- Men can expect to build 35-45 pounds of muscle in their lifetime, and women can expect 20-25 pounds.
- According to personal trainer Mike Matthews, how easy we can build muscle depends on hormones, muscle fibers, and body size at the start.
- After the first year of training, muscle growth is significantly slowed down.
How much muscle you build and how fast you build each year depends on a variety of genetic factors such as body size at the start, hormones, and muscle fibers. Personal trainer and fitness writer Mike Matthews told insiders.
Training and proper diet are important for building muscle as quickly as possible. You should prioritize heavy strength training with progressive overload and eat a calorie surplus with plenty of protein.
According to fitness researcher Lyle McDonald, women in the first year of proper training can expect to build an average of 1 pound of muscle a month, and men can expect 2 pounds. The longer you do weightlifting, the slower your muscles will grow.
Different bodies respond differently to training. If you have more testosterone, it is the driving force of the main hormone of muscle growth and you will be able to profit faster.
Similarly, the more “type 2” muscle fibers (also known as fast muscle fibers), the stronger and more explosive they are, and the easier it is to build muscle.
Men can gain 35-45 pounds of muscle in their lifetime
If you are building muscle naturally (ie, without performance-enhancing drugs), the average man can expect to build 35-45 pounds during his lifetime, and for women, The ceiling weighs about 20-25 pounds, Matthews said.
A good indicator of how much muscle a person can build is the perimeter of the wrist or ankle. If the two are the same height, those with larger wrists and ankles are probably more likely to build muscle, Matthews quotes Dr. Casey Bat’s study. (This was only done for men).
Matthews said that women may have less testosterone than men because they build less muscle, but they are usually smaller in size at the start.
Part of the reason men build more muscle than women is because they initially have a large mass.
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According to David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene, a good analogy is a bookshelf. Large bookshelves may be slightly heavier than smaller bookshelves, but they can also carry more books.
“The size of our skeleton correlates with the amount of muscle we can get,” Matthews said.
We all have the potential to build the same amount of muscle in relation to body size, but the speed at which we reach it varies.
Your muscle growth rate slows down on your fitness journey
According to Matthews, the average man with consistent training can take 5-7 years to build 45 pounds of muscle. Most of the gain occurs at the start.
While different laboratories offer different suggestions, this table by fitness researcher Lyle McDonald shows the average muscle-building timescale.
How much muscle can men and women expect to gain, according to a study by Lyle McDonald’s?
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According to Matthews, muscle growth drops dramatically over time, and the older you start, the less muscle you can gain.
He emphasizes that this table is for people who eat well (not just exercise) and do proper and consistent strength training.
If you think you can’t get muscle, what’s really going on
Some believe that he is a “hard gainer” who can’t stretch his muscles no matter what he does, but Matthews said this is a myth.
You may be slower than others, but anyone can build muscle.
Matthews states that people who think they can’t get muscle usually don’t eat as much as they think and burn more calories than they think. He has an average appetite, and a smaller frame. “
Ultimately, Matthews believes that only professional athletes need to worry about how genetics affects athletic performance and muscle building.
“This doesn’t really matter, because most people just want to look good, feel good, be healthy, and be healthy,” he said.
