Rate of Muscle Gain

CT, I am not sure if your stance has changed but, if I recall correctly you have stated that 2 lbs of lean muscle per month is max for most trainees. Do you still believe this? Does certain training and peri-wo nutrition change this? or is it that getting everything right allows you to get the 2 lbs.

I ask because at the moment I take no supplements and have some extra money. I was wondering if adding things like MAG-10 and nailing peri-workout nutrition can speed up muscle gains.

From what I’ve read for -most- people 2lbs is that maximum.

You can likely get that 2lbs without super-charged peri-workout nutrition but 1) going the extra mile in your nutrition will get you closer 2) you can probably build muscle at a better muscle:fat gain ratio using strong workout nutrition.

Then there’s also factors that while not directly influenced by the nutrition itself can still play a role. ie, spending money on your supplementation forces you into training harder (you spent money after all!), better recovery has a chain-like effect so you can go into the next work out feeling good (and so 4 weeks down the road you’re not completely beat up).

i’m coming to the end of my first year of ‘proper’ lifting now (started in February and have had a solid 2 months OFF gym June/July), by ‘proper’ lifting i basically mean eating properly! lol. so after about 6 months of training, and a 2month layoff in the middle (ouch!) i’m 23lbs heavier, and my fat mass has remained within 1lb of what it was before (flutuates +/- lb) so i guess i’ve gained approx 4lb per month across the 6month, but i lost 3-4lb and gained some fat on the 2 month lay off so i guess i could have been closer to gaining 26-27lb, or a be lot leaner!

if you are a beginner, or even a fresh intermediate, you can comfortably gain more than 2lb a month. ESPECIALLY if your willing to make sure your nutrition is in check and you follow a great workout like the layer system.

[quote]lboro21 wrote:
i’m coming to the end of my first year of ‘proper’ lifting now (started in February and have had a solid 2 months OFF gym June/July), by ‘proper’ lifting i basically mean eating properly! lol. so after about 6 months of training, and a 2month layoff in the middle (ouch!) i’m 23lbs heavier, and my fat mass has remained within 1lb of what it was before (flutuates +/- lb) so i guess i’ve gained approx 4lb per month across the 6month, but i lost 3-4lb and gained some fat on the 2 month lay off so i guess i could have been closer to gaining 26-27lb, or a be lot leaner!

if you are a beginner, or even a fresh intermediate, you can comfortably gain more than 2lb a month. ESPECIALLY if your willing to make sure your nutrition is in check and you follow a great workout like the layer system.

[/quote]

I would agree with this. I’m an intermediate with a track record of not lifting consistently and/or my diet only being about 60-70% there. After I spent 7 months dropping fat, I’ve turned the tables on muscle gain and in 2 months I put on ~7-8lbs of lean mass and ~2 lbs of fat.

The following is based on my opinion and reviews of 1000’s of articles and discussions regarding this topic. I have very little doubt each person’s body has a genetic “happy zone” of muscle potential. I would hypothesize that your body is able to put on lean mass at a greater rate than 2 lbs a month IF you are not in that happy zone. Once you reach that happy zone, 2 lbs a month max (if you are lucky) seems about right.

Thoughts?

I’d probably shoot for one pound per month so you don’t have to cut after wards.

The 2lbs per month of muscle is based on the amount of muscle gained per year then averaged out per month.

Honestly, except for:

  1. beginner gains
  2. regained muscle after an injury, illness or other situation that led to stopping training and losing muscle
  3. rebound after a long period of almost starvation dieting
  4. genetic freaks

Few people will be able to gain more than 24lbs of muscle tissue in a year. You can gain more than 24lbs… but some of it will be:

  • fat
  • increased glycogen storage
  • increased water retention

The thing is that most people tend to overestimate the amount of muscle they gain and underestimate the amount of fat, glycogen and water they gain.

Can you gain more than 2lbs in a month? Certainly! But if you average out your MUSCLE gain over a year you will not be much above 2lbs/month even in a formidable growth year.

You might gain 10lbs in a month, but at the end of the year you probably will still be short of 24lbs of muscle.

