What’s going on, guys.
Sean Nalewanyj here, www.SeanNal.com-www.BodyTransformationTruth.com and the question today is how much muscle
can you gain naturally and in what timeframe?
Now, this is actually a very difficult question to answer, simply because the numbers can
vary so much from person to person depending on a lot of different factors.
So keep in mind that any answer that you get from anybody on this topic is always just
going to be a rough approximation.
That said, having an overall ballpark figure in mind will at least give you some accurate
expectations, so that number one: you don’t get scammed out of your money by bullshit
supplements or miracle programs or other products that give you totally unrealistic ideas of
how much muscle you can gain over a specific timeframe.
Number two: so that you can set practical achievable goals and stay on track with your
plan, rather than just program hopping from one plan to the next like so many people do
because you were convinced that your program isn’t working that you should be making
faster gains.
So how much muscle can you gain naturally?
Again, ballpark figure, but assuming you’re on a properly structured program and you’re
following it consistently, guys ranging from slightly below average genetics to slightly
above average genetics are probably going to be capable of building somewhere between,
and I noticed this is a pretty wide range, but probably somewhere between about twenty
to forty pounds of actual lean muscle mass naturally.
Now your body weight can obviously go up by more than that because you’ll always gains
some body fat while you’re bulking and you’ll be holding on to additional water weights
in the process, so it does depend on what kind of look you’re going for.
But in terms of actual lean muscle mass that’s a pretty safe range I would say.
So if you have average genetics, then you’ll probably land somewhere in the middle at about
thirty pounds of muscle.
Slightly below average, maybe around twenty pounds.
Slightly above average maybe around forty pounds.
And females can take those numbers and reduce them by about half.
Again, I know it’s kind of a wide range, but like I said, there’s really no way of
say exactly how much muscle any specific person is going to be capable of building.
And around thirty pounds, give or take, will probably cover the majority of the lifting
population.
And then in addition to that you’re also going to have small percentage of genetic
outliers, who’re going to fall on the more extreme ends of the spectrum.
Meaning that you’ll have guys with a particularly poor muscle building genetics who might only
able to gain, say ten pounds of muscle or less, regardless of what they do.
Unfortunately that is the case for some people.
But again, it’s only a very small percentage.
And then on the far other side you’re going to have another very small percentage with
exceptionally good muscle building genetics, who might be able to gain upward to, say fifty
pounds of muscle.
Again, this is just an educated guess but it at least gives you some sort of realistic
idea to work with.
I’ve seen a lot of other figures thrown around online and in my opinion a lot of them
really overestimate what’s realistic or at the very least they overestimate what’s
realistic while staying at a decently lean body fat percentage.
And thirty pounds of muscle is not a small amount by any means.
If you took a guy who was a complete beginner at a hundred and fifty pounds with an average
build, and then you put thirty pounds of pure muscle on his frame, plus a bit of extra fat
and a bit of extra water, that’s a lot of overall mass for someone to gain.
Now, how long will it actually take to build that muscle?
Again, just an approximation, but assuming everything is done on a properly structured
program and you’re consistent with it, you can probably expect to achieve about fifty
percent of your noticeable genetic muscle building potential in the first year of training.
And it will then slow down by about half for every year after that.
Remember that muscle growth is not a linear process, and as you build more and more size
it’s going to become increasingly harder to make further increases.
This is because muscle is metabolically very expensive tissue.
Your body doesn’t want to hold on to a high amount of excess muscle, and so it has a certain
genetics limit in place that prevent you from putting on too much.
So the further and further you get away from your natural set point, the harder and harder
your body starts pressing on the brakes, to slow that process down.
But using that figure, you’d be at around fifty percent of your genetics potential after
one year, about seventy-five percent after two years, maybe eighty-five to ninety percent
after three years.
And then after four years and beyond you’d be pretty close to your natural limit.
You’d still be able to make continued gains from there.
there are guys training for a decade or more and they’re still able to make improvements
to their physique but the level of diminishing return would be so steep at that point that
you’d have to train hard for multiple years with your nutrition dialed in as well, just
to gain maybe a few extra ponds of actual new muscle.
That’s my answer.
I think it’s pretty accurate for most people in most situations.
As a natural trainee, a realistic expectation would be anywhere from about twenty to forty
pounds of total lean muscle mass depending on your genetics, with about thirty pounds
being the average.
And you could build not all but the vast majority of that muscle over a span of about four years.
For some guys it might be three years.
For some guys it might be five.
But four years, give or take, is a pretty safe bet.
Now, what are the factors that are going to influence exactly how much muscle you can
build and how fast you can build it?
There’s a few main things.
The first huge one to take into account is of course genetics.
Regardless of what anyone tells you genetics do play a very significant role in any given
person rate of muscle growth as well as their ultimate muscle building potential.
As well as what that muscle will actually looked like from an aesthetic stand point
once it built.
In terms of actual muscle growth itself we’ve got things like testosterone levels, growth
hormone levels, muscle fiber type, insulin sensitivity, myostatin levels, these are just
a few factors of many.
And then along with that you have to take into account your height, your joint size,
your overall bone structure, your muscle shape, your muscle insertions, all of these things
will affect how your physique actually looks once that muscle is gained.
For example, fifteen pound of new muscle on a guy who is 5’5’’ with a smaller bone
structure, that’s going to appear much differently than those same fifteen pounds on a guy who’s
6’4’’ with a lanky frame.
Age also comes into play here as well, because guys who are in their late teens and twenties
are naturally going to build muscle at the fastest rate because their testosterone levels
will be in the optimal muscle building range.
Whereas guys who are in their early teens or who are in the forty to fifty plus age
range, they’re going to gain muscle at a slower rate because testosterone levels won’t
be as high.
Experience levels also comes into play like I already touched on, the less experience
you are the fasters you’ll make gains and vice versa, and also whether you’re gaining
that muscle for the first time or regaining muscle that you lost.
And that’s because regaining lost muscle that happens a lot faster than building brand
new muscle.
So if you took a lay off in training, your rate of growth would be faster.
Or if you’re someone who was recovering from an illness like an eating disorder, the
overall amount of muscle mass that you could gain from when you start would be a lot higher.
And then on top of all of this, the assumption here is that you’re natural, because steroids
will dramatically alter how much muscle you can gain.
And the assumption is also that you’re following a proper program and consistently sticking
to it, because if your program or your consistency are subpar then all these figures are obviously
go straight out the window.
In then end though, the whole question of how much muscle can you build it honestly
isn’t something I’d spend too much time getting hung up on, because you really have
no way of knowing from the outset what your exact muscle building potential will be anyway
or how that muscle is going to look on your frame once its built.
So as long you just have rough idea of what’s possible in mind then that’s going to be
good enough and it doesn’t have much practical use for you beyond that point.
So the best thing you can do is just get your training and nutrition dialed in.
Be consistent.
Be patient.
And focus on maximizing your individual rate of muscle growth and then see what your genetics
have in store for you and just make the most of your situation depending on your goals.
That’s really all there is to it.
So, I hope this was helpful, guys.
If you want to get a complete step-by-step plan to help you maximize your genetic muscle
building potential in the most efficient way possible, including fully structured workout
plans, meal plans, supplement guides and one-on-one coaching, then make sure to head over to www.BodyTransformationTruth.com
and grab my complete Body Transformation Blueprint System.
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