How long does it take for muscle to grow?

When people first start trying to build muscle, many will try and find answers on how much muscle they can gain in a month or a year's time. The problem is there are such varying opinions on how much muscle you can actually gain. There are certainly a lot of scams online claiming that you can pack on massive amounts of muscle in unrealistic amounts of time, so make sure you don't pay for any of these courses and waste your money. The internet is full of free and useful information; this should be your trainer.

It's hard to give an estimate on how much muscle you can gain because there are so many factors to consider. For instance what if you go on holiday and don't do any weight training for a few weeks, you're definitely going to fall behind. Or if you like drinking a lot of alcohol on the weekends, this can really slow down your muscle gains.

However, let's suppose you are very dedicated to the gym and it's the first time you've trained, meaning you will gain muscle at the fastest rate. You also have a perfect diet containing plenty of healthy proteins, carbohydrates and fats. You eat 5 meals a day and eat more calories than you burn off. You also lift weights correctly to stimulate muscle growth and go to the gym 3-5 times a week.

If you do all this you may be able to gain up to 5-15 pounds of muscle in a year, so you can work out how much this could be per month. However, you have to remember this is all guess work, one of the biggest factors on how fast you will build muscle is genetics. Some people just build muscle faster than others and this is something you have no control over.

Expect to gain 0.5 to 1 pound of fat per pound of muscle you gain. So you could weigh a lot more than when you first started lifting weights if you don't try to lose the fat gained alongside your new muscle. You should also be aware that the rate at which you gain muscle will decline year after year, but if your patient and well disciplined, the amount of muscle you can gain in several years time can be a very large amount. Good luck.