Å late som man "bare stiller spørsmål" er en velkjent måte å mistenkeliggjøre folk på. Under den offisielle "jeg vil bare sette fokus på toppidrett" skriver jo tynnjfeit om EN person spesifikt, og hamrer videre med dopinganklager selv når det faktisk kommer fakta på bordet om at det ble testet, og at testene har vært negative. Så dras det inn søkt argumentasjon om at utestede byggere ikke nødvendigvis er reine fordi de ikke har avlagt en positiv dopingprøve, og at dette helt naturlig kan sammenliknes med en utøver som er blitt testet gjentatte ganger, og negativt hver gang.
Slik direkte personspekulasjon forkledd som "å bare stille spørsmål" er feigt, det er fullstendig uten kontakt med virkeligheten og skikkelig lavmål. Heldigvis ser det ut som om de aller fleste skjønner dette.
or anyone who feels trapped in the body of a skinny teenager, putting on weight can seem painfully and frustratingly slow. Some people gain muscle very quickly. Others, however, make little or no progress at all.
If you're trying to figure out how much muscle you can expect to gain over the course of a year, the simple answer is that there is no simple answer. There are a number of things that you need to take into account when you're setting your muscle-building goals.
Muscle growth tends to come in a series of "spurts"
No matter how hard you train, how strict your diet is, or how many muscle-building supplements you use, growth will never come at a predictable steady pace.
There are so many factors influencing your progress. Not many people can do nothing but go to the gym, eat and sleep for months on end.
Holidays, illness and injury all get in the way. Your partner complains that you go to the gym too often and demands that you spend more "quality time" together. You pull a few "all-nighters" at the office and decide to skip training for a week, vowing to "start fresh" on Monday.
While there are some variables that you can control, such as how you train and what you eat, there are many that you cannot. The most important of these is your genetics.
Be realistic. If you have a body designed for long-distance running, it's unlikely that you'll be winning the Mr. America contest in the next few years.
Like it or not, some people are genetically predisposed to gaining weight, and will see impressive results after only a few months. Others will build muscle more slowly.
Scientists from the Netherlands, for example, have shown that mesomorphs (those naturally athletic guys who just have to look at a weight in order to gain muscle) build muscle more easily than ectomorphs (the typical "skinny guy" who has an extremely tough time gaining weight) [7].
The researchers used something called the fat-free mass index (shown below) to assign subjects to either a "slender" group (the ectomorphs) or a "solid" group (the mesomorphs).
Although both groups put on muscle during the 12-week study, the slender guys gained only 0.7 pounds (0.3 kilograms) versus 3.5 pounds (1.6 kilograms) in the solid group.
In other words, the mesomorphs gained muscle FIVE TIMES more quickly than the ectomorphs.
Your rate of progress also depends how close you are to the upper limit of what you're capable of in terms of muscle mass, also known as your ceiling of adaptation.
The closer you are to this upper limit, the slower your gains will be. Someone who's been working out with weights for 10 years, for example, will gain muscle a lot more slowly than someone who's just starting out.
It's also normal to put on a little fat at the same time.
For every pound of muscle you gain, expect to add some fat at the same time. The amount of fat you gain will depend, in part at least, on how much you eat. But it also depends on how lean you are when you start to overfeed.
Studies show that during a period of overfeeding, you'll gain more muscle and less fat if you're naturally lean to start with [6]. Conversely, fatter people tend to lose more fat and less muscle when they go on a diet. The leaner you get, the harder it gets to lose fat without losing muscle.
So, for every 10 pounds of weight gained by someone who is overweight, roughly 3-4 pounds come from lean tissue and 6-7 pounds come from fat.
But for every 10 pounds of weight gained by a lean person, 6-7 pounds come from lean tissue while only 3-4 pounds come from fat. I should point out that the term "lean tissue" doesn't necessarily mean muscle tissue, as stored fluid and carbohydrate can also contribute to gains in lean tissue.
The studies on which these estimates are based lasted a minimum of three weeks and didn't include a structured exercise routine. With a good weight-training program you can expect gains with a superior muscle-to-fat ratio.
