Rate at which you gain muscle

I know that when you workout a lot, you are gaining muscle so the scale does not move much, but you lose inches. Does anyone know the rate at which you put on muscle? If you work out 6 days per week does that equal 1lb of muscle? I am just curious to know if there is a way to factor that, it may help my motivation since I haven't been losing weight but clothes are fitting better.

Not 1lb in 1 week on a caloric deficit diet, it can take weeks or even months to put on any noticeable amount of muscle. You may be retaining water due to working out. If you just started or increased intensity your muscles will store water to protect them and aid in recovery.

For women... the upper range of muscular weight gained/ month is about 2.5 pounds. So.... it's not a lot!

It takes approximately 3 months of serious weight training to truly 'GAIN' muscle. However, when you exercise with weights the muscles you already have become, for lack of a better word - firmer. When this happens the fat attached to the muscle tissues moves with the muscle, which happens to be closer to the bone and not outward. Hence, your clothes fit a little better.

Too, if you are doing cardio, you burn instant calories which leads to the body using stored body fat as fuel. That's why it's so good to combine cardio with strength training exercises.

The cardinal rule is 3-6 days of cardio 30-45 minutes and 3-6 days of strength training 30-60 minutes. If you strength train for 6 days you should be on a rotation cycle, meaning you should work different body parts every day.

For example: Mondays - Back & Biceps. Tuesdays - Chest & Triceps. Wednesday - Abs. Thursday - Glutes & Hamstrings. Friday - Quads & Calves. Saturday - Anterior Tibialis & Forearms. Sunday - Rest. Continue the next week in the same cycle only this time use different exercises.

And in case you're wondering about the way muscles grow . . .

When you exercise with weights tiny tears occur in the muscle.
When muscle tears heal during rest phase they heal in what's called 'keloid' scar tissue - a thick and gelatinous mass - hence an increase in size of muscle known as muscle mass.

Great info. Bumping to My Topics.

I seem to put on muscle very fast. After a few weeks of intense exercise it really shows.

I know that when you workout a lot, you are gaining muscle so the scale does not move much, but you lose inches. Does anyone know the rate at which you put on muscle? If you work out 6 days per week does that equal 1lb of muscle? I am just curious to know if there is a way to factor that, it may help my motivation since I haven't been losing weight but clothes are fitting better.

Not 1lb in 1 week on a caloric deficit diet, it can take weeks or even months to put on any noticeable amount of muscle. You may be retaining water due to working out. If you just started or increased intensity your muscles will store water to protect them and aid in recovery.

Even without a calorie deficit 1 pound per week would be difficult for anyone but young (under 20 maybe under 25) men who can have some juvinile muscle growth or if you are using some chemical enhancement. Actual muscle building is slow work. When body builders are in gaining mode they will put on weight, but not all of it is muscle, then they have to diet down. Doing it in a deficit is even more difficult. Just a note, muscle does not grow when you workout, it grows when you rest and recuperate when the muscles are rebuilt from the damage that strenuous training gives them, adapting to better handle the load.

Here is information a friend gave me - it made sense to me - Hope it helps.... I'm no expert, so please don't jump all over me if someone disagrees. I was just trying to figure out how to calculate:

Let's use "Sally" as an example...

Sally’s first measurements of weight & body fat were:
Weight - 150 pounds / Body fat percentage - 30%.

Sally’s second measurements of weight & body fat were:
Weight - 148 pounds / Body fat percentage - 26%

Here’s how to “translate” the gross weight lost (2 pounds on the scale) into the net pounds of actual fat lost and net pounds of actual muscle gained - get your calculator out!

Multiply 150 by 30% (or .30) ---> 45 (this number represents Sally’s pounds of fat at her first recording of measurements.)
Multiply 148 by 26% (or .26) ---> 38.48 (this number represents Sally’s pounds of fat at her second recording of measurements.)

Subtract 38.48 from 45 ---> 6.52 pounds net loss of fat
Subtract 2 (the difference between gross loss from 150 to 148) from from 6.52 --> 4.52 pounds net gain of muscle



Like I said - Just a cut and paste from the information that was provided to me for a better understanding.

Close. But the way trainers divide the body is fat mass and fat free mass. So, technically, that is a 4.52 gain in fat free mass, not necessarily muscle.

The way the body builds muscle takes a long time. You don't actually gain muscle fibers or build on the size of muscle fibers until after you have been training with heavy weight for several months. When you first start training, you increase strength (so it seems like you can lift more within a couple of weeks) from neural adaptations. Basically, the nerves tell the muscles how many muscle fibers to use to lift and at first you use the minimum amount. When you start to lift, the nerves will then tell the body to use more muscle fibers to do the work. After a couple of weeks, then the body starts to adapt to the added work by storing more glycogen to fuel the activity of weight lifting. That glycogen is stored in the muscle in 3 times as much water. So, if you store 1 gram of glycogen you store 3 grams of water. This is what gives the muscle the "firmness" or "muscle pump" from weight training. After a couple of months of continued training, the body will reach its genetic maximum amount of glycogen storage at the current size and number of the muscle fibers. At that point, then the current muscle fibers begin to grow. Some people believe that new muscle fibers can then be formed and others believe it is just hypertrophy of the existing fibers. Research has shown a lot of proof for the hypertrophy but not as much for the new fibers. Personally, I think that when the current fibers reach their genetic max in size, then additional fibers would have to be created in order to continue seeing strength gains, but it is hard to reach that point in most people and that is why there is limited proof of it in the research. But the actual muscle fiber growth doesn't happen for months. So, if you have been training for months or years, then yes, you may actually be building muscle fibers. If you are relatively new to training, it is probably an increase in fat free mass in the form of glycogen and water storage.