Instead we have these debates that don’t get anywhere and hence I don’t read them (for the most part).

Furthermore, just giving out some general advice in the above post, the simple way to do things, yet the most effective…Just coast.

54

[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
I didn’t read a post in this thread, besides a brief scan of the OPs original post.

However, being on TNation long enough I can assume what was written on the previous pages.

And people think wayyyyyy too much, and that’s why the majority of posters won’t make it anywhere.

These arguments are so dumb, like who cares what someone tells you. Does every little sentence that is spoken to you make or break what you can and can’t do in life. Someone says something stupid to me, I completely ignore what they have to say and continue on with life.

Instead we have these debates that don’t get anywhere and hence I don’t read them (for the most part).

Furthermore, just giving out some general advice in the above post, the simple way to do things, yet the most effective…Just coast.[/quote]

If you didn’t read the fucking thread, why do you think your advice is needed?

It wasn’t. It came across like you didn’t read the fucking thread.

Newsflash, some of us do know what the hell we are talking about and some of us have made way more progress than most even give credit for.

Last I checked, there are very few people here who have gained about 100lbs of lean body mass since they started without still growing in height…yet the people who have clearly did it wrong.

I bulked up. I NEVER assumed that all of it was going to be muscle mass gained. I knew from the start that I had to gain the size first before cutting it back down.

Most of you won’t gain as much because you are way too hung up yourselves on whether you are ONLY gaining muscle mass instead of working with your own body’s genetics that may or may NOT be designed to stay extremely lean while gaining optimally.

How about you think about that last paragraph for a second before trying to take the rest of us to school.

55

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Most of you won’t gain as much because you are way too hung up yourselves on whether you are ONLY gaining muscle mass instead of working with your own body’s genetics that may or may NOT be designed to stay extremely lean while gaining optimally.

[/quote]

THIS. A million times over, this.

56

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
I didn’t read a post in this thread, besides a brief scan of the OPs original post.

However, being on TNation long enough I can assume what was written on the previous pages.

And people think wayyyyyy too much, and that’s why the majority of posters won’t make it anywhere.

These arguments are so dumb, like who cares what someone tells you. Does every little sentence that is spoken to you make or break what you can and can’t do in life. Someone says something stupid to me, I completely ignore what they have to say and continue on with life.

Instead we have these debates that don’t get anywhere and hence I don’t read them (for the most part).

Furthermore, just giving out some general advice in the above post, the simple way to do things, yet the most effective…Just coast.[/quote]

If you didn’t read the fucking thread, why do you think your advice is needed?

It wasn’t. It came across like you didn’t read the fucking thread.

Newsflash, some of us do know what the hell we are talking about and some of us have made way more progress than most even give credit for.

Last I checked, there are very few people here who have gained about 100lbs of lean body mass since they started without still growing in height…yet the people who have clearly did it wrong.

I bulked up. I NEVER assumed that all of it was going to be muscle mass gained. I knew from the start that I had to gain the size first before cutting it back down.

Most of you won’t gain as much because you are way too hung up yourselves on whether you are ONLY gaining muscle mass instead of working with your own body’s genetics that may or may NOT be designed to stay extremely lean while gaining optimally.

How about you think about that last paragraph for a second before trying to take the rest of us to school.[/quote]

Yeah, I didn’t read this.

57

let’s take an example,
5’10"x210lb,10%bodyfat,5 years of training,good genetic but not alien,not juiced.
he eats about 2000kl pro day/200 gr of protein alias 2.3 gr of protein per kilo of own lean body mass (190lb/85kg).

More than 2 gr of protein are a waste of time/money (IF not juiced because of bigger proteins synthesis; so I was told for years from sport doctors/professors of rugby/water polo/american football teams.
I agree 110% that a bigger amount of complex carboidrates (PASTA) causes more energy and more strenght to lift big weights but my question is “why eat 5 gr of protein per kilo if my body can use just 2 gr to build new muscle?”

i’m not saying to eat just the kalories of your BMR because you have to work , live and train but if you cover entirely your BMR plus phisical activities (training to failure) AND you still eat enough protein you continue to gain up your genetical limits.
so,again, just you are the judge; eat enough to gain new muscles but reduce the amount of kl if your belt becomes too tight.
“bulking” for me means " give to yourself enough macronutrients to repair muscle damnages" , qty of macronutrients depends from your genetic,intensity of training and chemical supports (if any).

and I think that just 20lb of pure muscle gain are a drastic look/strenght change; take a 20lb piece of cow beef, is it big?,cut it in thin strips and just spread it with tape on your body=this is a real 20lb muscle gain!

said this,genetic rules but a 5lb gain per year (no beginners) is a good gain IMO.