On a related note, if you're loading with creatine (20 grams a day for 5 days), or you eat a lot more carbohydrate than normal, you can gain lean tissue more quickly.
For example, you might put on 4-5 pounds of lean tissue in your first week on creatine and a high-calorie diet. But as I mentioned earlier, lean tissue and muscle tissue aren't the same thing. And you won't keep on gaining weight at that rate indefinitely.
What if you don't want to gain ANY fat?
Although some people try to gain muscle mass while maintaining a very low level of body fat at the same time, this is actually very hard to do.
Why? The issue may be psychological. If you've just spent the last six months working your butt off to get a six-pack, the last thing you'll want to do is put the fat right back on again. Someone in this position may simply be reluctant to eat the quantity of food necessary to gain a significant amount of muscle.
The problem may also be hormonal.
Dr. Richard Strauss, writing in The Physician and Sportsmedicine, describes the case of an athlete who was closely observed at monthly intervals for two years [5]. He'd never used anabolic steroids, and had normal hormone levels during the off-season.
During competition, the athlete reduced his body fat percentage to 4-5%, which is extremely low. This was accompanied by a drop in testosterone. His sexual activity dropped to almost zero, despite the fact he had a very active sex life before losing weight. Once he regained the lost weight, his testosterone levels (and sex life) returned to normal.
It's hard to tell whether the diet he used to drop fat or the low body fat level itself was primarily responsible for the drop in testosterone. In any case, a chronic low testosterone level will make muscle growth a long, slow process.
What this means for you
Based on the research I've looked at, as well as my own personal experience, I'd estimate that the "average" person (if there is such a thing) is doing extremely well if they're gaining about 2 pounds of muscle each month, or 24 pounds over the course of a year.
Although I haven't seen many studies on muscle growth in women, my best guess is that gains in the "average" female are approximately half those seen in males.
As you probably know already, there are plenty of people running around trying to convince you that they have "the secret" — be it a training program or nutritional supplement— to gaining 50 pounds of muscle in [INSERT COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC TIME FRAME HERE].
And who knows, maybe a few of them are telling the truth. But I'm pretty sure that a lot of them are using anabolic steroids and passing off their results as "natural." Either that or they're simply making it all up.
In his book Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods, strength and conditioning coach Christian Thibadeau notes that "most men have a hard time gaining 15-25 pounds of muscle in a year."
Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had extremely favorable genetics AND a Herculean work ethic (as well as a little pharmaceutical assistance), was very happy when he gained 25 pounds in WEIGHT (not just muscle) over a 12-month period. Here's what he wrote in his autobiography Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder...
Many people regret having to serve in the Army. But it was not a waste of time for me. When I came out I weighed 225 pounds. I'd gone from 200 to 225. Up to that time, this was the biggest change I'd ever made in a single year.
So if Arnold is saying that 25 pounds was as much as he'd ever gained in one year (and not all of this was muscle), you'll be doing extremely well just to match it, let alone beat it.
What's the bottom line?
If you're a beginner on a decent training and nutrition program, you might be able to gain 25 pounds of muscle in your first year of training.
However, muscle growth is NOT a linear process, and you won't keep growing at the same rate forever.
In year two, we can cut that number in half, giving you a gain of 10-12 pounds. In year three, the gains will be halved again, giving you 5-6 pounds of new muscle.
For every pound of muscle you gain, expect to add anywhere from 0.5 to 1 pound of fat. So, if you want to add 10 pounds of lean muscle, plan on gaining roughly 15-20 pounds in weight.
Unless you're a teenager with lots of natural anabolic hormones flooding your system, someone with a genetic predisposition towards rapid muscle growth, or you're using anabolic drugs, gaining more than 25 pounds of lean muscle in one year or less is very hard to do.
Skrevet av: Christian Finn holds a master's degree in exercise science, is a certified personal trainer and has been featured on BBC TV and radio, as well as in Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Fit Pro, Zest and other popular fitness magazines.
Der blir det også nevnt, det jeg skrev, at en utrent kropp kan greie dette på et år, med god trening og godt kosthold.