How quickly does training change the body - and how long does it take to get pumped up?

Gaining muscle mass is the dream of gym beginners. Quickly increasing the required volume, becoming stronger, more defined and looking better is a worthy goal. But it is difficult to say the exact time of its achievement. Human bodies are subject to many genetic and physiological laws. We all lead different lifestyles, and have characteristics of diet, food absorption, training regimen and rest. But people keep asking how long it takes to actually get big, how much you can gain, and where the limit is for muscle growth. Let's try to understand this issue.

Answers to questions: more important than you think

If you know scientifically based answers to questions about the speed of muscle pumping, you can get rid of illusions and make fewer mistakes in the process of working on yourself. Inflated expectations in the gym are the cause of injury, disappointment, and premature transition to anabolic steroid use. We read articles that tell how this or that actor gained 12 kg of lean muscle in 3 months, and we think that at lower speeds we shouldn’t even hope for adequate results in the gym.

It’s good if a beginner simply continues to learn the technique of basic exercises and lament that, unfortunately, he is not Wolverine. What if he starts buying useless supplements for muscle growth, purchasing diets from “Instagram gurus,” and eating everything from gainers to grandma’s cottage cheese with jam. What will he get in the end? Stomach upset at best. Excess fat, and problems with the liver and kidneys, at worst. Useless supplements siphon off a lot of money, a person begins to think that the gym is for the rich, and, as a result, he lies down on his favorite sofa again. This does not improve health, and self-esteem collapses.

For girls it's even more difficult. They dream of having rounded buttocks, toned hips, and beautifully drawn lines of the back and shoulders, but they do not want to look like professional bodybuilding athletes, for the most part. Many truly believe that huge “male-type” muscles are built not from a combination of heavy training, anabolic steroids, and a certain diet, but simply from the very fact of doing squats, deadlifts, and bench presses. That’s why the fitness industry offers a new “muscle tightening” program every day. As a result, many hours that could be spent effectively in the gym are spent on yet another nonsense, which, at best, strengthens the cardiovascular system, and at worst, simply increases appetite without providing incentives for muscle growth.

Knowing the actual rates of muscle growth eliminates wasted time and money, and simplifies the task for the psyche.

Getting pumped up in 2 months: is it realistic?

What did the researchers do?

A dozen studies have examined the effects of more frequent or infrequent training on muscle growth.

Most of them were inconclusive, finding no differences between different groups of subjects.

So, these scientists decided to take a step back, look at all the data on the topic, and try to figure out what the body of evidence points to.

This type of research is known as meta-analysis because it looks at a problem from a “meta,” or higher-level, perspective.

The main advantage of meta-analysis is that pooling the results of many studies makes it possible to detect trends that may not have emerged in smaller studies with a small number of subjects.

In this meta-analysis, the researchers narrowed down the studies to those that:

• They included training programs that directly compared different weekly training frequencies without changing too many variables like volume, intensity, and exercise selection.
• Conducted on healthy people instead of laboratory animals.
• Lasted at least 4 weeks to give subjects time to build sufficient muscle tissue.
• Muscle growth was measured in several ways to obtain more accurate data.
• We used basic exercises, thanks to which the training programs duplicated the classes in the gym.

After going through all the studies, the scientists found 10 that met these criteria. In each case, both groups of subjects performed the same exercises with the same training volume, number of repetitions, and rest period between repetitions.

The only difference was that some people's programs spread this training volume over more days per week, while others did it over fewer days.

Then, scientists (including our Scientific Advisory Board member and statistical genius James Krieger) ran these studies through various equations to ensure the accuracy of the results.

How much muscle mass can you really gain?

Gaining muscle mass is not a priority subject for research by medical scientists. Today there are only a few scientifically based positions on this topic. A fairly well-known experiment by Arthur Jones showed that a healthy man without the use of anabolic steroids and subject to adequate nutrition, recovery and heavy training in failure can gain no more than 8 kg of muscle in a training cycle of 12 weeks. We were talking about initially strong and athletic people who were not overweight.

Biologists say that in a lifetime you can gain:

• Approximately 22 kg if you are a man;
• About 12 kg if a woman.

Why do professional bodybuilders deny this? The answer is simple - anabolic steroids. They accelerate protein synthesis, allowing you to increase volume and weight beyond what nature intended for a particular person. But you need to understand that the use of such substances has side effects for both men and women, and is not justified for health and fitness purposes.

There are other data - in a week, with an ideally structured regime, a man can add about 100 g of muscle mass, a woman - about 50 g. Sometimes they say that the maximum gain for men over a 12-week training cycle is about 6 kg, for women - 2 -3 kg, which means total body weight, not just muscles.

