Muscle gain? anybody have any facts?

lotusfromthemud

OK, so I've recently (four months ago) started to get really serious about strength training. I've concentrated on strength training, and the more isometric yoga poses. I've noticed a difference in my body, and seem firmer.

But. . .when I weighed myself, I'm up four pounds from July. Can I attribute this to muscle gain? Is a pound a month of putting on muscle weight possible for a lady person?

For the record, I've been eating at 200 calories under maintenance, and have only gone over three times in four months.

Anybody have any science to reassure me?

Please?
:flowerforyou:

lotusfromthemud

OK, so I've recently (four months ago) started to get really serious about strength training. I've concentrated on strength training, and the more isometric yoga poses. I've noticed a difference in my body, and seem firmer.

But. . .when I weighed myself, I'm up four pounds from July. Can I attribute this to muscle gain? Is a pound a month of putting on muscle weight possible for a lady person?

For the record, I've been eating at 200 calories under maintenance, and have only gone over three times in four months.

Anybody have any science to reassure me?

Please?
:flowerforyou:

alf1163

Great question!!!! I really hope someone comes back with the facts. I want to know myself because I am planning on starting heavy strength trng in Oct. You said you have gained but have you lost inches?? A pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat but muscle is dense from what I've heard and read in the past. What kinds of foods are you eating?

Experts out there, please reply!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :flowerforyou:

lotusfromthemud

I've lost and gained inches. . .just re-distributed everywhere.

My booty, which was getting. . well. . .totally flat is now lifted, so my hip measurement has increased by 1.5 inches since July.

But, the narrowest point of my waist is 1.5 inches smaller.

My legs are the same size, but look a lot firmer, same with my arms.

My stomach area continues to be an aggravation. . .that "oldest fat" is super-stubborn.

That whole "muscle weight gain" question is a big one. . .

Oh, and I'm eating clean foods, and have increased my protein intake to 40% of my calories, with carbs and fat both at 30%. No refined anything (barring a treat every week or two) and avoiding refined sugars like the plague! Whole grains and vegetables and fruits. I do still have red meat, but only once a week or so. Most of my fat comes from nuts/seeds/avocados, etc.:flowerforyou:

mlck2323

well, it would make sense that a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat...and a pound of feathers or bricks would all weigh the same too..........

BUT, muscle is more dense than fat like you said, so a certain mass of muscle would weigh more than fat, yes. I would get your body fat tested and see what the experts say!

runnerdad

Years ago I had a friend, who was pretty lean to begin with, who took up competitive cycling, and after a few months of eating clean and working out hard, she was ripped. When I asked her how much weight she had lost, she said she had gained five pounds.
Take home message - muscle is denser (takes up less space) than fat, so you may be leaner and more fit, but be holding , or gaining, weight. You need to look at body fat % to look at your composition, to see if you are gaining lean muscle mass.

lotusfromthemud

OK, while I'm grateful for the responses, I know the whole "muscle is denser than fat" rule.

What I'm looking for is how fast is it reasonable to gain muscle weight. Is it actually possible that I could gain four pounds of muscle in four months?

I want another body fat % scan, but can't pony up the money for it right now.:flowerforyou:

Anna_Banana

Here is a quote I found on some forum talking about a similar topic

"Muscle gain varies greatly depending on the person and the level of exercise. Even two or three weeks of halfway decent cardio will produce some muscle changes and perhaps a small muscle gain - maybe a pound or two. For people who have never done resistance training (weight-lifting) and hit it whole hog, the gains can be over a pound per week. With moderate exercise programs, most people will notice performance gains within two weeks and shape changes within 4."

So really a pound of muscle a month wouldn't be unrealistic. And since your waist has slimmed I would think you are gaining muscle and losing fat. A pound of fat takes up less room than muscle.

