How Much Muscle Can You Gain in a Month?
Factors That Impact Muscle Gains
How to Train with Muscle Growth In Mind
Building muscle mass can turbocharge your performance, health, longevity, and body composition goals (not to mention your confidence). And while using exercise to build lean mass might seem straightforward, the truth is, it takes consistent effort over time to see results.
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It can take weeks, or even months, to build muscle. So how much can you gain in a month? The truth is, it’s hard to say. Even with regular, strategic strength training and perfect nutrition, rest, and recovery, your results can vary widely based on multiple variables, including your training approach, genetics, and more.
Keep reading to find out how to use all of those variables to your advantage so you can make the most of every strength workout.
How Much Muscle Can You Gain in a Month?
Unfortunately, no magic formula can predict exactly how quickly you’ll build muscle. You may see anywhere from .5–2 pounds of increased muscle mass per month, according to the American Council on Exercise (ACE). Over a year, that translates to anywhere from 6–24 pounds of muscle gain. The range is wide because there’s a myriad of contributing factors, including controllable ones (such as training and nutrition) as well as fixed biological ones (like sex, genetics, and hormonal changes) that impact the muscle-building process.

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Factors That Impact Muscle Gains
The rate at which your body builds muscle varies not just from person to person, but also from month to month and even year to year as your body changes with age and lifting experience.
While there are some variables you can’t change—including sex and genetic factors like whether you’re a “high responder”—there are several variables you can manipulate to optimize your progress.
Training
Generally speaking, to induce muscular hypertrophy (i.e., to build muscle) with exercise, you need to consistently engage in strength training. And while any strength work is always better than none, if your goal is to gain muscle mass, you’ll need a strategic approach. In essence, “you have to lift heavy enough and close to failure,” says Peloton instructor Andy Speer. Performing dozens of reps with light weights probably won’t move the needle, especially if you’re already exercising regularly. Instead, research shows that it’s key to work close to fatigue under a relatively heavy load and focus on maintaining muscle contractions throughout the entire range of motion. (More about how to optimize your training for muscle growth, below.)
Training Age
Have you ever heard of newbie gains? They’re a real thing. According to physical therapist and strength coach Hannah Lally, newer lifters tend to progress more rapidly because of neural adaptations, or improved motor unit recruitment, which happens relatively quickly when you engage in a novel activity. You improve the connection between your brain and muscles, and your body learns how to do the movements more efficiently, Lally explains.
Plus, for beginners, your body requires less stimulus to cause adaptation, she says. “In other words, they’re starting at the basement and can grow all the way to the roof, whereas experienced lifters might be operating at ceiling height, and making those last gains needed to get to the roof is more difficult and requires more strategic programming and patience.” Generally speaking, you’ll gain muscle more slowly the longer you’ve been strength training. Genetics also dictate the upper limit on how much muscle mass is attainable for an individual, according to ACE, meaning that the ceiling will be at different heights for different people.
Assuming you’re consistent with training, nutrition, and recovery, here’s a rough idea of how much muscle you can gain each month, depending on your experience level, according to Lally:
Beginner (<1 Year): ~1–2 lbs of muscle per month
Intermediate (1-3 Years): ~0.5–1 lb/month
Advanced (3+ Years): ~0.25–0.5 lb/month
While there are no clear boundaries between beginner, intermediate, and advanced lifters, generally, beginners are still learning how to lift, intermediate lifters have about a year’s worth of experience lifting at least twice a week, and advanced lifters have been lifting consistently for at least three to five years, Lally says.
Nutrition
You might already know your body requires adequate protein to build muscle; research suggests you should eat between 1.6–2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day to maximize muscle growth from resistance exercise. But all the protein in the world won’t help if you aren’t consuming enough calories in your diet.
“Without a calorie surplus, it’s impossible to gain an appreciable amount of muscle mass,” Andy says. And the more aggressive your goals, the more you’ll need to eat, he adds. According to physical therapist and certified strength and conditioning specialist Meghan Wieser, many of her very active clients find that increasing their calories helps them break through performance plateaus.
“You still want to eat nutrient-dense foods,” Wieser adds. “But in general, you need to be eating more if you want to gain more mass—with an emphasis on protein, of course, but also ensuring you’re eating enough fats, carbohydrates, fiber, and micronutrients, as well.”
Plan on experimenting to figure out exactly what and how much to eat to meet your goals. Unfortunately, even the most current research can’t perfectly predict your caloric needs. “Sometimes it takes 8–10 weeks just to figure out what [my clients’] maintenance calories are, let alone the calorie range that will allow for muscle gain without excessive fat gain as well,” says Wieser.
While you can consult any online Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) calculator to get a rough idea of your needs, “a lot of folks need more guidance than a calculator spitting out an arbitrary number,” Wieser says. To get your nutrition dialed, she suggests working with a registered dietitian.
Rest and Recovery
When it comes to lifting for maximum gains, more isn’t necessarily better. While you need to work every major muscle group consistently to build muscle (more on that below), you won’t reap the benefits of your hard work without adequate rest and recovery. When you’re resting, your body is working hard at muscle protein synthesis (the process of turning the protein you eat into new muscle tissue).
