Every knitter knows that the main task is not to make a mistake with the cast-on stitches. After all, any thing you like, knitted with your own hands, will only become unique when it fits perfectly. This applies to all types of knitted products - from socks to hats.
However, it often happens that the threads and knitting needles are chosen, everything seems to be done correctly, but the knitted hat turns out to be either too big or too tight on the head. What a pity! Everything has to start all over again.
To prevent this from happening, before work you need to calculate how many loops to put on the hat.
How much muscle mass can you gain naturally? What does it depend on?
Why do some people manage to gain more and others less?
It is quite difficult to estimate this potential very accurately.
There are two physical characteristics that directly affect muscle expression:
- Bone structure;
- Muscle structure.
Let's look at each of them.
Effect of bone structure on muscles
People with larger bones have more muscle than people with thinner skeletons. In addition, they usually have higher testosterone levels, and muscle mass gains much faster when they begin to engage in strength training.
So what qualifies as a “large bone”, how do you calculate what type of bone you are?
Two simple and reliable measures of overall bone structure are wrist and ankle circumferences.
This is why, even with the same height, people with wider ankles and wrists have more pronounced muscles and better prospects for muscle growth than people with thin bones.
The influence of muscle structure on muscle expression
Each muscle consists of two main parts:
- The abdomen is the part that contracts and grows.
- Tendon - connects the abdomen and the skeleton.
What are the main differences - some people have shorter muscles and tendons than others. This is a very important point because muscle growth potential is largely determined by the length of the abdomen.
Muscles cannot grow in length, only in width, so if you initially have longer muscles and shorter tendons, you will gain more overall muscle mass.
It's that simple.
For example, a photograph of a man's arm with a short muscle and a long tendon.
As you can see, he will have to work very hard to pump up his huge arms. To measure the length of your biceps, bend your arm 90 degrees, flex your biceps, and see how many fingers you can fit between the beginning of your biceps and your forearm. If 3 fingers fit, the length of the muscle is less than average, if 2 fingers fit, the length is average. If 1 finger fits, then you are one of the lucky few, you have long muscles.
Effect of testosterone
If you ask most gym goers what most influences the rate of muscle growth, the answer is obvious: “testosterone levels.”
And it is true.
Testosterone is the main hormonal driver of muscle growth.
Its effects are so strong that some studies have shown that when its level is artificially increased, weight gain occurs even without performing any exercise. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that testosterone levels will influence the amount of muscle gained.
But there is one interesting point here. All this works with a significant increase in testosterone levels.
Here's what a lot of people don't understand:
Differences in testosterone levels within the physiological norm do not particularly increase or inhibit muscle growth. In other words, if you increase testosterone levels slightly (within physiological limits), then it is unlikely that any changes in muscle growth will be noticeable. Natural fluctuations in testosterone levels have little effect on an athlete's potential.
In general, how well you can pump up without steroids can be accurately predicted based on your bone and muscle structure.
Beginning of weight gain
In fitness club questionnaires you can often find a question: what was your maximum weight after 18 years?
It is assumed that people grow in height before the age of eighteen, and in width and depth after adulthood.
This is not entirely true. Today, excess weight can be observed in children of any age, and this is the norm rather than a deviation.
However, I have to work with people who are most often over thirty, who began to grow up back in the Soviet Union, at a time of food shortages due to coupons and the promotion of free children's sports.
In those days, there was about a 3% chance of overweight children in schools.
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How much muscle can you gain by training without steroids?
Most likely you can’t wait to calculate the capabilities of your body.
Most formulas and equations are based on height. Because the taller a person is, the more space for muscle growth, that is, the more potential to gain it.
But that is not all. Because you may be shorter than average in height, but have a larger than average bone structure.
To calculate, you can use the Casey Butt formula (how much mass you can gain without steroids).
This formula is based on a very large number of ankle and wrist circumference measurements of athletes not taking steroids from 1947 to 2009.
This is considered the most accurate method of assessment, and can be used to calculate the maximum potential size of each major muscle group.
Here is the formula:
Most likely, it looks like Chinese writing. Therefore, below is a calculator with which you can do all the calculations.
Natural Muscle Potential Calculator
How to use this calculator:
1.Enter your height in centimeters.
2.Enter the circumference of the forearm. How to measure: Open your palm and use a tape measure to measure the circumference of your wrist closest to your palm.