People do not realize how much muscle 24lbs is… THAT’S A HUGE AMOUNT OF MUSCLE GROWTH. Someone who gains a true 24lbs of pure muscle tissue will look like a completely different human being.

So “only” 2lbs of muscle in a month is A LOT.

For example John Meadows came in 12-15lbs heavier in contest shape last year than the year before and shocked the bodybuilding world.

The year Ronnie Coleman went from a 3rd tier bodybuilder (placing around 12-15 at the olympia) to the best in the world (in one year) he went from a competitive weight of 225 to a competitive weight of 245… a 20lbs gain and people freaked out.

In 1993 Dorian Yates had the bodybuilding world buzzing about him having found a secret drug… people could not believe how much muscle he added… and he went from a contest weight of 242 to a contest weight of 257… so a gain of 15lbs.

So adding 24lbs of ONLY MUSCLE in a year is a VERY large accomplishment.

Now, will proper peri-workout make you gain muscle faster? Definetly… no doubt about it. But it’s impossible to quatitfy it precisely.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
The 2lbs per month of muscle is based on the amount of muscle gained per year then averaged out per month.

Honestly, except for:

  1. beginner gains
  2. regained muscle after an injury, illness or other situation that led to stopping training and losing muscle
  3. rebound after a long period of almost starvation dieting
  4. genetic freaks

Few people will be able to gain more than 24lbs of muscle tissue in a year. You can gain more than 24lbs… but some of it will be:

  • fat
  • increased glycogen storage
  • increased water retention

The thing is that most people tend to overestimate the amount of muscle they gain and underestimate the amount of fat, glycogen and water they gain.

Can you gain more than 2lbs in a month? Certainly! But if you average out your MUSCLE gain over a year you will not be much above 2lbs/month even in a formidable growth year.

You might gain 10lbs in a month, but at the end of the year you probably will still be short of 24lbs of muscle.

People do not realize how much muscle 24lbs is… THAT’S A HUGE AMOUNT OF MUSCLE GROWTH. Someone who gains a true 24lbs of pure muscle tissue will look like a completely different human being.

So “only” 2lbs of muscle in a month is A LOT.

For example John Meadows came in 12-15lbs heavier in contest shape last year than the year before and shocked the bodybuilding world.

The year Ronnie Coleman went from a 3rd tier bodybuilder (placing around 12-15 at the olympia) to the best in the world (in one year) he went from a competitive weight of 225 to a competitive weight of 245… a 20lbs gain and people freaked out.

In 1993 Dorian Yates had the bodybuilding world buzzing about him having found a secret drug… people could not believe how much muscle he added… and he went from a contest weight of 242 to a contest weight of 257… so a gain of 15lbs.

So adding 24lbs of ONLY MUSCLE in a year is a VERY large accomplishment.

Now, will proper peri-workout make you gain muscle faster? Definetly… no doubt about it. But it’s impossible to quatitfy it precisely.[/quote]

Very interesting. So, it may be true that certain trainees gain 10 lbs in 3 months but, by the end of the year it will most likely avg. out to 24 lbs barring outliers.

Do you have an idea/rough numbers of what would be considered a beginner trainee lifting weights.

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:

Very interesting. So, it may be true that certain trainees gain 10 lbs in 3 months but, by the end of the year it will most likely avg. out to 24 lbs barring outliers.

Do you have an idea/rough numbers of what would be considered a beginner trainee lifting weights.[/quote]

I’m not saying that everybody can and will gain 24lbs of muscle in a year… heck… if you do that for 5 years and you start out at 185 you’ll be a lean 310 and we know how few or those there are around!

What I’m saying is that 24lbs of pure muscle tissue in a year is pretty much the upper limit that someone can hope to achieve if he does everything right. And I’m also saying that 24lbs of muscle will make you look like a totally different human being.

Of course I’ve seen people gain a lot more weight than 24lbs in a year… heck I once gained 27lbs in 6 hours from binging!!! But 24lbs of pure muscle tissue is about the most I’ve seen in a non drug-using individual. I’m sure that there are exceptions, people who gained more than that, but the chance that you (or I) are an exception is one in a few millions.