That means taking at least one rest or active recovery day per week, plus getting plenty of sleep and managing your life stress. While the general recommendation is a minimum of 7–9 hours of sleep per night, if that’s not possible, Wieser recommends focusing on quality over quantity. “If you can get a solid 5-6 hours and it suits your lifestyle, then I’d say that’s better than a mediocre seven hours,” she says.
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How to Train with Muscle Growth In Mind
While your time in the gym is just one piece of the muscle-building puzzle, the way you work out can have a significant impact on how quickly you reach your goals.
While there are general best practices for increasing muscle growth, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach that can guarantee results. A 2019 meta-analysis looking at 30 different studies on the topic found insufficient data to make any definitive recommendations on the volume, intensity, effort, and frequency of resistance training required to build muscle.
That said, the key players are mechanical tension (i.e., the load placed on the muscle) and metabolic stress (the accumulation of metabolic byproducts from intense lifting that elicit muscle growth), Andy says. “High mechanical stress signals muscle protein synthesis, and in turn, muscle growth,” he explains. “In short, lifting hard and heavy applies stress to your muscular system and signals your body to adapt and build more muscle.”
Here’s how you can apply these principles in your workout routine to optimize your results. As you’ll see below, there’s a lot to factor in. If your main training goal is to build muscle, check out Peloton’s many hypertrophy-focused strength programs in the Peloton App and Peloton Strength+, which let an instructor, like Andy, do the programming work for you.
Vary Your Moves
Your strength training program should include a mix of compound moves, including basic big compound lifts, focus compound exercises, and isolation exercises, Andy says. He suggests including a few of each in every workout, with a rep range of 6-15, going lower in that rep range for heavier lifts, and higher for lighter, single-joint moves.
Compound lifts, including squats, deadlifts, rows, and presses, engage multiple joints and allow you to handle heavy loads. These foundational lifts “work more muscles per rep than single joint exercises, and more importantly, they allow you to load heavy, creating the mechanical tension needed for growth,” says Andy. “Big lifts also elicit a nervous system and hormonal response that promote muscle growth.” To get the most out of your workout, rest for two to four minutes between your heavy compound lifts, Lally says.
Focus compound exercises, such as loaded glute bridges, close grip bench presses, lunges, and split squats, are great because you can handle a relatively heavy weight while focusing on specific muscles in a way you can’t with the primary compound lifts noted above, says Andy.
Isolation exercises (aka single-joint exercises), such as lateral raises, biceps curls, and leg extensions, let you home in on specific muscles to help balance your heavier lifts.
Go Heavy
While there’s no specific formula that’s right for everyone, to gain muscle, you have to lift heavy enough that you’re really challenging your muscles. A good rule of thumb is that you should feel like you could only complete 1–2 more reps (with good form) by the time you finish each set. This is called training close to failure, and is key to building muscle, according to research.
How many reps should you be doing with those heavy weights? While 8–12 reps is often considered ideal for building muscle, “you can see gains across all rep ranges as long as the proximity to failure and effort level is taken into consideration,” Weiser says. For example, when lifting for hypertrophy, ACE recommends performing anywhere from 3–6 sets of 6–12 repetitions, using a weight equal to 70–80 percent of your one rep max, with 60–90 seconds of rest between sets.
Know, though, that you don’t necessarily have to test your one rep max (the maximum amount of weight you can lift for one rep) to use these guidelines in your training. As long as you only have a couple of reps left in the tank during each set, your weight is heavy enough.
Train Strategically and Consistently
To optimize your training, focus on lifting strategically and consistently, using a program that includes progressive overload. That might mean increasing reps, sets, weight, or some combination of the three over time. This ensures you’re continuing to challenge your muscles enough that they need to grow.
It’s also important to train each major muscle group twice a week at a minimum, Lally says. She suggests shooting for 10-20 hard sets per muscle group per week, spread out across multiple days.
As you progress and gains are harder to come by, you can incorporate more advanced training techniques (like volume or density training, changing the angles of your lifts, and incorporating things like drop sets, giant sets, supersets), but again, you need to take a systematic approach.
Experienced lifters can also benefit from varying their training phases (for example, alternating between training blocks focusing on hypertrophy, strength, and power every few months), targeting their weaknesses, and tracking nutrition to continue to see gains over time, says Lally.
Mix Up Your Equipment
While you might be tempted to stay within your comfort zone in the gym, it’s important to branch out and get comfortable with various types of equipment, including dumbbells, barbells, cables, and machines. “Machines are excellent for hypertrophy work because you can safely work to failure, cables are great for exposure to angles and lines of pull that are hard to hit with free weights and machines,” Andy explains. “Each serves a purpose”—and can help you reach your muscle-building goals.
This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute individualized advice. It is not intended to replace professional medical evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment. Seek the advice of your physician for questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. If you are having a medical emergency, call your physician or 911 immediately.
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