3.Enter ankle circumference. Measure with a tape measure around the narrowest point between the ankle and calf muscle.
4.Enter your ideal body fat percentage. Approximately 10%, because a lower percentage is practically impossible for most people.
There are three other calculations that are interesting to know about. They were developed by Lyle MacDonald, Alan Aragon and Martin Berhan.
All of them have worked with hundreds of top bodybuilders and athletes.
Let's get their opinion on how much muscle you can build without steroids.
Lyle McDonald is a fitness researcher and writer. His formula is based on a wealth of literature and experience working with thousands of people to improve their physique.
Lyle claims that a man can gain 20-25 kilograms of muscle in 4-5 years of training. Please note that this means 4-5 years of competent regular training, and not just any occasional exercise. And unfortunately, after this, the mass recruitment actually ends. He also believes that the age and weight at which you start training also plays a significant role. People who start exercising at age 40 tend to gain less muscle mass than those who start working out in their 20s. And thinner people have higher potential than people of normal weight.
He also noticed that if someone trains with errors for several years, then correcting the errors allows them to dramatically gain muscle size (as intensely as in the first year of training).
Alan Aragon has worked in the fitness industry for over 20 years, creating diets and exercise programs for Olympians and regular gym goers.
Here is his opinion on the rate of muscle growth:
- Beginners – 1-1.5% of body weight per month.
- The average level is 0.5-1% of body weight per month.
- Advanced – 0.25-0.5% of total body weight per month.
For women, he believes these numbers should be halved because they initially have a lower percentage of muscle tissue and a higher percentage of fat.
Let's look at an example: a 75-kilogram man will gain from 750 to 1100 grams of muscle per month in the first year of training. For a year from 9 to 13 kg.
Let's say he gained 12 kilograms in the first year. Now he moves to the intermediate level. And therefore he will be able to gain 4.5-9 kg in the second year of classes.
He strictly followed his diet and training programs. He gained these 9 kg and now his weight is 97 kg. And he is an advanced athlete. His prospects for next year are from 2.2 to 4.5 kg. From this point on, muscle growth begins to slow down until it almost stops completely.
Martin Berhan is a writer and fitness consultant who has become particularly famous for using intermittent fasting to prepare professional athletes for competition.
Martin developed his formula for predicting how much mass you can gain without steroids based on his vast personal experience of communicating with professionals in competitive bodybuilding. The formula is:
Height in centimeters - 100 = Upper limit of a person's weight (at 4 - 5% body fat).
5% body fat cannot be maintained permanently, only for a short (competitive) period. Naturally, if we are not talking about taking anabolic steroids.
Setting a weight loss goal
If you have gained 10 reliable kilograms in ten years, then it is difficult to expect that they will go away in one month.
If you have gained ten kilograms over the past year due to the standard treatment of a doctor with a standard diploma and the same stamped mind, then you can lose these 10 kilograms in three months - at a rate of about three kilograms per month.
Among my clients there are people who have had experience losing weight and also experience gaining it back. The more experience a person has in losing weight, the more likely and easier it is for him to achieve new weight loss feats.
If a person is used to losing five kilograms in a month, then this habit will not go away. However, such a person is accustomed to gaining the same five kilograms back. And this habit also persists.
Usually people come to me with experience of struggling with their weight, experience of winning battles, but losing in war. Nature defeats human intelligence and weight continues to increase.
We must admit that the struggle for survival, health in general and a healthy weight in particular requires intelligence, time and effort.
https://youtu.be/x83nYiWQ5c8
About expectations
If these calculations make you a little upset, that's normal. Most likely, you have seen many athletes on social networks who claim the opposite. And it’s clear why. In fact, it's good if you realize this now, before you become obsessed with unrealistic expectations. Which will lead to huge disappointments and failures in the future. The good news is this: regardless of genetic potential, you can create a great physique without steroids. It will take a little longer than you'd like, you won't get as huge as the fake naturals on Instagram, but you can really transform your body.
Reason for weight gain
In their young years after school at the institute, people often devote more time to their sexual instincts and find time to go for a walk.
Among my clients there are quite a lot of people with experience in training in sports sections for children and youth. Studying at both school and college leaves time for training in the sports section, especially if it is free.
There are still many free sports left. Of course, children from poor families do not play golf, go-karting or sailing, but wrestling or athletics are always welcome.
