Does muscle gain equal weight gain

Bodybuilding magazines and supplement marketers will have you believe you can gain a significant amount of muscle mass that will cause your bodyweight to increase simply by working out and eating some special foods/supplements.

Big, Strong, FAT!

If you re-read that sentence the key point is the difference between gaining MUSCLE vs gaining WEIGHT.

Adding muscle to your body doesn’t necessarily mean adding a significant amount of weight.

If if were true that constantly working out with increasingly heavier weights caused you to gain bodyweight there would be no such thing as weight classes in power lifting or olympic lifting.

In other words, if everyone worked out enough and gained enough weight wouldn’t everyone be in the heavyweight category?

Or is the truth that the degree of muscle mass we can carry is limited by our height and somatotype and no matter how much we workout we’ll level off at a very predictable bodyweight for our given height.

To review, here are the weight classes for olympic weight lifting and power lifting. All classes have competitors of similar training experience and age…this is good proof that there are tight limits to the size any of us can get to.

Olympic lifting weight classes for men:

56 kg (123 lb), 62 kg (137 lb), 69 kg (152 lb), 77 kg (170 lb), 85 kg (187 lb), 94 kg (207 lb), 105 kg (231 lb), and over 105 kg;

Power lifting weight classes for men:

Men: 52kg, 56kg, 60kg, 67.5kg, 75kg, 82.5kg, 90kg, 100kg, 110kg, 125kg, 125kg +

The heavier competitors are typically taller and fatter than the lighter ones.

This is also why bodyweight is a rather useless indicator of muscle size.

John

Posted by johnbarban in Muscle Building

22 Responses to “Does Muscle Gain Equal Weight Gain?”

Wood Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 6:54 am
It’s very logical again, but
some say if you train for hypertrophy (in the 8-12 or 15 rep range) you wouldn’t be significally stronger, just bigger, or if you use the 3-5 rep range you can be strong without adding size. So you think is this a bs again?
johnbarban Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Wood,

You’re right that is what some people will say, but it’s incorrect.

JB
Lachlan Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 9:58 am
I don’t think ive ever seen a lean looking olympic powerlifter. I mean, they re all just … big. It’s impressive the amount of weight they can throw in the air but haven’t they got it yet that you cant eat to bigger muscles? It’s pretty obvious by that picture. John have you seen any olympic powerlifters with good looking body’s? Could an ectomorphic body do just aswell as these ‘big’ guys?
johnbarban Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Lachlan,

There are some leaner guys for sure in the lightly weight classes.

The biggest guys are all fat and to some degree the huge gut might help them at the bottom of a squat position (they can sort of push off of their gut a bit)

…and they’re all on steroids too.

JB
Jonathan Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
John –

So for the person who works out with weights and says, “I’m not losing any weight but gaining muscle,” How would you respond? I’m sure that you have known a lot of people who work out, and when they don’t lose weight, they just say, “Well, I’ve lost fat and gained muscle,” therefore, they’ve maintained the same weight. But what they really want is to lose enough fat to look thinner. Do you think they tell themselves this to make themselves feel better, or is there validity behind this statement? I’ve also read such statements in fitness articles and online….so are they bogus too?
johnbarban Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Jonathan,

body weight fluctuates to a much larger degree than any detectable change in muscle mass in any time frame much shorter than a year.

In other words, it’s impossible to measure a 2 pound gain of muscle mass over the course of 6 months if you’re bodyweight fluctuates 5-6 pounds per day.

JB
Robert Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
To Lachlan –

They’re Olympic Weightlifters, not powerlifters.

And yes, the lighter weight classes have muscularly big but lean guys in them. They just don’t usually get the recognition that the heavyweights do because the heavyweights are the ones putting up the big totals.
Lars Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I’ve been measuring my bw pretty much consistently and I managed to add around 1kg(2,25lb) of muscle in the last 4 months.

I asked my rommate to judge how much muscle I’d added.

