Muscle mass gain

TikTak

TikTak

New member
Does anybody know how much muscle mass a previously untrained male can put on in the first month of weight training?
 
I do 3 1hr sessions a week of strengthening training, and have put 1lbs of muscle on. I was told that this is what a healthy progression is.

So, depending on the types and amount of exercising you're doing, you should expect to gain 1lbs of muscle in a month! :)

But I'm no expert!! you can always find it out by doing you're %body fat!
 
Thank you Tik!

I have done some research and the best answear to my question that I have found so far is 1 pound per week, so that would be 4 lbs (2 kg) per month? But I'm still wondering...
 
I think you may go as high as 2 lbs a week for the first couple weeks, depending on how much you're eating, how heavy you're lifting, and how lucky you were in the genetic lottery ;)

I wouldn't expect it, but I've heard that .5 a week for a trained individual is normal.

The only exceptions to this are generally people who were formerly really strong and then lost a lot of muscle (like over 20 lbs or more) for some reason. They can put it back on really quickly.

Steroid users can also put it on more quickly, but I wouldn't recommend it :)

If you're trying to figure out calories, I'd say maybe you want to be in a spot where you're gaining 1-2 lbs a week at first. Gives you the fuel to take advantage of your beginner gains.

I'd honestly be impressed if you could put on more than 5 lbs in a month - but I wouldn't say it's impossible :)
 
Thank you Jeanette!

I was just wondering if it could make a difference on the weight. If those numbers are true it definitely could.
 
Yeah, the tricky thing is that you're not going to gain a lot of muscle unless you're eating enough calories to support it. You may gain some if you're eating at a deficit and are under trained, but you're probably not going to see a lb a week of muscle gain while burning off more calories than you eat.

Your body is not overly fond of burning fat for the sole purpose of adding muscle. It likes to wait until you have some calories to spare - which is why you'll see weight lifters/body builders do a bulk cycle followed by a cut cycle, i.e. they'll eat lots of calories to gain muscle, and then cut way back on calories to burn off the fat that came along with their muscle gain.
 
I think it is a myth that you can't build any muscle mass while being in caloric deficit. I think as long as you have a large amount of body fat to burn and are eating your proteins, the body don't mind building some muscle if it "has to". I don't think that it makes a difference if some fuel is taken from the large fat reserves. For body builders it is of course a different story since they usually don't have any big fat reserves for fuel in the first place and therefore would need to burn muscle mass if they ever were in caloric deficit.
 
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I don't think it's impossible - I just don't think you'll gain as much as if you were eating in surplus. I've noticed this in myself - when I'm gaining weight, I gain more muscle than when I'm staying stable, even if I'm doing the same workouts.

The body doesn't mind building muscle if it has to, but it's more enthusiastic if it's getting surplus fuels :)
 
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