Anna_Banana

Go here for a picture of a pound of fat and a pound of meat

http://aleeshasrawlife.blogspot.com/2008/02/1-pound-of-muscle-vs-1-pound-of-fat.html

Fab140

ugh....wow.....what a photo!!!!

firegirlred

http://www.runtex.com/Body_Fat.asp

Just another resource. Personally, my weight plateaued for a month when I started running competitively again. I was 138-9 the whole month. BUTT (and it's a big one) I'm now wearing clothes I wore when I was five pounds smaller. I think a pound a month is MORE than reasonable, as it looks like I've put nearly five pounds on my legs in about a total of about six weeks. I do know for a fact that women's legs tend to bulk up faster than the rest of the body (in comparison) and that the legs are pretty much the largest muscle group in the body. I would expect that yes, your weight gain is totally attributable to muscle gain, especially if you did squats, lunges, and other "big leg lifting."

Big leg.............................lifting?
big.............................leg lifting?

HAHAHAH-sorry just a little stupid humor....

yoginimary

Time to save the pennies and get another body fat test. It's the only way you'll really know.

A pound a week of muscle!!?? I don't believe it.

shorerider

You need to check with songbyrdsweet on this one--she's all over the "muscle" facts! She can answer pretty much anything you need there.

maggie2020

Hi saw your questions, but I agree w/ the others in that it depends how often you are weight training & how much weight you are using.. also you are around 130 pounds your goal weight I assume" if you havent been weight training alot then no one could not really know:noway: if this is muscle weight. or water weight, how much salt are you taking in ... " remember that water follows salt and salt follow water" so to really know get the test done.. but great job on the weight loss though...

songbyrdsweet

Here is a quote I found on some forum talking about a similar topic

"Muscle gain varies greatly depending on the person and the level of exercise. Even two or three weeks of halfway decent cardio will produce some muscle changes and perhaps a small muscle gain - maybe a pound or two. For people who have never done resistance training (weight-lifting) and hit it whole hog, the gains can be over a pound per week. With moderate exercise programs, most people will notice performance gains within two weeks and shape changes within 4."

ACK!!!

Who wrote that? Ugh, nevermind...:grumble:
It takes 4+ weeks for NEUROLOGICAL changes...and 6-8 for changes in size. Even untrained people won't see hypertrophy in two weeks; they MIGHT see a modest strength change, but that can be attributed to correct form as well.

Okay, I'm here to burst bubbles again.
Why can't you guys ever make me the bearer of GOOD news?

Some plain caloric facts:
One lb of muscle requires 2800 excess calories to be built. So if you ate 100 excess calories per day, it would take about 1 month to gain ONE pound. If you ate 200 extra extra calories per day, you MIGHT be able to put on two pounds in a month. Theoretically, if you ate 500 calories extra each day, you'd gain a ton of muscle, but the body doesn't work that efficiently and we can't build tissue that quickly, so about half of that would result in extra fat gain rather than muscle gain.

If you are truly in a 200 calorie deficit....where are you getting the excess amino acids? The ATP needed for these processes to happen? Well, you aren't, let alone enough to gain 5 lbs of muscle in two months.

Now some endocrinology and muscular phys facts:
It takes more than lifting to promote muscle growth. It takes certain hormones, which, unfortunately, females don't have a lot of naturally. We first need lactic acid, and then GH, and then IGF-1. We get lactic acid from performing anaerobic activity for a period of time long enough to create oxygen debt. Basically, we need to feel the 'burn'. Not just slight discomfort...an intense burn that results in muscular fatigue within a few seconds. That promotes GH release, but not *immediately*. Hormones have a lag time of a few hours to a few weeks; GH levels take a day or two, and peaks in females during menstruation (no one knows why yet, haha). Once GH is released, it promotes the release of IGF-1, which goes into bone and muscle cells and accelarates their growth rates. How long that takes is individual, but it takes generally 48-72 hours to repair a muscle...so for 2-3 days after you've lifted, you're not gaining anything, you're just fixing what you've torn down. Women can really only rely on GH for muscle growth, which is why we are at a disadvantage; men have higher levels of GH AND testosterone. (Butt-heads :laugh: ).

