for those who GAINED 5KG or MORE in a month....WHAT DID YOU DO?(srs help here please)

Please excuse my passive aggression, but here is an ellipsis that describes how I responded to your post:

"..."

Steroids? Naturally? I hesistate to even respond to this. No idea where to start... but since I'm so passionate about exercise physiology, and I know you're likely to be just a college student, I will be lenient and respond.

"I assume by "decent strength training programme " you mean using steroids?"

I mean a training programme involving the basical barbell movements including full squats, deadlifts, pulls, and pressing exercises.

"No one gains 5 kg of muscle in a month naturally"

This statement is incorrect and deferres to your preconceived, and naive perception of muscular development. Again, I know you're a college student so I'm more than certain your credentials stretch no further than what google has told you (silly bull****, I assure you). 5kg equates to 11lbs. A rank novice male on a training program that I GIVE HIM, will gain in excess of 15lbs per month for the duration of his novice phase as a strength trainee. When does this end? When a linear progression in load (weight), workout-to-workout no longer occurs due to a plateu in strength development. After this period I would prescribe him with weekly targets rather than increasing the weight per workout. He has adapted to the external stress, while on the way putting on 30-50lbs of lean body mass. And stop calling it muscle, you realize our bodies also consist of ligaments, connective tissues, cartilage and bone?

"Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I though strength training was supposed to target strength, not muscle gain?"

Kid, that's why it's called strength training. The lack of understand you show here lies in the fact that strength training provides the maximal stimulus to un-, or deconditioned skeletal muscle. "Bodybuilding", as I assume you're aware of, and from which most of your online education is based, emphasises the merely superficial and TEMPORARY (yes, f*cking temporary) increase in muscle cell volume. Call it "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy" like the internet experts like to say. It's merely an influx of sarcoplasm that declines over the course of weeks following a sedentary period. On the other hand, strength training, due to the REAL physiological stress it places on the body grants the smart little strength trainee with larger muscle fibres and possible more (although hyperplasia is out of my league), rather than the fluid surrounding it -- a cause of "pumping iron".

The contrasting set and rep scheme you mentioned is irrelevant to anything.

Bottom line: the internet is stupid. Strength training will make you bigger, AND stronger than any other form of exercise, and yes 5kg of LBM is achieveable. Very achieveable.

Edit: I would advise OP if he is motivated enough to begin a strength training program, to buy the book "Starting Stength: Basic Barbell Training 2nd ed." by Mark Rippetoe. Any question you might have about exercise will be answered in there. it's indispensible.

How long does this novice period last? 1 month?

11 pounds of muscle a month even if for only 3 months would mean nearly 2 and a half stone which is a ridiculous amount, even if it is possible it would be mainly fat.

Are you asking me how long it takes the people I've trained to become an intermediate? I could give you dozens of different answers. It depends on your motivation, your consistency with training, eating, and sleeping, and whether your gym is adequate to the task of transforming you into a mouth frothing beast (does it have a squat rack? Can you do deadlifts there? Does it even have a free weight section that doesn't just include dumbbells?)

@OP, I would typically start (as a novice) with the Rippetoe's Practical Programming Novice Program:



This, and depending on initial body composition (are you fat, are you skinny, or are you both?), I'd suggest up to 6000 calories per day. Lots of fat, lots of protein, moderate carbs, in a nutshell. It will be more expensive to train this way, the skinnier you are (because of the food you'll be eating). The goal here is not to make you fat, but neither does it matter whether you can see your abs or not. Get stronger and bigger before you decide to lose weight as an inexperienced lifter. I don't recommend GOMAD for the skinny guy, but I do suggest milk.

Obviously, odds are you won't like what I'm telling you, because it takes commitment, and a routine that you may have to follow stringently. But it's a small price to pay for a strong and healthy physique.

They are not claims. I've both witnessed and experienced first hand what optimal strength training and serious food consumption can do to the human body. Are you so fixed on the notion that physical development at that rate is impossible when the human body is such an immensely complex system? I guarantee that if you consider 5kg of muscle/bone/connective tissue (lean body mass) in a week a spectacular accomplishment, then you'll be very satisfied with Novice Linear Progression. Here are some things to read...


http://startingstrength.com/articles/novice_effect_rippetoe.pdf
http://startingstrength.com/articles/clarification_rippetoe.pdf

As much as I know this is something that goes against what so many people read, see, and expect from resistance training (although, it's only training if you're doing it consistently. If you do it for a while and stop, it's merely exercise for it's own sake -- training is a continuous process), it's true and has been demonstrated in the lucky few who's simply been mentored by the right people and train the right way.