However, after college, the time begins for work and a total “lack of time for oneself.” All for the sake of money. With the start of a career or family life, physical activity and sexual activity begin to decrease, and emotional stress and overeating begin to increase.
At about 22 years old, people begin to actively grow in width. Active, but unnoticed - about 1-5 kilograms a year.
How to gain muscle and strength quickly
Let's break the whole process into 5 steps.
Eat slightly more calories than you burn
If you don't consume enough calories, your muscles won't grow. The body must always have enough energy. But even with a constant excess of calories, food stops feeding muscles and is simply transformed into fat. Therefore, a small calorie excess of 10-15% is much more effective than, for example, 30% or more. Read more in the article nutrition for gaining lean muscle mass.
Lots of protein and carbohydrates
High protein diets are most effective for muscle growth. Protein supplies material for the synthesis of muscle fibers (amino acids). If they are deficient, muscle tissue growth is impossible.
About half of your daily calories should come in the form of carbohydrates:
- They increase the overall level of glycogen in the body, which improves performance in the gym.
- Keep insulin levels slightly elevated, which reduces the breakdown of muscle proteins and creates more anabolic (mass-building) conditions in the body.
Don't overeat
It's very easy to lose control when gaining muscle mass when you don't limit the amount of food you eat. You will gain more and more fat. Which will soon interfere and make training difficult. Read about nutrition for gaining muscle mass here.
Do a lot of hard compound exercises
If nothing worked with the previous three points, then everything you do in the gym basically doesn’t matter. If you manage to establish proper nutrition, then a competent selection of exercises will help you make a serious leap in gaining strength and muscles.
The best option is when your workouts are built on heavy compound exercises, such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses and military presses. Why are these exercises so effective? Because this is the best way to progressively increase the load on your muscles - you become stronger every day, which means your muscle volume increases.
Proper sports nutrition
This point is last because it is the least important. It is of no use without a properly structured diet and training. But in modern life it is difficult to organize the correct diet, so various gainers allow you to maintain the necessary balance of nutrients in the body. And for a uniform and sufficient supply of protein to the body throughout the day, timely intake of whey protein is very effective. You can read more about sports nutrition in this article.
Numbers for men
Now we will give specific values of muscle mass that men who had a specific physical training plan and followed a balanced diet for 4 years managed to gain. Statistics from years of training for men who did not take steroids are shown below:
- 1 year: 10-12 kg;
- 2 year: 4-6 kg;
- 3 year: 2-3 kg;
- 4 year: 1-2 kg.
From these data you can see that as soon as a beginner begins to exercise regularly, for each month in the 1st year he gains about 0.8-1.1 kg of muscle mass. With each subsequent year, this figure decreases by approximately 2 times. Finally, by the 5th year of training, the athlete reaches the so-called “saturation” or reaches his physiological “ceiling”.
Below is a graph that reflects these numbers. The values of muscle mass growth are plotted along the vertical axis, and the training time is plotted along the horizontal axis. The graph shows a drop in the initially high rate of muscle gain to almost zero (horizontal position of the red line).
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Rate of muscle mass gain in girls
The structure of muscles, the characteristics of metabolic processes and the total volume of muscles in the fair sex are very different from those for men. Therefore, the figures given for girls will be completely different.
How many kg of muscle can a girl gain in a month? One of the studies showed that novice athletes gain an average of 3.54 kg in 6 months of regular training, that is, 0.59 kg in one month. This figure is approximately 60% of that for men.
The dynamics of muscle growth in subsequent years of training for both sexes is the same, that is, in the second year the girl will gain 50% of the weight of the previous year, in the third - 50% of the second, etc.
What to eat: foods
Nutritionists advise how to gain weight for a girl at home. They recommend eating foods high in calories.
Here are some high-energy foods that are suitable for weight gain:
- nuts: almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts, peanuts;
- dried fruits: raisins, dates, prunes, dried apricots;
- high-fat dairy products: whole milk, full-fat yogurt, cheese, cream;
- fats and oils: extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil;
- whole grains such as oats and brown rice;
- meat: chicken, beef, pork, lamb;
- coconut milk, peanut butter, avocado;
- chocolate and confectionery.
It's best to eat plenty of protein, fat, and carbohydrates at every meal.
