[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
sarah1 wrote:
CT, you have mentioned many times that it is only possible under the best circumstances for a female athlete to gain maybe 1-2 lbs of muslce a month.
I was wondering if that means training more and eating more does not work to speed up gains - do you mean that the body can only synthesize so much food and increasing training and food will still lead to unnecessary fat since you exceed your body’s ability to use nutrients for muscle growth??
I like to train but it makes me super hungry…I’m wondering if I should be forcing myself to workout less (right now I do a schedule of pretty intense full body in 1 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off, repeat)…
You might have misinterpreted what I said, or I may have explained myself poorly.
The 1-2lbs/month figure is not linear. Meaning that it doesn’t mean that it is IMPOSSIBLE to gain more than that in a month. Rather it is based on a monthly average of the maximum that can be achieved by a non-beginner in a year.
Under the best circumstances gaining around 12-20lbs of muscle per year is the utmost amount that one can achieve if he is not a beginner. And it is likely to be less than that, especially for a woman. So that comes up to an average of 1-2lbs per month. Some months you may gain more, some months your may gain less.
Understand that some people have a very screwed up idea of how much 20lbs of muscle really is. This is because of the whole ‘‘lean body mass’’ concept.
For example, if you are 120lbs with 10% body fat it means that you have 12lbs of fat and 108lbs of lean body mass.
However lean body mass doesn’t mean muscle mass. Lean body mass means everything in your body that itsn’t fat. This includes, muscle, water, bones, organs, skin, etc.
In reality muscle mass is equal to around 50% of your lean body mass. So if your LBM is 100lbs in reality you have around 50lbs of muscle.
Gaining 20lbs of muscle is thus an EXTREME gain compared to your current state!
Also understand that this 12-20lbs gain in muscle mass is actually dry muscle weight. In reality the scale weight will be greater because for each pound of muscle you add, you also add around 0.5lbs of water.
Now, back to your question…
You can’t force feed your body into adding more muscle. HOWEVER if you do not eat enough food/nutrients you will NLOT grow optimally. You NEED to consume an energy surplus and a godo amount of protein to grow muscle.
Eating big to get big is simply a way to ensure that you will not be lacking in the nutrients and energy department. However, once you get past the limit amount of nutrients that your body can use for fuel and growth, then it will not contribute to any more growth.
As for training… nobody has ever built an ounce of muscle in the gym… never happened, never will! You build muscle when you recover from your workouts. The sessions theselves are only the signal for the body to initiate the growth process.
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Thanks CT. That makes a lot of sense.