Click Here For Your Free Over 40 Bodybuilding and Fitness Magazine Subscription

Strength And Mass Gains After Beginner Phase

What Happens After Newbie Gains?

Question: You noted that once people train for even just a year or two, their ability to increase strength and muscle mass is very small. Yet, many of the physique stars seem to get stronger and bigger over much longer time periods and the magazines always have stories about new ways to improve and add lots of muscle mass even after years of training. So, what is the truth here?

Answer: It appears that with proper training, mature healthy adults on average can "maximize their potential" for strength and muscular hypertrophy in several years. In fact, on average, most of the gains may be achieved in 12 to 18 months or less. As with any average, there are people at the extremes with some people undoubtedly topping out at 6 months and others showing some marginal improvement over more years.

In addition, we do not seem to know that much about the rate of progress, i.e., how fast maximum strength and muscle mass is reached. I think this is quite comparable to the growth patterns we saw in our self and friends when we were adolescents. A few of my friends were giants as 12 year olds but hardly got any bigger and turned out to be smaller adults. A couple of my friends grew slowly year-by-year but at 16 had great growth spurts and (much to my dismay since we were the same height when all this began) within 6 months were 6'4". They then continued to grow more slowly and fill out and became large 6"6' adults. I grew slowly and steadily and topped out at 5'7".

Of course, there are several things that have obscured this relatively short pattern of increases in strength and muscle mass.

People may not be training properly. Typically, people overtrain. I know that I did for decades doing too much resistance training and definitely too much aerobic training. I appeared to get stronger after age 50 and literally decades of training because I was finally doing more sensible training. But, likely instituting the same routines 35 years before would have led to the same or even better results within a few months. So, my pattern did not represent continuous gains over decades.

Telling people that gains after a relatively short period of time are at best marginal may be honest and based on science but it won't sell magazines. So, what is necessary is to deliver a promise of perpetual gains or new gains through some new product. The new product likely had little or nothing to do with the muscular gains shown by an advanced professional bodybuilder depicted in an ad or "story" who seemingly had little room for continued improvement. However, whatever data there are about the course of increases in strength and muscle mass pertain to people not using a host of drugs and hormones. These drug using bodybuilders and athletes have obscured what is possible to achieve over some extended time period.

None of the above should be meant to imply that people should give up their training or can not improve in other ways.

What's been emphasized before in Master Trainer is that people can maintain the same muscle mass (a feat in itself as you get older) and look and feel much better, and improve overall health simply by getting a bit leaner. So, the improvement primarily comes from changes in nutrition, and then body composition, and overall health.

In addition through experimentation, people can alter their routines in ways that can play to whatever natural advantages they have and hence, produce some better outcomes. My experience of becoming even stronger after 50 by reducing the volume of my training is but one example. Another personal example is that simply by eating less in my 40's I was able to turn my bulky physique into a much leaner one. Also, as noted in prior issues, during certain times or "cycles", people can specialize on some area of training or bodybuilding, and perhaps transcend anything we did before.

Click Here For Your Free Over 40 Bodybuilding and Fitness Magazine Subscription

Disclaimer

The information presented on this website is intended to be used for educational purposes only. Please consult with your own physician or health care practitioner regarding any suggestions and recommendations made.