How Much Muscle Can You Gain In A Year... Really?For anyone who feels trapped in the body of a skinny teenager, putting on weight can seem painfully and frustratingly slow. Some people gain muscle very quickly. Others, however, make little or no progress at all. 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. Muscle growth is rarely a linear process and tends to come in a series of "spurts."No matter how hard you train, how strict your diet is, or how many muscle-building supplements you use, growth will never come at a predictable steady pace. There are so many factors influencing your progress. Not many people can do nothing but go to the gym, eat and sleep for months on end. 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 pull a few "all-nighters" at the office and decide to skip training for a week, vowing to "start fresh" on Monday. And not everyone will build muscle at the same rate. Some people are genetically predisposed to gaining weight, and will see impressive results after only a few months. Others will build muscle more slowly. Researchers from the Netherlands, for example, found that men with a "solid" build gained more muscle than men with a "slender" build following a 12-week weight-training program [7]. Although fat-free mass increased in both groups, the slender guys gained only 0.7 pounds (0.3 kilograms) versus 3.5 pounds (1.6 kilograms) in the solid group. While there are some variables that you can control, such as how you train and what you eat, there are many that you cannot. Be realistic. If you have a body designed for long-distance running, it's unlikely that you'll be winning the Mr. America contest in the next few years. Your rate of progress also depends how close you are to the upper limit of what you're capable of in terms of muscle mass, also known as your ceiling of adaptation. The closer you are to this upper limit, the slower your gains will be. Someone who's been working out with weights for 10 years will gain muscle a lot more slowly than someone who's just starting out. It's also normal to put on a little fat at the same time.For every 5 pounds of muscle you gain, expect to add anywhere between 2-5 pounds of fat. The amount of fat you gain will depend, in part at least, on how much you eat. But it also depends on how lean you are when you start to overfeed. Studies show that during a period of overfeeding, you'll gain more muscle and less fat if you're naturally lean to start with [6]. Conversely, fatter people tend to lose more fat and less muscle when they go on a diet. The leaner you get, the harder it gets to lose fat without losing muscle. So, for every 10 pounds of weight gained by someone who is overweight, roughly 3-4 pounds come from lean tissue and 6-7 pounds come from fat. But for every 10 pounds of weight gained by a lean person, 6-7 pounds come from lean tissue while only 3-4 pounds come from fat. The term "lean tissue" doesn't necessarily mean muscle tissue, as stored fluid and carbohydrate can also contribute to gains in lean tissue. The studies on which these estimates are based lasted a minimum of 3 weeks and didn't include a structured exercise routine. With a good weight-training program (see the Maximum Muscle Plan in the Members-Only Area for several highly effective split routines and total-body workouts) you can expect gains with a superior muscle-to-fat ratio. What if you want to build muscle without gaining any fat at all?Although some people try to gain muscle mass while maintaining a very low level of body fat at the same time, this is actually very hard to do. Why? The issue may be psychological. If you've just spent the last six months working your butt off to get a six-pack, the last thing you'll want to do is put the fat right back on again. Someone in this position may simply be reluctant to eat the quantity of food necessary to gain a significant amount of muscle. The problem may also be hormonal. Some studies show a link between low body fat and low testosterone levels [5], although it's hard to tell whether the preceding diet or low body fat level itself was primarily responsible. In any case, a chronic low testosterone level will make muscle growth a long, slow process. So, what does this all mean for you?Based on the research I've looked at, as well as my own personal experience, I'd estimate that the "average" person (if there is such a thing) can expect to gain roughly 2-4% of their initial weight in the form of muscle after six weeks of regular resistance exercise [3, 4, 8]. For example, someone who weighs 180 pounds can expect to gain anywhere from 3-7 pounds of lean mass over a 6-week period. For every pound of muscle you gain, expect to add anywhere from 0.5 to 1 pound of fat. So, if you want to add 10 pounds of lean muscle, expect to gain roughly 15-20 pounds in weight. Remember that muscle growth is not a linear process, and you won't keep growing at the same rate forever. Over the course of a year, it's rare for most people to add more than 25 pounds of muscle, although it's certainly not unrealistic to gain more than 25 pounds in weight. So, if you're a beginner on a decent training and nutrition program, you might be able to gain 25 pounds of muscle in your first year of training. In year two, we can cut that number in half, giving you a gain of 10-12 pounds. In year three, the gains will be halved again, giving you 5-6 pounds of new muscle. Unless you're a teenager with lots of natural anabolic hormones flooding your system, someone with a genetic predisposition towards rapid muscle growth, or you're using anabolic drugs, gaining more than 25 pounds of lean muscle in one year or less is very hard to do.
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