I’ve seen very rapid gains in weight over a short period of time. I experienced it myself… I once gained about 28lbs in 2 or 3 months. 15 of which were probably muscle, the rest being water weight (inside the muscle or subcutaneous), increased glycogen and some fat. But over the whole year I never reached 24lbs of dry muscle weight.

Muscle growth is not linear… it is much more common to see someone gain 10lbs in two months, then maybe 1 or 2 lbs over the next 5 months than 8lbs over two months and nothing for the rest of the year for a total of 19-20lbs over the whole year than to see someone gain about 2lbs every single month… the body works in spurts.

Which is why sometimes claims might seem like lies… for example someone claiming a 15lbs gain of muscle mass naturally in 2 months might seem like a lie… but it is actually quite possible and not that uncommon… however chances are that over the whole 12 months he will not be much higher than those 15lbs.

As for beginner gains, impossible to say as this is highly individualized. But even in beginners, a 24lbs gain in pure muscle mass (which would translate in a 30-35lbs increase in scale weight even without gaining fat simply due to added glycogen and water retention) is pretty high.

Heck, if a beginner starts out at 150lbs and added 24lbs of pure muscle, that will be about 30-35lbs of lean mass… if he adds some fat with that (which is normal for someone adding that much muscle) then that would mean going from 150lbs to 195lbs in a year… now many people do you know actually accomplished that?

But the point I want to make, and the take home message that I want people to remember is that they’ve got a really screwed up perception.

If you add 20lbs of actual muscle tissue to your frame, your mother will have a hard time recognizing you! You will look like a totally different human being.

The problem is that what most people think is “20lbs of muscle” is normally 10lbs of muscle, 4lbs of water/glycogen and 6lbs of fat (or maybe even 6-4-10).

But if you are able to add a true 20lbs of muscle to your frame (which would mean about a 30lbs increase in scale weight if you have ZERO fat gain or a 35-40lbs increase in scale weight if you have a normal fat gain for that amount of muscle mass) people will freak out when they will see you.

Awesome information CT thanks.

I think what xxseraphimxx was asking is, at what point are you not considered a beginner? 2 x BW squat, 1.5 x BW bench, ETC.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
The 2lbs per month of muscle is based on the amount of muscle gained per year then averaged out per month.

Honestly, except for:

  1. beginner gains
  2. regained muscle after an injury, illness or other situation that led to stopping training and losing muscle
  3. rebound after a long period of almost starvation dieting
  4. genetic freaks

Few people will be able to gain more than 24lbs of muscle tissue in a year. You can gain more than 24lbs… but some of it will be:

  • fat
  • increased glycogen storage
  • increased water retention

The thing is that most people tend to overestimate the amount of muscle they gain and underestimate the amount of fat, glycogen and water they gain.

Can you gain more than 2lbs in a month? Certainly! But if you average out your MUSCLE gain over a year you will not be much above 2lbs/month even in a formidable growth year.

You might gain 10lbs in a month, but at the end of the year you probably will still be short of 24lbs of muscle.

People do not realize how much muscle 24lbs is… THAT’S A HUGE AMOUNT OF MUSCLE GROWTH. Someone who gains a true 24lbs of pure muscle tissue will look like a completely different human being.

So “only” 2lbs of muscle in a month is A LOT.

For example John Meadows came in 12-15lbs heavier in contest shape last year than the year before and shocked the bodybuilding world.

The year Ronnie Coleman went from a 3rd tier bodybuilder (placing around 12-15 at the olympia) to the best in the world (in one year) he went from a competitive weight of 225 to a competitive weight of 245… a 20lbs gain and people freaked out.

In 1993 Dorian Yates had the bodybuilding world buzzing about him having found a secret drug… people could not believe how much muscle he added… and he went from a contest weight of 242 to a contest weight of 257… so a gain of 15lbs.

So adding 24lbs of ONLY MUSCLE in a year is a VERY large accomplishment.

Now, will proper peri-workout make you gain muscle faster? Definetly… no doubt about it. But it’s impossible to quatitfy it precisely.[/quote]

This post should be the first thing any new member sees. After you sign up, you should be immediately directed to this post. And every other member that’s been here for years should get it in an email!

Half the crappy threads would seize to exist :slight_smile:

excellent post. reality is reality.

