First off, I just wanted to go ahead and say that I'm new to the forum, and give a hello out to everyone!

Now to my question: How much muscle can a person gain in a month of weightlifting? More specifically, how much muscle can a young 20-something male, who's lived a completely sedentary life, gain in a month?

I've begun lifting weights while doing low-carb. I've definitely made progress, an my strength has increased...despite the fact that my pant size has gone down. And this is despite doing barely any cardio whatsoever!

However, curiously my weight has gone up a bit, to 207. How can my weight go up, if I'm clearly losing some fat? Unless I'm gaining muscle very quickly, but I find that very difficult to believe...

First things first. Decide your goals. If you want to lose fat lose fat. If you want to gain muscle gain muscle. Although you can achieve both by doing Low Carb, i recommend focusing on a single aspect. If you want to gain muscle focus on eating meat, fish and eggs and eat beyond your satiety, this way you can push yourself further with the weights thus increasing your strength and muscle mass. Despite this however, how quickly you will gain muscle mass will purely depend on your genetics, in other words none knows except yourself.
Seeing that you are still a newbie in the weightlifting area i do recommend that you keep it as simple as possible. In other words keep staying Low Carb , keep lifting the weights and forget about cardio.

20 years old?? Nice age to lift..lots of testosterone,good recovery..hmmm makes me yearn for those days.

One can put on good a good deal of muscle and lose weight in a month..but you have to work out very hard and be very dilligent in your dieting..

I would have my bodyfat% done by someone who know what they are doing and take in a gram of protein per lean bodyweight.

Keep carbs to leafy greens or fibrous carbs..no sticky starchy carbs or root vegetables.

Since you are probrably over 15% bodyfat levels, do not take in post workout carbs..use glutamine with whey isolate post workout

Well, to throw in a bit more info:

I'm actually 24, but yeah I guess I still have all that testosterone. So far I try to stick with eating chicken, fish, and occasionally pork, along with green veggies. Realistically, however I do slip up on the occasion. And I take about 100 grams of day in protein via shakes, post workout if I happen to workout that day. (That stuff is expensive, I figure the meat will fill out the rest)

I don't know why my bodyfat% is, but I'm pretty positive that its well above 15%:

As a kid, I was completely and utterly inactive. This, combined with my comfort eating tendencies, caused my teenage weight gain. Though I lost a good 50 pounds during my senior year of highschool, I discovered that I was the epitome of the dreaded condition known as "Skinny-Fat". Although I was technically of "normal" weight for a person my size, my utter lack of muscle on my body caused me to look very "soft and squishy". And, I could barely bench half my bodyweight! NOT what I really wanted to look like, or be.

Let's do the math.

Muscle requires protein. How much you eat will establish a limit on growth. It's not a 1-to-1 ratio but close enough. 1 pound is 454 grams. I'd guess you eat about 150-200g of protein per day. You'd use about half of that for growth, the rest would be used for repair and maintenance. That means 75-150g for growth or 525-1050g of muscle per week which comes out to about 5 to 9 lbs per month. At best. Under optimal conditions with diet, training and health. It's a rough estimate but it's reasonable in my view.

The above takes care of protein. But what about all the other nutrients? Fat, vitamins and minerals are also required to build, maintain and repair muscle. The most prominent one being potassium. Without potassium, protein can't even be used by the body so it's basically useless to eat a surplus if it's going down the drain next time you pee. Forget about the shake or any other supplement for a while. Eat meat with the fat on as your post workout meal. Meat is far superior to any other protein source. Check out the nutrition info on meat and compare it to anything else.


As for strength itself, it's another story. Strength is neuro-muscular in nature. Strength is a function of muscle size and central nervous system (CNS) capacity. The bigger the muscle, the stronger it is. The better the CNS, the better you can control those muscles, the stronger you are. It is entirely possible to grow stronger without growing bigger muscles. Lifting an object is a skill. A simple skill but still it's something you can improve with practice just like any other skill. A result of this practice is the ability to lift the same object with less force. A result of that is the ability to lift a heavier object with the same force. It's all about how your CNS controls your muscles.

The point is that you've gained strength and this strength may have been a result of technique improvement rather than merely muscle growth. As for quick weight gain during training, this may be due to water for muscle repair.

Mlevac
Great piece..though I do have to disagree with your post workout advice.
The body needs a quick influx of amino acids after working out..a fast acting protein source like whey isolate is ideal..almost critical. Taking it along with water, glutamine and zero fat is ideal..the research and anecdotal responses are too overhwhelming to igonore.

Taking in meat, which is very fibrous along with fat impedes those amino acids from getting into the system at a fast rate.

I am a meat guy through and through..I love the ol time bodybuliding steak and eggs mind set. But I do believe that post workout nutrition can make a huge difference when it is done correctly.

Don't get me wrong..if one does well on Meat post workout..great,but in my experience those are far and few between.

I think the typical post workout shake is a bit overrated. Fine if you want to go that extra step, but as long as you're eating your normal meal within a reasonable amount of time after training, you're fine.

The average person will not see a difference and I don't think it's worth driving yourself nuts over.

I have to disagree with this. The human body is simply not capable of putting on 5 lbs of muscle per month, that would work out to 60 lbs in a year. Schwarzenegger mentions in his bodybuilidng book, that he was able to gain 10 lbs/year only during his couple of peak years, and you can bet he was artifically enhanced at the time.

My experience is that you can put on anywhere from a half a pound to one pound of muscle per month.

Itrorev, in your case muscles that are now being worked for the first time in a long time tend to store a ton of water in them. So your weight gain is most likely water storage in the muscle.

Thanks for the replies, folks.

So yeah it must be water retention thats causing the weight gain. Thats alright, as long as it doesn't go in my waist!

After doing a bit of research, I've found that it seems strength increases and muscle gain do not necessarily go hand in hand, as I had believed. Strong muscles aren't always bigger, but may simply be more efficient than weaker ones. Also, bigger doesn't always mean stronger. The ratio between muscle size/strength is dependant on various factors, including genetics.

I'm getting stronger, and thats what really counts for me. I'm not a skinny Screech-lookalike, so gaining "mass" isn't a priority.

Big daddy,
A guy first starting out can put on a great amount of muscle very fast..I've seen it time and time again,and not just the enhanced guy.

I've seen bodies change workout to workout,,very elite athletes and though these guys are gifted, the amount of muscle they put on was incredible.

You do reach a "saturation" point where the gains do come to a crawl.

Years ago when Albert Beckles got a second place to Lee Haney at the Olympia(drugs included I assume). He worked out twice a day for six days a week, ate a boatload of protein and put on 2 quality pounds of muscle tissue in a year..but he'd been working out for years..

But it is not uncommon for someone who is "gifted" to put alot of muscle on in one month.