I was Googling this today,
since I have been going to the gym frequently for the past 6 weeks or so.
I understand of course that building muscle is a slow process that takes patience and perseverance.
Here is an article on StrongLifts.com reposted below:
How Much Muscle Can You Gain in 1 Month Naturally
Oct 4th, 2010 by Mehdi |
Last Friday I explained why losing fat is easy. Today: how much muscle can you gain in 1 month naturally?
Before I give you the answer, understand my question. When I ask how much MUSCLE you can gain, I’m not asking how much WEIGHT you can gain. That means I’m not taking into account…
- Fat gains
- Bone gains
- Water weight
- and whatever else
My question is how much PURE muscle gain you can gain in 1 month naturally. All the research says 2lb per month on average. Or 25lb per year if you use an effective training program supported by the right diet. Obviously, your age, genetics, bodytype, training experience, and work ethic will affect your gains.
If you thought you could gain more muscle, you need to stop reading those muscle magazines with their pictures of 260lb drug-using bodybuilders. The average amount of lean muscle you can gain naturally is 2lb/month. And keep in mind that the stronger you get, the harder it is to add muscle to your frame.
This 2lb/month explains why you can NEVER look like those guys on the cover of muscle magazines within 3 months. Aside from the fact that those pictures are photoshopped, muscle growth takes time. Those cover guys train since years and often take drugs – you can’t look like them in 3 months. Watch the documentary “Bigger, Stronger, Faster“: the interview with Christian Boeving reveals how those cover guys use drugs, not just the supplements they sell.
Tomorrow – how much fat can you lose in 1 month?
12 Responses to “How Much Muscle Can You Gain in 1 Month Naturally”
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Patrick says:
I agree. 2 lbs is right. It’s hard to put on pure muscle. You have to work extremely hard and train heavy on the basics, benches, squats, deadlifts, rows etc. and eat quality high protein foods and carbs. It takes time and years. There is no such thing as an overnight bodybuilding champion. You have to have the proper genetics to even hold that kind of muscle mass. but anyone can certainly improve their strength and muscle size through proper training and eating. And also, proper rest.
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Maslow says:
“Come on…let’s get serious.”
“…And this last two or three or four repetitions…that’s what makes the muscle then grow. And that divides one from a champion
and one from not being a champion. lf you can go through this pain barrier, you may get to be a champion.”–Arnold -
MarkG says:
Sounds like it is a good idea to do a long bulk, followed by a few weeks shifting the extra insulation you’ve packed on over that time. That seems to tie in with my limited experience so far. You can lose fat pretty fast but gaining the muscle is the important bit to concentrate on first.
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Dean says:
I think you’ll only gain 2 lbs if every aspect of your training is spot on 24/7 and I mean 24/7 and your a newbie. For someone who’s been training a while ( 1year + and clean) you’ll be lucky to gain 14 lbs ( muscle)in 12 months.
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mikeH says:
i agree and everyone should watch that documentary its very informative and its surprising to know the truth behind the media
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Peter says:
With proper strength training and nutrition, I think one should be able to lose at least 2lbs of fat/month, if not more. Right?
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Eric says:
Fat loss can be a funny thing. If you want to do it in a healthy way, 2-3% is a good window to shoot for. But there are other ways to lose fat. I’m gonna say we’re talking about a healthy (sane) way to do it, so I would probably say at max you could lose 4% without hurting yourself.
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Phil says:
Some people may think that 2lb per month of muscle is not much, but if you think about it, gaining 25 lbs in a year of muscle is HUGE. If you were able to keep that up after 4 years you would have added 100 lbs of muscle to your frame.
Obviously its not possible to add this much unless you have amazing genetics and using steroids. Thats why if you obsess about seeing the scale go up each week, most likely your gaining more fat more than muscle
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Ross says:
You can lose FAR more fat than that in a month. You can lose 2lbs of fat in a week.
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Tyler says:
When I first started on Stronglifts I didn’t realize yet that I was eating waaaay under my daily calorie maintenance. I lost about 2 lbs per week while I was eating 2000 calories (my maintenance with lifting is 3500, so my true calorie target should have been ~4000). Obviously thats an extreme deficit compounded by newbie gains (or rather, losses) but that should give an idea of how much fat is possible to lose in a month if the stars align.