How much strength can you gain in a month

As we age, hormone levels can drop, leading to decreased muscle or a harder time gaining it. However, with a proper diet and exercise routine, you can still achieve excellent strength and muscle function. Remember that you will likely gain more muscle during the initial one to three months of training, but gain less after that. Overall, around 8 to 15 pounds per year could be a good estimate, but again, some people may gain more or less than that.

You should also allow for some fluctuation in water and carbohydrate storage; You have to work hard, eat a healthy, balanced diet and be patient to build muscle; there is simply no other way. To gain muscle, resistance training is essential. There is a wide range of training modalities that can help build muscle. Traditional advice says that a range of 8 to 10 reps per exercise is ideal for muscle hypertrophy, but in reality, lower or higher repetition ranges will also lead to muscle gain.

The most important factor for increasing muscle mass is to continue stressing and challenging the muscles, so that they must adapt and grow. One common method to achieve this is to increase the volume of weights lifted over time.

Any type of resistance exercise can help build muscle. If you are a beginner, you can start with bodyweight exercises and practice form and technique. Additionally, compound lifts—ones that use multiple joints and muscle groups—elicit the highest response in terms of overall muscle activation. However, single-joint exercises can also create a muscle-building effect. Choosing a combination of both is a good strategy. There are a few nutritional factors to consider when assessing the rate of muscle growth.

Muscles consist of muscle fibers and connective tissue, and contain blood, water, and glycogen the storage form of carbohydrate. To fuel muscle growth, it is ideal to consume a higher number of calories than you burn. Consuming enough protein, in particular, is essential. Research shows that eating at least 0.

Over the course of a day, take in approximately 1. You can reach this protein intake level by eating 3 meals containing 0. Various supplements may also help to boost muscle growth, including protein powder, which can help you reach your ideal protein intake.

Supplementing with branch-chain-amino-acids BCAAs is another way to acquire the building blocks of protein and build muscle, but if you already consume enough protein, adding BCAAs may not be necessary. Creatine intake of around 5 grams per day has been shown to help increase lean muscle tissue in those that participate in resistance training, although its mechanism in older adults is still being investigated.

The best way to monitor your muscle gain is to compare your results to previous months. Increasing time under tension and maximizing your range of motion within the constraints of proper form, of course are other strategies for building the most overall muscle possible. Of course, maintaining a high level of protein intake is also critical. One review published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition suggests that, for optimal muscle growth, guys should consume between 0.

So, if you weigh pounds, that works out to four meals of 33 to 45 grams of protein each. The current NSCA standard is a bit higher, at 1. Keep that intake up, hit the gym hard, and you can expect to start to see some muscle growth in the mirror after three to four weeks. Order Here. United States. She had dedicated over three years to the educational field as a health and physical education teacher before deciding to pursue a career in the fitness industry.

She is now certified in Personal Training, Group Fitness, and Sports Nutrition and contributes health and fitness knowledge to websites like Noob Gains. This page may contain affiliate links. We earn commissions when you purchase through these links. Learn more. Learn More. Read Our Review. The reason for my rapid strength gains was more to do with my motor patterning and becoming more efficient in my execution from a neuromuscular standpoint. This meant that I could quickly and maximally recruit my muscle fibres which meant more explosive strength.

This issue with jumping up in weight too much and abusing the CNS system however is that your actual structure muscles, joints and ligaments do not adapt, recover or grow it anyway near a similar speed. Therefore even with the ability to make large jumps in weight you should always take it at a more steady and long term approach.

Muscular strength is of course the more well known aspect of strength and the potential for this comes down to a few factors. Muscle fibre type proportion — a higher number of fast twitch muscle fibres responsible for explosive contractions lend themselves better to strength training and muscle growth than the slow twitch muscle fibres which are more suited to endurance training.

More muscle size means a greater quantity and density of muscle fibres to contract, this is the reason there are weight divisions in powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting. A combination of the two strength systems are needed however in order to maximize your strength potential.

You also see smaller individuals that can deadlift 3 — 4 x their own body weight as a result of neuromuscular strength. In the long term your strength gains will appear to be a straight line progression however in actuality you progress in waves.

I mentioned earlier that an advanced lifter will train to peak at a certain time and then deload afterwards. Most strength programs are not based on lifting as much as you can as often as you can. Most will train at a percentage of their 1 rep max based on current training goals.