Although regular exercise changes many metabolic parameters, most people are primarily interested in weight loss and weight gain when considering its benefits. But how fast can a person build muscle—or lose weight?
How does the body change during training?
Most people with practical experience in losing weight and gaining muscle agree that losing weight is usually easier than gaining weight. In addition, the visual effect of fat-burning training appears faster than strength training to increase muscle.
The fact that muscle fiber and fat differ in volume by almost 2 times with the same mass plays a role – visually, the loss of 1 kg of fat is more noticeable than the gain of 1 kg of muscle. Plus, along with fat, excess fluid often leaves the body – which also affects the perception of volume.
Experts say¹ that it takes 6-8 weeks for any noticeable effect of strength training to appear – and the rate of weight gain is about 10 times slower than the rate of weight loss. Apparently, this is the main problem for beginners – they simply do not want to wait and lose motivation.
The benefits of playing sports
We can summarize the benefits of regular exercise in the following categories:
- Accelerating the basal metabolism and increasing calorie burn even at rest are the reasons why muscle growth training demands increased nutrition.
- VOmax levels rise and oxygen consumption increases, stimulating the cardiovascular system – while in non-athletic people these indicators decrease by about 10% every year.
- Bone mass increases – that is, both muscles and, to some extent, bones grow. This not only changes the figure and posture, but also helps the body age more slowly.
- Training can normalize or increase hormonal levels, including boosting testosterone production and improving tissue response to glucose and insulin.
- Skeletal muscles and connective tissue develop – directly affecting the increase in strength indicators and, most importantly, muscle volume.
How fast do muscles grow?
When talking about increasing muscle through strength training, it is necessary to separate the short-term effect and the long-term one. For example, immediately after exercise, muscle volume usually increases – while it will take time to create a stable result.
In fact, skeletal muscle is the most adaptable type of tissue in the human body. Strength training activates the processes of hypertrophy, leading to an increase in the number of cells in the muscles, as well as increasing their volume (including due to an increase in glycogen stores in the sarcoplasm).
However, researchers are extremely careful in determining the “typical” muscle growth rate figure – it depends on genetics, age and training experience. Interestingly, beginners are able to increase muscle weight faster than professionals – but we are talking only about the initial mass gain.
Weight gain rules
First of all, an increase in muscle mass is possible only when the rate of muscle protein synthesis exceeds the rate of its breakdown. That is, it is important not only to train correctly, but also to consume enough nutrients to make up for losses and ensure growth.
Secondly, although resistance exercise stimulates muscle cell hypertrophy quite strongly, the course of these processes is relatively slow – it usually takes several weeks or months to become obvious and visually noticeable.
Interestingly, even a single workout stimulates² additional protein synthesis within 2-4 hours after its completion – moreover, the processes can be active for 24 hours.
The impact of training on posture and physique
Chiropractor Thomas Myers, in his book Anatomy Trains, says that the traditional division of the body into 600 independent muscles is wrong. The modern position boils down to the fact that we have one muscle in 600 fascial pockets, united in a single network.
In other words, the muscles themselves are not attached to the bones at all, as people without knowledge of anatomy believe – it’s the fascia that attaches to the bones. It wraps around the muscle fibers like a web, passing around the muscle, as well as through it.
Moreover, the formation of posture is based on the uniform involvement of the anterior and posterior surfaces of the fascia (see the illustration above). The abdominal muscles are connected to the muscles of the front of the thigh and are balanced by the associated work of the muscles of the back and back of the thighs.
Why is strength training important?
Strength training, while triggering hypertrophy processes and activating muscle growth, simultaneously develops tendons and fascia – helping the skeleton to more evenly support the load. It is also important to note that the fasciae are connected in an X-like pattern, with the top of the left half of the body connected to the bottom of the right half.
Attempting to quickly develop a specific muscle group (such as the arms or chest) often conceals a lack of understanding of many physiological processes. This misunderstanding can lead to sports injuries and discourage further engagement in physical activity.
Even if your body weight has not increased in the first 2-3 months of strength training, this is quite normal and even expected. Physical exercise changes metabolism quite slowly (but thoroughly) – it is erroneous and even dangerous to expect an excessively fast result.
The first rule of gaining muscle mass is to develop the habit of regular training. Often, the rate of muscle growth is several times lower than the rate of possible weight loss – and any noticeable result from strength training can only appear after 6-8 weeks (which often demotivates beginners).