He guessed 10kg
anthony Ramos Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
John, no matter what I do, I can’t get my friends to stop worrying about the scale. I have friends obsessed with target weight. a 5’10″ friend is 210 (built but not lean) and wants to weigh 215. guess where that friend is carrying part of that extra weight that’s not attractive? but he still pursues his magic number. His goal isn’t just looking big for big’s sake but he doesn’t understand how it’s counterproductive to his look to be fixated on a number.
Wood Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
ok. what happens to my friend who live by the bodybuilding principles. Eats 6-7 times a day about 320 gramm protein, 4000-5000 kcal, he is bulking, and puts on 10-12 lbs in 3 month, 2 inches to the arms etc. Is he getting mostly fat and water?
Josh Eflin Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
In regards to what Wood said, and your response-
So, we’ve established that the only way to build muscle is progressive overload, but lets say that a person is lifting more in the 3-5 rep range and using near maximal loads. Would subjecting your muscles to that greater tension train your nervous system to recruit a higher number of Motor units more than lifting with a 12RM thus leading to faster strength gains.
Put another way, would a person more interested in strength gains be better off in the lower rep ranges to increase nervous system efficiency, or would you get stronger just as quickly in that higher rep range?

Also, do the different kinds of hypertrophy (sarcoplasmic, and myofibrillar) have different rates of progress?
johnbarban Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Wood,

Yes.

JB
johnbarban Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Anthony,

Don’t bother having the discussion…most people you can’t reach. Just tell him to take his shirt off and take a picture of his gut and put it up as his facebook profile pic.

JB
johnbarban Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Lars,

Great post and it just goes to show how completely out of whack the average guys perception of what a pound or two of muscle actually looks like.

JB
johnbarban Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Josh,

Strength is rep range specific.

If sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar hypertrophy is ever shown to be definitively different and consistent I highly doubt there will be drastically different speeds that they happen. Namely I’ll bet they’re both just as slow as the other.

JB
Dave F Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
I think I’m in a similar situation as Lars.

I’ve started lifting about 3-4 times weekly since the start of March. I’ve put on about 2 inches around my shoulders and lost about 2 inches around my waist too. My lifts have gone up about 10-20%. A lot of people have noticed that I’ve bulked up, including myself .

To add to this, I started taking creatine about 3-4 weeks ago and I’m guessing I’m retaining a lot more water.

Yet, my net weight gain/loss on average is 0.
Wood Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
John I think You should write your book about muscle building in some semi-scientic way
Javier Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
One thing I’ve learned in my 10+ years of “on and off” weightlifting is that, all you need to worry about are the things you can control. You can control when you exercise, what exercises you do, when you eat, what you eat. On any given day, you CAN’T control how much your body weighs, what it looks like, how much your 1 rep max is going to be, etc. You can manipulate these over the long run to a large extent, but GENETICS we’re born with determine our height, frame, propensity to build muscle,etc. I think John does a great point of driving these points home. We all need to chill and enjoy life a little more. Personally now I only go to the weight room once to twice a week and look and feel better than when I went 5-6 times a week, its about training smarter not harder. AND train your mind, the strongest muscle of all. Cheers.
Gregory Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Wow, this really helped put things into perspective for me. I’m by no means trying to get big or bulky, but I do want to put on muscle when I’m through taking off my fat. But I had no idea what that meant for me in terms of size or weight.

As I’ve dropped fat, my lean body mass has stayed within a range of 143 to 147 or so, so I figure for 9%-ish body fat I’m looking at around 158 pounds as my end goal. If I manage to bulk back up on muscle all the way up to 170, I’d still fit into the 77kg class, where I’d be keeping company with Carlos Espeleta. He’s 170 pounds and an inch taller than me (5’11″); he’s able to clean and jerk 375 pounds.

Given that context, the only way I’m getting back up over 180, 190 or 200+ pounds is if I put on fat (again). Or take steroids. I have no intention of doing either.
Wood Says:
April 14th, 2010 at 6:03 am
1 more question than. The heavier weightclasses are more stronger. Why?
johnbarban Says:
April 14th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Wood,

The heavier weight class guys have more total muscle.

JB
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Does Muscle Gain Equal Weight Gain?

22 Responses to “Does Muscle Gain Equal Weight Gain?”

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