how much muscle can you put on?
The new year is here, and with that, many people have made their New Year Resolution to prioritize their health and start resistance training…maybe that includes you too. Whether you have trained in the past and are getting back into it or it is your first venture into weight training, the new year brings many opportunities to start fresh and fuel your motivation to change your life for the better.
I always tell my clients that their fitness journey is a marathon, not a sprint…results don’t come overnight, but rather over the course of months and years. Perhaps this is a reason so many fall off of their resolutions so early in the year, we tend to get discouraged if we don’t see results quickly, but it is important to understand that small changes over long periods of time will end with great progress. So…how soon can you expect to see results? And what kind of results can you expect?
A recent study suggests that an increase in lean muscle mass can occur in as little as 4 weeks, where muscle groups were worked 2 times per week. Out of the 13 test subjects, 10 showed an increase in lean mass. It is important to note that their unflexed size had not changed, BUT the lean muscle was added nonetheless.
What kind of results can you expect? There are many factors that impact how much muscle mass we put on, some of which are out of our control, such as our genetics, our age, our environment. Another factor is our training age, or how many years we have been training. As our training age goes up, the amount of muscle we can put on goes down. I typically reference Lyle Macdonald’s model for muscular potential, which gives a good general sense of what to expect:
As men and women put on muscle at different rates, women would be around half the values listed above. There are so many things out of our control that affect our muscle building abilities…but what factors can you control? Remaining consistent, celebrating the small wins, proper nutrition, and a well structured workout program.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28321637/
https://bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/genetic-muscular-potential
