You want to gain muscle. You like how it looks. You like how it feels. You used to have it, and now you lost it. Whether due to age, or being sedentary, or injuries that prevented you from exercising. Or maybe you’ve never had a good amount of muscle, and you want it now – even if you’re over 70.
Original source: here.
You don’t exactly want to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, but you do want to put a few pounds of muscle on your frame.
I’ve written about muscle gain in the past extensively in articles like this one, and client case studies like:
- How an 83-year-old grampa gained 6 pounds of muscle and tripled his strength in 3 months.
- How Oren gained 20 pounds of muscle
So I won’t regurgitate what I’ve already written about in the past. Rather, this article will outline the “Cadillac” version of what I would do with a client who had no limitations. I’ll explain what I would do with a client who:
- Had enough money to exercise with a trainer each workout (the majority of our clients work with their trainer 1-2 times per week, with an additional 1-3 on their own) – 3-5 times per week
- They had enough time to exercise the necessary amount
- They had no problems with nutritional compliance
If that was the case, what kinds of results can someone expect?
- A beginner male can put on about 10-12 pounds in 6 months
- A beginner female can put on about 5-6 pounds in 6 months
- An intermediate male can put on about 3-7 pounds in 6 months
- An intermediate female can put on about 2-4 pounds in 6 months
And how would we get there? That’s what I’ll cover in this article.
But first, let’s get 2 major issues out of the way:
I Don’t Want to Get Too Bulky
I often hear this one, as if it was easy to get bulky. Young men who are directly training for the goal of getting bulky have a hard time doing it.
To give you some numbers of what are realistic expectations for muscle gain:
- Men can gain between 40-50 pounds of muscle in their entire life. 20-25 of those will come in the first year. 10-12 will come in the second year. 5-6 in the third year, and so on.
Women can gain half that.
So do the math. If you’re a man in your first year of training, the fastest that you could gain muscle is 2 pounds per month. If you’re a woman, you’re gaining 0.8-1 pounds of muscle per month. Even at the fastest, it’s slow.
You don’t wake up in the morning, weighing 150 pounds, do a strength training workout that evening, and wake up the next morning at a bulky 170 pounds, and think to yourself “uh-oh. I overdid it at the gym last night.” Just doesn’t happen. Again, young men directly training for that goal wish it was that easy.
So don’t worry about getting bulky. It won’t be sudden… if it’ll happen at all.
What if I’m Over 60?
This is a common myth floating around – if I’m over a certain age, I can’t put on muscle like a younger person. Not true.
In one study that went on for 6 months, there were 2 groups of people:
- Group 1: men and women between ages 20-30
- Group 2: men and women between ages 65-75
Both groups did the exact same strength training program, and after 6 months, both groups gained the same amount of muscle.
And this is not just one isolated study. Study after study after study show the same thing: people over 60 can gain just as much muscle as people under 60. So let’s lay that myth to rest.
I elaborate on this in full detail in my article on strength training over 60.
The Exercise
When it comes to gaining muscle, we want to know different parameters:
- How many sets and reps should I do?
- How many times per week?
- How much weight should I lift/how much resistance should I use?
- Which exercises to do?
By the way – the exercises are only listed fourth, because that’s what they are – only the fourth most important variable. I write about the most important factor in an exercise program in this article.
As for the answers to the other questions:
How Many Reps Should I Do?
For decades, it was said that 3 sets of 8-12 reps are the “muscle growth” range. Reps lower than that build strength without size. Reps higher than that build endurance without size.
That’s false. Even though that myth is still perpetuated by personal trainers.
We know from recent research that the rep range itself doesn’t matter.
Case in point – in one study, one group of people trained to muscular failure with 30% of their max (when you’re lifting a weight that light, you can usually do over 50 reps), and another group trained to failure with 80% of their max (when you’re using a weight that heavy, you can usually do 8-12 reps). Vastly different numbers of reps, but they experienced the same amount of muscle growth.
So it’s really not the number of reps. But rather, the proximity to muscular failure. You don’t have to go all the way to muscular failure, but you should come pretty close. Whether you do it with light weights or heavy weights doesn’t seem to matter.
How Many Sets Should I Do?
In the “dark ages” of fitness, the way you’d determine what to do is you’d like at the most muscular person in the gym, and copy what they’re doing. But there are 2 problems with that:
- You don’t know whether or not they’re on drugs.