CT, Such a big gain of pure muscle weight should also be accompained by an even more impressive gain in stremght right?

when building muscle, are you adding muscle fibers?
or increasing the size of existing ones?

[quote]domcib wrote:
when building muscle, are you adding muscle fibers?
or increasing the size of existing ones?
[/quote]

Both are possible (hyperplasia and hypertrophy) but hyperplasias (adding fibers) is extremely rare. Hypertrophy (making the existing fibers bigger) accounts for the vast vast majority of the size gains.

[quote]Leo Solis wrote:
CT, Such a big gain of pure muscle weight should also be accompained by an even more impressive gain in stremght right?[/quote]

If you train for strength/performance, yes. Gains in strength and muscle mass are often related. But it is possible to gain size without getting stronger (by using occlusion training and focusing on the release of growth factors for example) and it is also possible to get stronger without gaining muscle (focusing on a more efficient nervous system).

Depending on how you train your strength gains could be much larger than your size gains (in proportion) or much smaller.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]domcib wrote:
when building muscle, are you adding muscle fibers?
or increasing the size of existing ones?
[/quote]

Both are possible (hyperplasia and hypertrophy) but hyperplasias (adding fibers) is extremely rare. Hypertrophy (making the existing fibers bigger) accounts for the vast vast majority of the size gains.[/quote]

I have heard that Olympic Speed Skaters experience some of the highest hyperplastic growth rates in tested athletes… is this due to explosive nature and rigors of the sport or is this just nonsense I am hearing?

[quote]Ricochet wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]domcib wrote:
when building muscle, are you adding muscle fibers?
or increasing the size of existing ones?
[/quote]

Both are possible (hyperplasia and hypertrophy) but hyperplasias (adding fibers) is extremely rare. Hypertrophy (making the existing fibers bigger) accounts for the vast vast majority of the size gains.[/quote]

I have heard that Olympic Speed Skaters experience some of the highest hyperplastic growth rates in tested athletes… is this due to explosive nature and rigors of the sport or is this just nonsense I am hearing?[/quote]

It’s actually due more to the hypoxic state that they function in (the legs are basically constantly under tension and performing work in that state)… speed skaters actually do slower, long strides, not really explosive movements.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]Ricochet wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]domcib wrote:
when building muscle, are you adding muscle fibers?
or increasing the size of existing ones?
[/quote]

Both are possible (hyperplasia and hypertrophy) but hyperplasias (adding fibers) is extremely rare. Hypertrophy (making the existing fibers bigger) accounts for the vast vast majority of the size gains.[/quote]

I have heard that Olympic Speed Skaters experience some of the highest hyperplastic growth rates in tested athletes… is this due to explosive nature and rigors of the sport or is this just nonsense I am hearing?[/quote]

It’s actually due more to the hypoxic state that they function in (the legs are basically constantly under tension and performing work in that state)… speed skaters actually do slower, long strides, not really explosive movements.[/quote]

I wonder what we can learn from that. You introduced a very interesting training program at one time; a wrestler doing one set of squats with 135lbs and working up to 8 minutes of continuous reps. Would that be similar to what these skaters are doing?

[quote]IamMarqaos wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]Ricochet wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]domcib wrote:
when building muscle, are you adding muscle fibers?
or increasing the size of existing ones?
[/quote]

Both are possible (hyperplasia and hypertrophy) but hyperplasias (adding fibers) is extremely rare. Hypertrophy (making the existing fibers bigger) accounts for the vast vast majority of the size gains.[/quote]

I have heard that Olympic Speed Skaters experience some of the highest hyperplastic growth rates in tested athletes… is this due to explosive nature and rigors of the sport or is this just nonsense I am hearing?[/quote]

It’s actually due more to the hypoxic state that they function in (the legs are basically constantly under tension and performing work in that state)… speed skaters actually do slower, long strides, not really explosive movements.[/quote]

I wonder what we can learn from that. You introduced a very interesting training program at one time; a wrestler doing one set of squats with 135lbs and working up to 8 minutes of continuous reps. Would that be similar to what these skaters are doing?[/quote]

Yes it would… also not unlike what speed cyclists are doing