LEVEL 1 - ENERGY BALANCE (Part 3) Weight Gain

Question 1

What is the chart of recommended monthly weight gain by lifting experience?

Answer 1

Question 2

What’s special about weight recommendation for advanced weight lifts?

Answer 2

Look at top level bodybuilders, at their stage weight might only go up or down 1 or 2 lbs (~0.5-0.9 kg) from competition to competition.

Yes, bodyweight increases will come over time, but it’s going to be the amount that an intermediate trainee gains in 1 to 2 months over the course of 3 to 4 years.

Typically it’s a case of better muscle maintenance while dieting versus muscle gain in the off season. So at this level what you want to focus on is making sure that you’re recovering from your training and that you’re making progressive increases in the gym.

Question 3

How many calories are the in 1 lbs of hydrated muscle? What is it made of?

Answer 3

A pound (~0.5 kg) of hydrated muscle is actually only about a third protein, the rest being minerals and water. So, there are only ~800 calories in a pound (~0.5 kg) of muscle.

Question 4

Why does the 3500 calorie rule work for muscle?

Answer 4

while fat can be very easily stored at almost no metabolic cost to the body, this is not true for muscle mass. Muscle mass is much more metabolically costly to synthesize than body fat.

Also, the reality is that even when doing things right, for lifters who are not overweight, and not novices, they’re going to be putting on both fat and muscle in most cases when gaining weight. Combining this fact and the metabolic cost of creating muscle tissue, the “3500 calorie rule” actually holds up decently well for setting up your diet for weight gain as well as weight loss. This is not to say that a pound (~0.5 kg) of muscle mass has 3500 calories in it, but rather, that you may have to increase your calories more than expected to gain muscle because of the energetic cost of synthesizing this muscle. Essentially, the process of building muscle increases caloric expenditure and this along with NEAT may be why in some cases weight gain is much less than expected after a caloric increase.