Impatience is the biggest enemy for those of us trying to gain muscle weight. On ‘average’ the best anyone can do with a perfect diet, excellent & hard workout routines, and everything else being perfect, is about 0.454kg (454 grams = 1 pound) of muscle per week. Scientifically this is the maximum limit for human beings. We cannot gain more muscle than this per week.

The only exception to this MAXIMUM rule of 454 grams per week for ANYONE is drugs, such as steroids and HGH (human growth hormone). Which have very high probabilities of giving you health problems that you really DON’T want to even considering risking (that is, if the drugs don’t kill you first).

Considering almost NO one has everything (diet exercise, etc) 100% perfect, this maximum is realistically going to be about 300 grams or 0.75 pounds per week.

So now you’re asking “yeah but why do some people have much bigger gains that that?” Answer: growth spurts (which are out of our own control). Growth spurts can shoot this upward of 1 pound per week. Which is why at times you may see big gains, and at other times none. Growth spurts are erratic at best and will not LAST continuously and are also unpredictable as to when they can occur, and may only occur very occasionally. The scientifically calculated average of 1 pound of muscle gain per week MAXIMUM for anyone includes this. But like I said, realistically you will be lucky to achieve 0.75 pounds of muscle gain per week.

So, for example, if you’re 150 pounds, and you want to be ripped at 185 pounds, that’s 35 pounds have muscle to gain. (if you’re only 5’9 – 185 is very ripped) you can only gain 0.75 pounds per week that’s 35/0.75, which is 46 weeks, over 11 months, or just under 1 year. The whole period must be consistent hard training, no cheating, at least 1 gram per pound of protein per day, etc. SO in other words, don’t expect to see a change on the scales from one week to the next, try more like month to month, and don’t expect massive gains all the time. IT WILL TAKE A LONG TIME, nothing happens overnight here.