Muscle fibers probably don't increase in number when they grow. No one's really sure, but it seems that they only increase in size. They swell with increased cytoplasm and mitochondrion to improve your anaerobic performance; these are parts of the cell that create ATP (energy) in anaerobic conditions. The enzymes produced when IGF-1 enters the cell actually have to enter systems that create ATP that will be used in producing more cytoplasm and organelles. It takes, like I said, 6-8 weeks to experience hypertrophy, or an increase in muscle fiber size.

That's why this takes tiiiiiiiimmmmmme.....a lot of it. Our bodies simply can't work that quickly. For a trained man to gain 12 lbs of muscle without excess fat in a YEAR is a huge feat. A woman will be looking at half of that.

As a side note, we can gain strength in a shorter time period due to the nature of strength gains--they involve the nerves, not the muscle fibers. Our nerves become easier to stimulate, meaning we can use more muscle fibers at one time, so we can lift heavier weight.

We can also manipulate the size/weight of our muscle fibers by filling them with glycogen. If we eat low/no carbohydrate, and then switch to suddenly eating moderate/high carbohydrate, we will experience an increase in weight due to water and the stored sugar. Most of it is store in the liver, but individual muscle cells will hold onto some for explosive power when they need glucose for anaerobic glycolysis.

I don't want to discourage anyone, and by no means should you assume that weight gain is fat, but believe me when I tell you that I only WISH it was that easy to gain muscle so quickly naturally.

busybee

Its my understanding that gaining a pound of muscle a month is on the extremely high end for a woman. Don't be discouraged, what goes up must come down!

firegirlred

http://www.ironmagazine.com/viewarticle-3995.html

Okay, so i gained 5 pounds of muscle, water and glycogen during that 6 weeks. But I was already decently fit (firefighter), and eating about 2400-3000 calories a day. After factoring in the exercise calories, I was about 1900-2000 most days. At the beginning of that six weeks I started running hard, not just a moderate pace (for myself). My best time for 3.1 miles (5k) went from around 28 minutes to just under 24 minutes. So what I posted was just from personal experience.

I'm sorry if I offended any experts.

http://weighttraining.about.com/od/succeedingwithweights/a/muscle_month.htm

There were quite a few references when I web searched, google it and you can get some good information.

lotusfromthemud

I got my paycheck for my new position. . .and it was more than I expected. So, I think I'm going to suck it up, fork over the dollars and get another body scan.

I'll report back. :flowerforyou:

paulamma1

Here is a quote I found on some forum talking about a similar topic

"Muscle gain varies greatly depending on the person and the level of exercise. Even two or three weeks of halfway decent cardio will produce some muscle changes and perhaps a small muscle gain - maybe a pound or two. For people who have never done resistance training (weight-lifting) and hit it whole hog, the gains can be over a pound per week. With moderate exercise programs, most people will notice performance gains within two weeks and shape changes within 4."

ACK!!!

Who wrote that? Ugh, nevermind...:grumble:
It takes 4+ weeks for NEUROLOGICAL changes...and 6-8 for changes in size. Even untrained people won't see hypertrophy in two weeks; they MIGHT see a modest strength change, but that can be attributed to correct form as well.

Okay, I'm here to burst bubbles again.
Why can't you guys ever make me the bearer of GOOD news?

Some plain caloric facts:
One lb of muscle requires 2800 excess calories to be built. So if you ate 100 excess calories per day, it would take about 1 month to gain ONE pound. If you ate 200 extra extra calories per day, you MIGHT be able to put on two pounds in a month. Theoretically, if you ate 500 calories extra each day, you'd gain a ton of muscle, but the body doesn't work that efficiently and we can't build tissue that quickly, so about half of that would result in extra fat gain rather than muscle gain.

If you are truly in a 200 calorie deficit....where are you getting the excess amino acids? The ATP needed for these processes to happen? Well, you aren't, let alone enough to gain 5 lbs of muscle in two months.

