If you’ve decided to start working out to burn fat and gain muscle, the question running through your mind is, ‘how long will this take?’ Thinking this is normal as it’s human nature to want to attain your goals quickly. But, at the same time, it’s essential to be realistic and avoid extreme measures, such as starving yourself, since this causes you greater harm than good.
If you’re still curious about the exact duration this might take you, here’s a post that offers you valuable details.
How Does Muscle Growth Occur?
The growth of muscles happens after it’s being breakdown due to exercising, such as lifting weights. This breakdown of the muscle fibers, which are cylindrical cells, occurs through a complex process, involving:
- Your muscles are suffering small injuries all over their fibers by lifting weights.
- The repair of the destroyed cells when your muscles are rested.
- During this repair process, the torn muscle fibers are joined back together, and new proteins are laid in each muscle cell.
- The repair process makes your muscles stronger and bigger.
This is a simplified overview of how muscle growth happens because the whole process is a lot more complex. In truth, there are other systems involved in your muscles’ growth, including your circulatory, endocrine, and nervous system.
How To Build Your Muscles Quickly
In your journey to lose fat and build muscle, you need to start from somewhere. The speed at which this happens varies from one person to another and depends on two aspects:
- Your work ethic
- Your body’s pre-selected genetic blueprint
These are the two main variables alongside others that determine how fast you can achieve your fitness goal. But before you even start exercising to lose fat and gain muscle, you should first set a realistic timeframe. Doing this is essential to avoid putting your body through a severe strain, which only affects you negatively. Fortunately, you can still achieve your dream of safely and quickly building muscle and losing fat by using supplements, such as Ostarine MK-2866.
However, sticking to a realistic timeline is challenging, and you need to have the discipline and support to ensure you don’t lose sight of your goal. Otherwise, you risk being disappointed at the rate at which you’re losing fat and building muscles, consequently giving up altogether.
The rate at which muscles are gained is different between men and women. Usually, men will gain muscle a lot faster than women because of testosterone. For newbie men, muscles grow at about 1.5 pounds each month, at 0.5 pounds per month for the intermediate man, and at a rate of 0.25 pounds every month for the advanced weight lifter.
The rate of muscle growth is lower in women–with the newbie lifter gaining 0.5 muscles per month, the intermediate between 0.3 to 0.4 each month, and for advanced women lifters between 0.1 to o.2 pounds per month.
The Muscle Growth Timeline
If you work out consistently two or three times each week, you’ll be on track to achieving your fitness goals. Here’s an in-depth look at the muscle growth timeline.
- Month 1 to 3
At this stage, you’ll notice a significant improvement in your body’s muscle strength since you now understand how to best utilize the muscles. Other than this, there’s little progress since your body is still getting used to the training routine.
- Months 3 to 6
If you consistently go to the gym, it’s at this point that some progress will start to show. However, the results aren’t as substantial, meaning you still need to remain consistent in your trips to the gym.
- Months 6 to 12
The difference in your body’s physique will start to be noticeable at this point. This means your hours spent at the gym are now starting to bear fruits, and you might even struggle to fit in some of your old T-shirts.
- Months 12 to 24+
At this point, you’re going to bulk plenty of muscle and lost a substantial amount of fat, attaining your long-desired shape. However, from this point onwards, the rate of muscle growth falls drastically, and you’ll need to increase your workout intensity and duration. In addition, start using different machines or speeds, as well as different repetitions.
Tips To Gain Muscle Faster
If you desire to gain muscle quickly, several useful tips can help you achieve this goal. These include;
- Eat One Gram of Protein According To Your Ideal Body Weight
Protein is essential for muscle growth. So, make sure to incorporate enough protein in your diet to promote muscle growth and recovery.
The ideal quantity to eat should be one gram of protein each. You also need to eat protein at different times throughout the day.
- Be Consistent
If you want to achieve your fitness goals, remaining consistent is crucial. This means making sure to aim to become stronger and bigger, stick to an organized workout, and only eating a small portion of caloric surplus.
With that said, the speed at which muscles grow also depends on how strict you watch your diet, your workout intensity, your genetics, and how much muscles you wish to build.
- Train Every Muscle Group Twice Each Week
To promote muscle growth, make sure to train different muscle groups a minimum of two times every week. This means concentrating on your back, legs, and chest at least two times per week.
- Monitor Your Progress
You must also not overlook the need to track your progress by closely examining your training routines and having a food log to monitor your food intake. This is essential because despite seeing changes in your muscle growth, tracking progress allows you to know the specific details of the changes happening.
Takeaway
Healthy living is essential to safeguard yourself from the many preventable ailments such as diabetes and high blood pressure. A great way to achieve this is by working out. But the speed at which fat loss and muscle growth happen is often unknown to most people. After reading this guide, you now have an idea of how long you’ll need to exercise to notice positive results.
Therefore, you shouldn’t give up for the reason that you’re not seeing the desired results quickly enough.