[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?