cut and paste by christian finn
If you're trying to figure out how much muscle you can expect to gain over the course of a year, the simple answer is that there is no simple answer.
There are so many factors influencing your progress. Not many people can do nothing but go to the gym, eat and sleep for a whole year.
Holidays, illness and injury all get in the way. Your partner complains that you go to the gym too often and demands that you spend more "quality time" together. You work late for a few nights and decide to skip training for a week, vowing to "start fresh" on Monday.
All of these things can slow your progress by weeks — maybe even months.
In other words, a "perfect" year of training and eating is rare. That's why I think it's a better idea to set your goals over a much shorter period. Six weeks should be long enough for you to see measurable results.
The "average" male — if there is such a thing — with a year or two of training behind them can expect to gain roughly 2-4% of their initial weight after six weeks of regular resistance exercise. Gains in the "average" female are approximately half those seen in males.
