You’ve heard the benefits of lifting weights. It improves your metabolism, reduce risks of diseases, and helps with better posture. More importantly, for the guys, you want to put on slabs of muscle to fill your shirt, and for the girls, to have toned legs, arms and back to wear fitting clothes more confidently. And so you made a decision to sign up for that gym membership.

However, stepping into a gym for the first time and picking up your first dumbbell can be intimidating. New movements and terminology can be overwhelming. But good news for you! If you are new to lifting weights, you can put on muscle incredibly quickly. That’s a special advantage that many seasoned lifters would envy. You can progress with relative ease - as much as 15 kg of muscle for men, or 8 kg of muscle for women, in just one year of proper training! This is the power of newbie gains, which refers to the rapid increase in muscle and strength for individuals who just started lifting.

If you’re reading this thinking that you’re a “hard-gainer”, predestined to stay skinny for life, and that newbie gains are not applicable to you, fret not. You’re probably not even close to your genetic ceiling. Newbie gains are possible as long as you’re not muscular - you probably just do not know how to gain them.

In this article, I’ll be explaining more about newbie gains, how to maximize them, and what’s next. Let’s get started.

*Just like Hugh Jackman, you have the potential to rapidly increase your muscle mass through Newbie Gains.*

What are Newbie Gains?

Newbie gains happen when one, who has little or no experience in lifting weights, starts lifting weight intensively and gains muscle and strength very quickly. A similar phenomenon can be seen in people who start following a proper program instead of doing random exercises in the gym, as and when they feel like it.

This is because for newbies, your body is very responsive to the effects of resistance training in a new challenging stimulus i.e. a proper program. Training at the early stage rapidly increases Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS), which is the rate in which muscle is repaired, built and grown. A study showed that newbies have a much greater MPS than experienced lifters. Furthermore, while trained participants took about a day for their MPS to return to baseline, it took about 3 days for the non-trained participants’ MPS to return to baseline. This means that it is much easier and faster for a newbie to gain muscle compared to an experienced lifter.

Bear in mind that newbie gains are not linear. Your first workout will probably yield the most muscle growth, your next workout slightly less, and by the time you hit your 100th workout, you will realize that you are gaining muscle at a noticeably slower rate. Of course, this is assuming that you are indeed making newbie gains.

A common question is whether you can still make newbie gains. People think that training in the gym for a long time will result in “using up” your newbie gains. Fortunately, it doesn’t work this way. Newbie gains does not depend on the number of times you’ve tried to build muscle, but rather the amount of muscle that you have gained. If you have been training inefficiently for many years, you can still be a newbie. If you aren’t muscular, you probably still can make newbie gains. And in my next point, I will be elaborating on how to maximize them.

*A common misconception is that if you have been training for a long time, you have “used up” your newbie gains.*

How to Maximize Newbie Gains

It is crucial that while you’re still making newbie gains, you should make full potential to accelerate your muscle growth. But as a newbie, many tend to make mistakes, which “wastes” this prime time. Here are ways to sure your newbie gains are maximized.

1. Have the Right Nutrition Strategy

As constantly emphasized in my previous articles, nutrition plays a huge role in both fat loss and muscle-building, and in this case, newbie gains. If you aren’t eating enough calories and protein, there is no way you are able to make optimal gains.

If you are looking to gain weight, my recommendation would be to eat in a surplus to gain about 1-1.5% of your bodyweight per month. Avoiding gaining more bodyweight than 1.5% of your bodyweight per month, as this will cause you to gain additional body fat, which will eventually lead to a low strength-to-bodyweight ratio. It will be harder and longer for you to cut those body fat eventually. In fact, studies have shown that you can gain the same amount of muscle eating both at a small or a huge calorie surplus, but the latter will result in a much higher fat gain.

If you are looking to lose weight but maximize newbie gains, my recommendation would be to eat in a deficit to lose about 0.5-1.0% of your bodyweight per week to minimize muscle loss.

Based on a few studies, I would recommend a protein intake of about 2.0 g/kg of body weight per day for optimum muscle gain. For example, if you weight 70 kg, you should aim to consume about 140 g of protein.

