How Fast Can You Gain Muscle?

If you want to know how fast you can gain muscle, in reality, this article will offer you plenty of insight into what’s really possible and what’s probably wishful thinking.

Whenever anyone asks how quickly they can build muscle, they will receive a lot of different responses, be bombarded with personal experiences and studies galore, but generally, the responses will amount to this:

Typical response: “I read/know you can gain X amount of muscle in X amount of time, so that’s the answer.”

My answer to that is: Who can?

The person who had (or claims they had) that specific experience? The person who wrote that specific article, or conducted or participated in that specific study?

Does that mean you can, too?

Think about this rationally…

If someone told you they can run (or saw Usain Bolt) run the 100m in well under 10 seconds, does that mean you can, too?

Of course not; and muscle building is no different whatsoever – it’s a combination of genetics and how your genetics respond to your training (and diet).

Some people really can gain a staggering amount of muscle mass in a short period of time; those people are the exception, not the rule. However, most people who begin training with weights and experience their beginner gains will be pretty excited at how fast they grow. For others it may take a little longer to gain significant muscle.

Don’t expect anything – train, test and learn.

For most people looking to gain muscle quickly, sticking within the generally accepted optimal muscle building protocols will serve them best. Building muscle is about using progressive overload (more weight, more reps, more sets, less rest between sets, etc.) to break down ever-increasingly resistant (stronger and fitter) muscle fibers. Once you’ve achieved significant muscle protein breakdown, only then can supercompensation (growth) occur in the time that follows – if your diet is up to par.

In general, 6-10 reps with a weight which really challenges you on each set (or causes you to fail) is the best way to build muscle. You could do a scheme of 10×10 as a maximum, or any combination below that (remembering that you need to achieve significant muscle protein breakdown, so generally, less reps requires more sets).

You need consistency in your training and diet (i.e. training regularly and eating enough of the right nutrients and calories) but don’t confuse consistency with staleness – everything must change regularly (and many believe you can benefit from changing your diet regularly, too) in order to continue to challenge your muscles and keep your body primed for positive adaptation. Fail to challenge your central nervous system and it’ll stop responding.

“But someone I know claimed they gained X amount of muscle in X amount of time, and I trust them!”

Although the world of muscle building certainly has its share of liars who claim the spectacular for themselves, some people genuinely do ‘get it wrong’ about how much muscle they’ve really gained.

Without doubt the most common mistake people make when estimating how much muscle they’ve gained is underestimating just how much fat they’ve gained, too, both subcutaneously (body fat) or viscerally (organ fat). It’s easily done if you aren’t fastidious in taking body fat/tape/weight measurements from day one. Change occurs gradually and you become accustomed to how you look and don’t see just how much fat you’ve gained and it’ll usually be a friend or family member who points it out to you – and it can often be a blow to the ego! Plus, if you’re wrapped up in expecting yourself to gain what someone else claimed they gained, you will be that much more likely to lie to yourself about your true state of affairs – that you’ve gained a bit of muscle but a lot of fat.

It’s not all straight forward, either…

When you’re lean, a bit of muscle goes a long way. And someone who sees themselves as ‘skinny’ will probably be delighted to gain 5-15lb of muscle because it really will change their entire physique from what it was. Someone who is already very big (or very tall) will need to gain much more muscle than someone who is skinny or short in order to really have a visual impact, too.

Also, creatine users (and steroid users for that matter, too) quickly gain a lot of water weight – it might pad the muscles out, but it’s not true fiber growth, yet this too contributes to the ‘I gained tons of muscle in no time at all’ mythology.

The Final Word:

People can argue until doomsday about ‘the truth’ of this issue. What one study/person says, another study/person will say the exact opposite – and what they say or what you choose to believe is completely immaterial to how fast or slow your muscle building progress is or will be.

Muscle building is a combination of genetics, training and diet – and how well your genetics respond to your current training and diet. If you aren’t satisfied with your results, try something completely different and see how you respond. It’s really trial and error, but if you follow the guidelines laid out in this article already you should be able to get on the right track pretty quickly and find out what you respond best to. But it’s imperative that you soak up as much knowledge as you can about the subject so you’re not in the dark – it can be a maze at times.

All this talk of genetics may sound bleak, but let me leave you with a crumb of comfort big enough to choke an elephant: Nobody gets to achieve their full genetic potential. Not even Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman, or Jay Cutler – and in their respective eras, they dominated. Plus they trained for decades and at least in the case of Arnold it’s 100% admitted and verified that he used steroids in an era in which they were legal, thereby enabling him to use more of his genetic potential. This means you, someone who is just starting out or only a few years deep (especially natural trainees), will be nowhere close to your genetic limits, and the only thing you need to do is keep training, keep testing, and keep taking whatever progress you get – however small or slow.