I'm aware of Starting Strength and Mark Rippetoe and I'm also aware that every kid on the internet links to it when someone asks about weight training. But the fact of the matter is 5kg of lean body mass is unachievable.

Let me ask you, how long have you been training? How much weight have you gained in this time? And how much has your bodyfat percentage changed? Because with your reasoning a newbie can put on over a stone and a half of pure muscle in 2 months of dedicated training and nutrition, which anybody with any sort of background in strength training or bodybuilding who ISN'T try to sell you something will tell you is a bogus claim.

Then those kids are lucky to have found such a useful resource.

Big edit from my last post, please re-read it. I'd meant to say per month, not a weekly figure. Are you in agreement with that? Fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter whether you accept what I know and believe, but how you approach your strength training career from now on, assuming you are in fact an experienced weight trainer.

You'd like to see and hear about my personal observations? I guess it's only fair. I've been training since 5'7" 62kg and my progress is well documented. For myself. I don't get a kick out of posting pictures on the internet, and usually I'm asked only for my lifts. Since begining a consistent strength training program I'm 20 kilos heavier and 10% body fat according to skinfold measurement. I won't take a picture of myself as "evidence": take home with you what you will. My life was essentially a weekly routine of food, and gym: 7 quarter pounder 100% beef burgers, 500g pasta, 4 pints of milk, 10ml w-3 oil, 80g kale, 10ml sunflower oil -- I ate this diet for almost 9 months, almost every day. By the first week I saw a rediculous change in my physique. I estimate I'm gained over 44lbs of lean body mass between now and then. I had to reach almost 20% body fat twice (leaning down simply by reducing calorie consumption), to get to where I am now, and I'm nowhere near finished. Maybe this anecdotal evidence is sufficient to shed light onto the issue. It's something I have a great deal of interest in, and plan to continue university to an MD in exercise physiology, if you're interested in my academic background.

Edit: Zach was a typical example of the dozens of teenagers Rippetoe has trained in this fashion. the problem is finding kids to do it. For the genetically gifted, 20lbs of lean body mass within the first MONTH (another damn edit) of training is not a magical occurance.

44lb in 9 months is impressive, 20kg in 9 months though is not 5kg of lean muscle a month, and I think that is the figure that has caused such a fuss. Congrats on the training though, because that is an impressive and more importantly realistic figure.

We must have a semantic disagreement. 5kg of LBM per month, for many months is not what I have been saying. I assure you that 5kg of LBM within the first month of a novice's strength training programme will typically be fat-free. Zach accomplished a greater figure during his first 11 weeks of training, and I know for sure that more can be done.

I agree that maybe in the first month of training 5kg is achievable, but I think your achievement is among the highest that is realistically achievable without steroids in the same time period. In your previous post you said 20lb lbm in the first month is achievable? That's a stone and a half of muscle? In a month?

This I believe can happen, in the most gifted of untrained athletes/people. It would require not only the proper training, but youth, genetics and a serious amount of meat, milk and rest. I'm half asian, short, and my dad was an average man. I am not genetically endowed.

Here's an old picture of me just 4 weeks into the PPST novice program (note that I was still getting used to the food I had to eventually eat on a daily basis):

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6104/beforeafterj.png

You'll have to dodge the slight glute visuals, and I might take this down later. I ceased enjoying the muscle poses once I got my priorities straight. Yes, 20lbs+ in a untrained skinny guy is also something that is possible, and not just theoretically. At least I believe so. The only way to tell whether you fit into that lucky demographic is to try it out for yourself.

no offence bro....but you looked best in the first pic imo i just dont get it maybe

no offence bro....but you looked best in the first pic imo i just dont get it maybe

I'm sure me and Windowmaker can at least agree that we both disagree with this

you guys are prob proffesional bodybuilding experts or something

This I believe can happen, in the most gifted of untrained athletes/people. It would require not only the proper training, but youth, genetics and a serious amount of meat, milk and rest. I'm half asian, short, and my dad was an average man. I am not genetically endowed.

Here's an old picture of me just 4 weeks into the PPST novice program (note that I was still getting used to the food I had to eventually eat on a daily basis):

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6104/beforeafterj.png

You'll have to dodge the slight glute visuals, and I might take this down later. I ceased enjoying the muscle poses once I got my priorities straight. Yes, 20lbs+ in a untrained skinny guy is also something that is possible, and not just theoretically. At least I believe so. The only way to tell whether you fit into that lucky demographic is to try it out for yourself. Train and see, most people are too content with their personal trainers who barely potentiate a fraction of their potential.