2. Compound movements

Compound movements are exercises that involve multiple joints and muscle groups. Some examples are Deadlift, Squat, Bench Press, Barbell Row, Overhead Press and Pull Ups. These exercises not only trains more muscle groups at once, they also create more stimulus for growth. In addition, these exercises burn a lot of energy and increases your metabolism for hours. Furthermore, compound movements increase muscle-building hormones such as testosterone (for males), estrogen (for females) and growth hormones. Last but not least, they emulate daily functional movements which can greatly reduce the risk of injury. Look at the myriad of benefits that compound movement brings! Make sure you add at least 2-3 compound movements into your workout.

*Always include compound exercises such as Deadlifts in your workout.*

3. Progressively Overload

In order to get bigger and stronger, you need to gradually increase your training stimulus. This is called The Principle of Progressive Overload. It is done by increasing your training volume, intensity etc. through periodization. Periodization is the process of organizing training into periods. It is long term planning through microcycles (1-2 weeks), mesocycles (1-2 months) or macrocycles (6-12 months). Volume, intensity, rep ranges, frequency, exercise selections etc. are manipulated across the cycles. It has shown to improve performance, and also helps to ensure variety and enjoyment throughout the workout, which can help in adherence.

4. Rest

Rest is one of the most underrated component of muscle-building. Muscle growth happens when your muscle cells get damaged and repair. This happens when you are resting. Without sufficient rest, your muscle cells can’t repair, which defeats the purpose of training anyway. Insufficient rest also causes accumulation of stress on joints, leading to injuries. Further, studies have shown that sleep is where your body produces more muscle-building hormones. Make sure you sleep at least 8 hours a day, and don’t over-train!

*Sleep is when your muscle repairs and grow.*

5. Get a Program for Consistency

As mentioned in point 3 above, it is important to organize your training to maximize performance. This can be done by following a program which ensures progressive overload, includes compound movements, hits the minimum volume and does not neglect rest.

End of Newbie Gains & What’s Next

All good things must come to an end, and it is no exception for newbie gains. This is because of a concept known as the repeated bout effect. As you continue to train and build muscle, your body becomes more accustomed to it. This means that your muscles experience less adaptations, and you gain less and less muscle for every subsequent training session. Furthermore, it is metabolically harder to maintain muscle, as muscles require large amounts of calories and protein to function. But the good news is, at this point you’re likely to be already relatively muscular. However, you probably still won’t be satisfied. You have gained momentum and want to continue building more muscles. Undeniably, it will be harder. But there is still potential to build to do so, as long as you know how.

And here’s how:

1) Tweak your program. You will need to increase the volume, intensity, and/or frequency of your workout. For example, hitting each muscle group more frequently, or increasing the intensity of your workout. Also, you will need to pay closer attention to progressive overload. Make sure you are either on par with or beating your previous workout.

*Tracking your workout closely to ensure sufficient volume and progression.*

2) Be more accurate with your calories and protein intake. Follow your calorie and protein targets more closely.

3) Consider alternating between Bulking and Cutting. Take 3-6 months of eating at a calorie surplus to gain sufficient mass, before taking about 3 months of eating at a calorie deficit to lose fat. Repeat this process until you reach the size you want.

4) Consider supplements such as Creatine and Caffeine. Creatine Monohydrate is by far the most tried and true and most affordable supplement. It has shown to benefit strength, power production and retaining muscle mass over time. On the other hand, caffeine has shown to enhance performance and suppress tiredness. However, the more you take it, the more resistant you get to the performance enhancing effects. Thus, take it sparingly. For performance enhancing effects, take about 4-6mg/kg body weight.

5) If you still struggle with the above, consider hiring a Personal Trainer. An effective PT can help you tweak your program, optimize your nutrition, and cater to your individual needs and goals.

Conclusion

Everyone experiences newbie gains. It is not about how long you have been lifting, but how efficient instead. The lesser muscles you have, the further you are from your genetic potential, which means the more newbie gains you are able to put on. It will be a waste if you aren’t making full use of this golden period to maximize muscle gain. This is done through a good training program, proper nutrition and sufficient rest.

After you adapt to the stress, it gets harder and harder to gain muscle. However, even after you’ve “used up” your newbie gains, there’s still much potential to build muscle, as long as you know how to do it!

PS - still unsure how to maximize your newbie gains? Drop me a message!