All About Fitness

How long does it take to put on muscle mass naturally?

”Make it a spiritual journey focusing on the process not the result or how long it will take to realise your goals”

I think that lot of people, because there’s so much in the way of Hollywood actors and people on social media who put on ridiculous amounts of muscle in really small periods of time, there’s this expectation that if you start working out.

That you’re going to put muscle on really quickly and keep on putting on muscle really quickly. And it doesn’t really work that way. In fact, I think that more people would keep on training if they had a realistic expectation and understanding of just how long and incremental muscle building is, if you’re doing it naturally.

Muscle growth is an adaptive process that occurs if muscles are overloaded or experience an unaccustomed stimulus

If you start working out, within the first six to 10 weeks, you’re going to have a really big change because the muscle mass increase is your body trying to do everything possible to adapt to what you’re doing. So, if you go to the gym, and training intensely enough. And even if you’re not training intensely, and you are just starting off, your body is going to react to the fact that you’re doing something different. And then it slows down. Really slows down. And it all makes sense if you understand the mechanism behind it.

So, if you stress your muscles with a stimulus, that is one that it’s unaccustomed to, or one that creates a degree of overload, meaning that the muscles are doing more work than it normally does, there’s going to be an adaptation. And that adaptation is going to allow you to perform whatever activity you’re doing better and more efficiently. So, if you’re doing an activity that involves lifting and requires strength, your body adapts by increasing protein synthesis to increase the cross sectional area of the contractile proteins that make up your muscle.

So, we’re not biologically designed to be bigger than a certain size and anyone who magically gets to that particular size in a short period of time, or who surpasses that size tends to be on steroids because there’s only so much muscle you can build naturally in a short time frame.

Most people, if they do everything right and eat perfectly. It’s going to take them about five years to start looking like they’re getting “the look.” That sounds like a really long time, but that’s how long it really takes to build muscle naturally. Those who are genetically gifted can do it within the course of sometimes two to three years, but even the gifted among us need two to three years. And when most people talk about how long it’s going to take them to build muscle, they are really talking about building muscle and looking lean at the same time. And it’s not that easy to do because you’re going in two different directions. You’re trying to, number one, build muscle and number two, minimize your body fat to a point where you can see all those muscles clearly. And to do that requires real attention to your diet and time.

Now that being said, your body will do everything possible to resist. The closer you get to a lower body fat percentage, the more your body stops and doesn’t want to go any further. So, it’s really hard as most of us know, to lose those last couple of pounds to look really, really lean. Add onto that the fact that there is only so much muscle you can put on. And the more muscle you put on, the more you have to do, and the longer it’s going to take before you put more muscle on, because your body doesn’t want to put on too much muscle as your body is a very conservative machine. This brings into focus a natural bodybuilder’s dilemma, and also puts into perspective of why most people who need to get ready for a movie or a photo shoot tend to use steroids because it’s really, really hard and impossible in a short period of time.
The problem with protein synthesis is that there’s only so much that can happen every day. You can only increase by a microscopic amount under the best of circumstances if your diet is perfect, if your training is perfect. And then there’s a point where even if you do everything perfectly, it’s going to stop. You’re not going to put on the same amount of muscle if you’re training your entire life in your early teens and twenties, as you will continuously in your forties and fifties. And I think it’s important that instead of looking at other people and thinking about how long it can take to build muscle, it’s important to focus on your own journey. Making it a spiritual journey. Making it a drug free journey where it’s about appreciating the fact that what you’re doing to make you healthier and stronger will also make you better at doing everything that you do in life.

Conclusion

Building muscle without resorting to steroids is a time-consuming journey. While it may require more patience and dedication, the results are likely to be safer, sustainable, and better for your overall health and well-being in the long run.