Important: weight gain can be more significant, since with excess nutrition, not only muscle mass grows, but also a person’s fat layer.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rules. Average values ​​are valid for the so-called average genetic endowment. There are people who can gain more and faster, and those who can gain less. Usually, insignificant gains are compensated by the fact that a person practically does not add fat. Therefore, ectomorphs can be lean and sculpted with less muscle, while endomorphs can spend significant effort on reducing body fat, but still look “damp.”

How quickly can you achieve results in bodybuilding?

With proper training and the appropriate physique, you can achieve good results within a year and a half.

It is believed that a person of average build can get good results from working out in the gym within a couple of years. The first results will be noticeable already in the first year of active training. It should be remembered that success will not be long in coming if you approach your studies systematically, without stopping at the results achieved.

If bodybuilding becomes a lifestyle for you, and not just a sport, then, of course, you will soon be able to see the fruits of your efforts. There are athletes with 20 years of bodybuilding experience who continue to improve their bodies, achieving truly impressive results.

However, if they tell you that you can achieve good results in a few months, this is not true. For people with good natural abilities, this time is one year, for others - from two to four years.

How long does it take to actually get pumped up?

So, we found out the maximum rates of muscle mass gain. At what speed can you gain muscle in reality?

• Average for men: from 100 to 200 grams of muscle per week (this is about 0.5-1 kilogram per month);
• Average for men: from 50 to 100 grams of muscle per week (this is about 200-500 grams per month).

Does such a set occur in reality? Usually people gain more or less. There are many factors - diet style, amount of salt in the diet, macronutrient ratio, quantity and quality of carbohydrates. In addition, weight is affected by stress levels, hormonal fluctuations in women, medications, and even a common cold.

Sometimes people cannot gain an ounce simply because they are exposed to work and family stress, and stress increases calorie expenditure. Some people suffer from lack of sleep, while others suffer from sleep quality. Therefore, calculating weight gain in advance is quite a difficult job.

In strength sports, usually an 8-12 week cycle allows a novice athlete to add 3-5 kg ​​of weight, taking into account the fact that he monitors nutrition. But the training differs significantly from bodybuilding - a large amount of work in basic exercises and a relatively small amount in auxiliary exercises. It is also significant that before a competition a strongman can lose 2-3 kg of “water” weight, when the microtraumas of the muscles heal and the muscles stop holding weight. This well-known effect allows you to plan weight categories. And fitness beginners can judge the actual weight gain and its speed.

How long does it take to pump up? The main secret.

Is it possible to pump up quickly and what is needed for this?

People start playing sports for various reasons: some want to lose weight, some want to pump up, and some go to the gym just for health.

If in the first case it is enough to correctly draw up a training program based on many repetitions of different exercises and go on a cutting diet, then in the second case everything is more complicated: not only exercise is important here, but also nutrition, which should be based on proteins and carbohydrates.

Many athletes do not limit themselves to natural protein foods and include protein shakes in their diet, and this is very reasonable: for example, in order to reach the daily protein requirement, many need to eat 1 kg of chicken breast per day, which is not always possible.

Body types

The time it takes to pump up largely depends on your body type:

• Ectomorph: fast metabolism, thin build. It is most difficult for such people to gain weight, and in order to gain weight, they have to eat a lot of high-carbohydrate foods, as well as take sports nutrition - gainers;
• Mesomorph: this type is characterized by broad shoulders and chest, high metabolism. The level of subcutaneous fat is average. Physical transformation lends itself best;
• Endomorph: round figure, smooth body contours, wide bones. High level of subcutaneous fat, slow metabolism. Such people are typically overweight.

How long does it take to pump up in the gym?

When you come to the gym, you shouldn’t hope that relief will appear in the first week of classes. For many, this takes months or even years, but it all depends on several factors:

• Nutrition;
• Training program;
• Use of sports nutrition;
• Use of pharmaceuticals.

The latter is worth dwelling on in more detail. Pharmaceuticals are nothing more than anabolic steroids. They cannot be used without a prescription, however, many performing athletes drink them to increase muscles and endurance.

For health, this does not go away without a trace: some note a depressive or aggressive state during the course, as well as decreased potency, headaches and other unpleasant side effects. Nevertheless, the drugs allow you to pump up in a short time, but it is impossible to predict how this will affect your well-being.

How many years can it take to get pumped up without chemicals?

This is perhaps the most popular question among novice athletes. On average, it takes men 1-2 years to get noticeable relief, but achieving the shape of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his youth will only take the longest time. For ectomorphs, everything is much more difficult for them, because it is problematic for them to gain weight.