Mike from Italy

58

let’s take an example,
5’10"x210lb,10%bodyfat,5 years of training,good genetic but not alien,not juiced.
he eats about 2000kl pro day/200 gr of protein alias 2.3 gr of protein per kilo of own lean body mass (190lb/85kg).

More than 2 gr of protein are a waste of time/money (IF not juiced because of bigger proteins synthesis; so I was told for years from sport doctors/professors of rugby/water polo/american football teams.
I agree 110% that a bigger amount of complex carboidrates (PASTA) causes more energy and more strenght to lift big weights but my question is “why eat 5 gr of protein per kilo if my body can use just 2 gr to build new muscle?”

i’m not saying to eat just the kalories of your BMR because you have to work , live and train but if you cover entirely your BMR plus phisical activities (training to failure) AND you still eat enough protein you continue to gain up your genetical limits.
so,again, just you are the judge; eat enough to gain new muscles but reduce the amount of kl if your belt becomes too tight.

and I think that just 20lb of pure muscle gain are a drastic look/strenght change; take a 20lb piece of cow beef, is it big?,cut it in thin strips and just spread it with tape on your body=this is a real 20lb muscle gain!

said this,genetic rules but a 5lb gain per year (no beginners) is a good gain IMO.

Mike from Italy

59

[quote]buzza wrote:
let’s take an example,
5’10"x210lb,10%bodyfat,5 years of training,good genetic but not alien,not juiced.
he eats about 2000kl pro day/200 gr of protein alias 2.3 gr of protein per kilo of own lean body mass (190lb/85kg).
More than 2 gr of protein are a waste of time/money (IF not juiced because of bigger proteins synthesis; so I was told for years from sport doctors/professors of rugby/water polo/american football teams.
I agree 110% that a bigger amount of complex carboidrates (PASTA) causes more energy and more strenght to lift big weights but my question is “why eat 5 gr of protein per kilo if my body can use just 2 gr to build new muscle?”
i’m not saying to eat just the kalories of your BMR because you have to work , live and train but if you cover entirely your BMR plus phisical activities (training to failure) AND you still eat enough protein you continue to gain up your genetical limits.
so,again, just you are the judge; eat enough to gain new muscles but reduce the amount of kl if your belt becomes too tight.

and I think that just 20lb of pure muscle gain are a drastic look/strenght change; take a 20lb piece of cow beef, is it big?,cut it in thin strips and just spread it with tape on your body=this is a real 20lb muscle gain!

said this,genetic rules but a 5lb gain per year (no beginners) is a good gain IMO.

Mike from Italy
[/quote]

I don’t really know why you brought nutrition into this, as that wasn’t the focus of the discussion. Also, I am not going to take a 20lb cut of beef and cut it into strips and tape it to my body to see what that much muscle gain would look like. That’s kinda fucked up. lol.

60

[quote]buzza wrote:
let’s take an example,
5’10"x210lb,10%bodyfat,5 years of training,good genetic but not alien,not juiced.
he eats about 2000kl pro day/200 gr of protein alias 2.3 gr of protein per kilo of own lean body mass (190lb/85kg).

More than 2 gr of protein are a waste of time/money (IF not juiced because of bigger proteins synthesis; so I was told for years from sport doctors/professors of rugby/water polo/american football teams.
I agree 110% that a bigger amount of complex carboidrates (PASTA) causes more energy and more strenght to lift big weights but my question is “why eat 5 gr of protein per kilo if my body can use just 2 gr to build new muscle?”

i’m not saying to eat just the kalories of your BMR because you have to work , live and train but if you cover entirely your BMR plus phisical activities (training to failure) AND you still eat enough protein you continue to gain up your genetical limits.
so,again, just you are the judge; eat enough to gain new muscles but reduce the amount of kl if your belt becomes too tight.

and I think that just 20lb of pure muscle gain are a drastic look/strenght change; take a 20lb piece of cow beef, is it big?,cut it in thin strips and just spread it with tape on your body=this is a real 20lb muscle gain!

said this,genetic rules but a 5lb gain per year (no beginners) is a good gain IMO.

Mike from Italy
[/quote]

?

Unless you have been training seriously for more than half a decade and already gotten big, claiming that 5lbs of muscle is a good job is retarded.

If you gain that slowly, you are not cut out for this and should stick to “fitness training”.

Newbs are reading this shit and that is why they aren’t growing. I went from 150 to close to 200lbs in my first two years of serious training. Was EVERY SINGLE OUNCE of it muscle? No. That is also a fucking unrealistic goal to even think it should be.

I know what I looked like after five years of training. I know what I looked like at 210lbs and most of the people here aren’t doing that.

If you don’t have the genetics for this at all, stop using your results as a standard for everyone else.