- Even if they’re not, they might just be genetically superior. And a person who’s genetically average can’t and shouldn’t train like someone who’s genetically superior.
That’s why I love research. By and large, it’s done on genetically average people.
Now, there’s research actually looking at what’s the “optimal dose” for muscle growth. In general, beginners need about 6-10 sets per muscle, per week to grow. So you could do 1 exercise for 6 sets or 2 exercises for 3 sets each or 3 exercises for 2 sets each, etc. Intermediate and advanced trainees need 24-30 sets per muscle, per week to grow.
Number of Times Per Week
That’s the beautiful thing – it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re meeting the weekly set requirements, it’s not that important whether you do 10 sets (for instance) in 2 days or 10 sets in 5 days (but with shorter workouts).
I will say this though – if you are an intermediate or advanced trainee, and you are in the category that needs 24+ sets per muscle per week, it’s easier to spread 24 sets across 4-5 days, as opposed to doing them in 2-3 days. And your workouts will be shorter, but more frequent, and you’ll feel fresher.
How Much Weight Should I Lift?
As you noticed from the previous sections, the weight itself is actually not that important for muscle growth. For strength, it is, but for muscle growth, not so much, since you gain basically an identical amount of muscle (but not strength) from light weights as you do from heavy weights – as long as all the other variables are in place (number of sets, and proximity to muscular failure).
Which Exercises to Do
There are a million different exercises for each body part. Is each exercise created equal, or are some exercises better than others? Yes, some exercises are clearly superior to others. But that’s a topic for a future article. In the meantime, the best article I’ve ever read on criteria for exercise selection was written by Menno Henselmans here.
So this is the “Cliff’s notes” as far as how I would train a client for muscle gain if they had no limitations.
Yes, we can give exercise prescriptions for clients to follow on their own. And lots of them do, and get great results. But why do I think we can do even better if all of their workouts were with a trainer? A few reasons:
Appropriate Progression
With our muscle gain clients, I find that they are too conservative with their progressions. They are too scared to raise the weight in different exercises. Their muscles and joints can handle it. Their mind can’t.
There’s always the concern of “what if I’m raising the weight so fast I’m going to hurt myself?”
Because of that, they’re often leaving progress on the table.
Rep-by-Rep Adjustments
Sometimes, you’re doing an exercise, and for whatever reason, it starts to hurt. The trainer can make an adjustment right then and there, and you continue the exercise pain-free.
On your own, a few things can happen:
- You can push through the pain, and make it worse
- You just skip the exercise, and miss out on the benefits
- You can try to modify it yourself, and miss out on the effectiveness
Accountability
And probably the most common reason people hire personal trainers: accountability. If you’re accountable to no one but yourself, you can let yourself off the hook. A good personal trainer won’t let you off the hook (unless there’s a legitimate reason, like an illness, accident, etc.).
Nutrition
As for nutrition, different goals have different factors that would be considered most important. For instance, for type 2 diabetes, the 2 most important factors are calories and fibre. For high blood pressure, it’s the potassium, magnesium, omega 3 and nitrate content. Likewise, for muscle gain, the single most important factor (unsurprisingly) is protein.
Again, this is not the article where I go into how much protein you need. I actually have a protein calculator tool on my site, where you just plug in your own details (age, weight, activity level and goal), and it tells you specifically how much protein you need. If you want to check it out, you can go here.
Supplements
Usually, compliance to supplements is not an issue. And while supplement recommendations are individualized based on client needs, one of the factors is the goal. If the only thing I know about a client is that their goal is muscle gain, the only supplement I’d recommend for sure is creatine. If they’re having a hard time getting enough protein through their diet, I would also recommend protein powder.
Any other supplements would be based on:
- Any chronic conditions they have
- Potentially blood work
- Symptoms
Again, if someone was to implement this, over a 6-month period, if they gained the kind of muscle that is possible to gain, they can expect:
- To have a more masculine, V-shape look if they’re a man
- To have a more feminine, hourglass figure if they’re a woman
- Carryover to other activities outside the gym, like golf, tennis, gardening, and others
- More energy
- Better, deeper sleep
…and more.
And that is the “Cadillac” version of the muscle gain without limitations program. If you see yourself meeting the criteria, and you want to find out whether you qualify for the program, just fill out the application form on our home page.
