calories & gaining muscle.. might be an amature Q

brealee91

Do you have to eat more calories when trying to gain muscle? Or are you supposed to eat your maintenance?
I realize for many of you there might be a very obvious answer to this.. haha
Also any other recommendations?
I'm a 22 year old female who's doc wants her to gain a few pounds, but I'd rather gain muscle.
Thanks!

geekyjock76

Any appreciable amount of increased muscle mass will require several months of progressive resistance combined with a calorie surplus with adequate protein intake. There are possibilities of doing a recomp, whereby you eat just around maintenance, but the process is very, very, very slow and yield minimal results.

With that said, establish what your maintenance intake is when adding a progressive strength training program. Once you discover that amount, add about 250 calories to yield a weekly gain in body weight of 0.5 lb per week. If you have average genetics, your partitioning ratio will allow you to add an even number of calories to gained muscle mass as fat mass. If you are gifted genetically with a favorable P-ratio, you'll add more calories to lean mass and end up with a better body composition and can do a "bulk" for a longer period before stopping.

Are you lifting at the present? If so, what kind of program? How many days a week do you train each muscle group? How many sets do you do? Do you train each set to near failure (ie. lift for 10 reps but would fail on 11)?