Now some endocrinology and muscular phys facts:
It takes more than lifting to promote muscle growth. It takes certain hormones, which, unfortunately, females don't have a lot of naturally. We first need lactic acid, and then GH, and then IGF-1. We get lactic acid from performing anaerobic activity for a period of time long enough to create oxygen debt. Basically, we need to feel the 'burn'. Not just slight discomfort...an intense burn that results in muscular fatigue within a few seconds. That promotes GH release, but not *immediately*. Hormones have a lag time of a few hours to a few weeks; GH levels take a day or two, and peaks in females during menstruation (no one knows why yet, haha). Once GH is released, it promotes the release of IGF-1, which goes into bone and muscle cells and accelarates their growth rates. How long that takes is individual, but it takes generally 48-72 hours to repair a muscle...so for 2-3 days after you've lifted, you're not gaining anything, you're just fixing what you've torn down. Women can really only rely on GH for muscle growth, which is why we are at a disadvantage; men have higher levels of GH AND testosterone. (Butt-heads :laugh: ).

Muscle fibers probably don't increase in number when they grow. No one's really sure, but it seems that they only increase in size. They swell with increased cytoplasm and mitochondrion to improve your anaerobic performance; these are parts of the cell that create ATP (energy) in anaerobic conditions. The enzymes produced when IGF-1 enters the cell actually have to enter systems that create ATP that will be used in producing more cytoplasm and organelles. It takes, like I said, 6-8 weeks to experience hypertrophy, or an increase in muscle fiber size.

That's why this takes tiiiiiiiimmmmmme.....a lot of it. Our bodies simply can't work that quickly. For a trained man to gain 12 lbs of muscle without excess fat in a YEAR is a huge feat. A woman will be looking at half of that.

As a side note, we can gain strength in a shorter time period due to the nature of strength gains--they involve the nerves, not the muscle fibers. Our nerves become easier to stimulate, meaning we can use more muscle fibers at one time, so we can lift heavier weight.

We can also manipulate the size/weight of our muscle fibers by filling them with glycogen. If we eat low/no carbohydrate, and then switch to suddenly eating moderate/high carbohydrate, we will experience an increase in weight due to water and the stored sugar. Most of it is store in the liver, but individual muscle cells will hold onto some for explosive power when they need glucose for anaerobic glycolysis.

I don't want to discourage anyone, and by no means should you assume that weight gain is fat, but believe me when I tell you that I only WISH it was that easy to gain muscle so quickly naturally.

THAT was hot!!! :devil: Thanks for the info. (seriously)

songbyrdsweet

http://www.ironmagazine.com/viewarticle-3995.html

Okay, so i gained 5 pounds of muscle, water and glycogen during that 6 weeks. But I was already decently fit (firefighter), and eating about 2400-3000 calories a day. After factoring in the exercise calories, I was about 1900-2000 most days. At the beginning of that six weeks I started running hard, not just a moderate pace (for myself). My best time for 3.1 miles (5k) went from around 28 minutes to just under 24 minutes. So what I posted was just from personal experience.

I'm sorry if I offended any experts.

http://weighttraining.about.com/od/succeedingwithweights/a/muscle_month.htm

There were quite a few references when I web searched, google it and you can get some good information.

No one's going to be offended. In 6 weeks, if you were in a caloric excess, you might be looking at a .5-1lb gain in muscle and the rest coming from increased glycogen and water storage. Chronic aerobic work causes the release of cortisol, a stress-related hormone that breaks down muscle tissue, so it's actually even harder to gain muscle when you're performing cardiovascular activity at the same time. Increases in speed can be neurological or physiological; muscle innervations can change, mitochondrion can increase, stroke volume can change, haemoglobin can increase...so seeing an change in running time can't really be attributed to muscle gain entirely (btw, that is a very impressive gain in speed!)

arewethereyet

DELETE! been said and done. Sorry.

I will now read all posts.