Muscle Gains

vim_n_vigor

I see a lot of posts on this site where people will say something like:
'Don't worry, you aren't losing weight because you are gaining muscle'
Followed by:
'You can't gain muscle <that quickly><in a deficit>'

Question 1: Assuming a newbie lifter, deficit or not, how much is a realistic gain for muscle and over what time period?
Question 2: What is the 'best' answer for gaining muscle in a deficit? Does it happen? Under what circumstances does it happen?
Question 3: Can you define the difference between gaining muscle and getting stronger, toning, <whatever other popular phrase fits>?

tameko2

Ta-da!
http://body-improvements.com/2012/08/22/qa-how-can-i-go-about-building-some-muscle/

Short answers are:

1) depends completely on the person - genetics, how much you eat, WHAT you eat, genetics, drug use, etc. I've heard .5lb - 1lb a month is the max you can reasonably expect in good conditions but not assuming crazy good/bad genes, drug use, whatever. Also women obviously build much much less than men over the same time period.

2) Anyone will make slight newbie gains, the smaller the deficit the better your newbie gains will be, but again, genetics. And, boys. My husband has put on at least 5-6 lbs of muscle (seriously) because he was starting from a ridiculously flabby state (he does not maintain as much muscle as most guys do if he doesn't work out) in the past 5 months, but he is hardly eating a deficit (he doesn't track but he pretty much eats the same as me + 500 calories of soda so he's probably eating maintenance most days and a slight deficit when he's good).

3) Gaining muscle is new muscle tissue, getting stronger is strengthening the existing muscle tissue, no one knows wtf toning is supposed to be, but losing fat will make you look like your muscles are 'growing' because htey will be more visible without the layer of fat.


*kitten*, those weren't short answers at all. I suck.

vim_n_vigor

It is a very misunderstood topic. Someone starts a thread and there are 30 people with 30 different explanations and only 2 that sound reasonable.

tameko2

It is a very misunderstood topic. Someone starts a thread and there are 30 people with 30 different explanations and only 2 that sound reasonable.

I think rather than misunderstood, people just don't want to hear that it depends, so even if they read a long answer like Steve's Q&A that I linked, they want to boil it down to 1 or 2 lines, and they end up taking away what they want to hear.

Yes you can build muscle in a deficit, No you cannot build muscle in a deficit, Yes you can add 5 lbs of muscle a month, No you cannot add 5 lbs of muscle a month. All true, under certain circumstances.

But for the record, 99.99999999999% of the "why did I gain weight I did everything right" posts are not because of muscle gain - they're because people don't understand that weight fluctuates a LOT - just because you are losing FAT successfully doesn't mean that will be reflected on the scale. If you did everything right, you're probably losing fat. But like I said elsewhere, my weight swings as much as 5 lbs throughout the week. I could lose 1 lb of fat between Monday and Friday and still see a higher WEIGHT Friday than on Monday. (I mean, *I* couldn't lose 1lb of fat because I don't eat that much of a deficit, but someone else could).