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Comment by iopq | Hacker News Reader

I put on less than ten pounds of muscle, it hasn't been a good way to put on weight even when I tried to bulk and eat a surplus. When I did eat a surplus I gained fat, and some muscle, but mostly fat. I then cut and lost the fat, but retained very little muscle.

People have a very unrealistic expectation from how much muscle they can gain going to the gym. Some can do better than others, but as for me, I have a very slight frame so I have difficulty putting on muscle mass.

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Different results for different people I guess - also your particular workout regime. Doing a lot of heavy lifting (Starting Strength) over nine months resulted in a about 20 pounds of muscle/fat gain for me (but more fat than muscle). This wasn't unexpected, and given my principal objectives were to lift heavy things, I wasn't too concerned. There is a certain amount of satisfaction associated with a 300 pound low bar back squat.

I did SS for 7 months, but the last few months my gains slowed. I gained some muscle and fat, but they changed the scale at the gym and I don't know how much weight I ACTUALLY gained because the old one was off by like 10 pounds and they changed it half way through so it had me confused. I probably gained 15 lbs, half of which being muscle. Didn't gain much more after that, even though I continued working out, nothing has been very effective after the initial five months or so.

My stats after 7 months: https://imgur.com/Pmnmkc8

Two years later, they barely improved: https://imgur.com/P7qGI5n

Yeah, that's expected. SS is a beginner program designed to be done for only 3-6 months. When your progress on your lifts stalls out, it's time to switch to a periodized intermediate program such as Texas Method[1], which will have you doing ramped work sets and taking deload weeks to allow for more recovery time between your max effort sessions.

[1] http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/The_Texas_Method

I wasn't interested in strength gains anyway, so I did a few different hypertrophy programs, but nothing had really amazing results for me.

Yeah, Starting Strength is a gainer program, it's designed to make you as big and strong as you can possibly get in a 3-6 month time frame. I put on about 30 pounds from doing it, mostly muscle in my legs, butt, and back. Some of my gains were fat I'm sure, but probably not very much, because my waist size hasn't changed at all.

kyllo, you didn't say exactly how long you did SS for, but it's my understanding that gaining even 20lbs of muscle in 6 months is virtually impossible:

"Under the best possible circumstances (perfect diet, training, supplementation, and recovery strategies) the average male body can manufacture between 0.25 and 0.5 pounds of dry muscle tissue per week"[1]

For sure SS will get you stronger in an almost magical fashion (I'm currently doing a modified SS program) but expecting to gain 20lbs of muscle in a short period of time is unrealistic.

[1] http://www.t-nation.com/portal_includes/articles/2006/06-154...

Sure, but not all human tissue is either muscle fiber or fat. You gain other non-lipid mass in addition. Some of it is from increases in connective tissue. A tiny amount is from increased bone density. A large portion of it is from retaining more glycogen and water.

Did you see the articles about Zach, one of Mark Rippetoe's trainees? Based on skinfold caliper measurements, he gained 78 lbs in 6 months, 46 lbs of which was lean body mass, and 32 lbs of which was fat: http://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/showthread.php?t...

I hadn't seen that yet so thanks for the link. Amazing gains by him!

there's also no way he's 21% body fat

calipers are just an approximate estimate of someone's body fat percentage, and in this case because of body fat distribution (all the fat is very evenly distributed) they're way off, by as much as 5%

What would you estimate his BF% at based on the photos?

Below 30% (he is thinner than I was when I was 30% bf), but way above 20% because he has significant chest fat

So closer to 25%

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