Planning for Success 3: Setting Targets for Muscle Gain
- Jonny Potter
- Dec 17, 2015
- 5 min read
In my last post, we looked at setting your goals and understanding your Estimated Maintenance Point. This gave us the total calories required daily to maintain your body weight.
In this article, I will show how to break down this total to give you your macro targets for muscle gain.
(If you are focused on fat loss, you may want to switch to my 'Setting Targets for Fat Loss' post here).
To build muscle you need to do the opposite of a fat loss diet and create a calorie surplus through food. An ideal ‘weight gain’ target over the course of a month depends on whether an individual is a beginner, intermediate or advanced lifter.
Beginner: <=1 year of sound strength training and nutrition
Intermediate: 1 – 2 years of sound strength training and nutrition.
Advanced: 2+ years of sound strength training and nutrition
According to the Alan Aragon ‘Rate of Muscle Gain Model’ (pictured), a male beginner can expect to add 1-1.5% of total bodyweight per month, a male intermediate can expect to add 0.5-1% of total bodyweight per month and a male advanced trainee 0.25 – 0.5% of total bodyweight per month (females can expect to add around half of this).
"So a 150 pound beginner might be able to gain 1.5-2.25 pounds of muscle per month (18-27 pounds per year).
After a year, he’s now an intermediate at 170 pounds and might be capable of gaining 0.85-1.7 lbs per month (10-20 pounds per year; I’d consider 20 lbs. an exceptional gain).
After another year, he’s an advanced lifter at 180 and might only gain 0.5-1 lb per month (a true 1 lb/month gain in muscle mass for an advanced athlete would be pretty rare).
So he might top out at 190-200 pounds or thereabouts after another year or two of training, at 10% body fat, he’d have 170-180 pounds of lean body mass"
– Table and text from Lyle McDonald
It should also be noted that depending on the individual around half of what is gained may be body-fat as it is impossible to add ‘just muscle’ in a calorie surplus, but without more being in this surplus your body won’t build sufficient muscle if that is the goal.
Muscle Gain Calorie Intake
For muscle gain you should start off by adding 20% to your ‘estimated maintenance point’, we will use John again as an example as we did when we looked at fat loss.
John is an intermediate trainee who’s estimated maintenance target is 2816 calories per day. (For more information on how you work out your maintenence target, see the start of my post on setting calories for fat loss here).
20% of 2816 kcals = 563.8 (rounded to 563 kcals)
2816 + 563 = 3379 kcals
John is estimated to have to consume 3379 calories per day in order to add 0.5-1% of his total body weight per month as an intermediate trainee.
Muscle Gain Macro Split
Now that muscle gain calories have been calculated they need to be split up into protein, carbs and fat.
Protein
Protein intake doesn’t need to be as high when you are trying to build muscle in a calorie surplus. In a gaining phase there is no risk of atrophy (muscle wastage) when training soundly therefore dietary protein can be lowered, ideally in-favor of carbohydrates.
A good rule of thumb for protein intake when in a surplus is to consume between 0.5 – 0.9g per pound of bodyweight in grams.
Example
John weighs 176lbs and enjoys the taste of protein, it fills him up and likes to have quite a bit in his diet. Therefore I am going to multiply his weight by 0.9 in order to set his protein target.
176 lbs x 0.9 = 158.4g (rounded to 160g per day)
There are 4 kcals per 1 gram of protein
160g of protein = 640 calories from protein per day
John's protein target is 160g per day (640 kcals).
Dietary Fat
Just like when dieting for fat loss it is best to workout out your fat target before trying to calculate your carbs. The same benefits of dietary fat still apply in the muscle gain phase.
The easiest way to calculate your fat intake is to use the exact same equation - take your muscle gain calorie target and work out 20-25% of that number.
Example
Johns calories for muscle gain are 3379 kcals
20% of 3379 is 675.8 kcals
675.8 is John’s calorie target from fat
There are 9 calories per 1g of fat
675.8 kcals / 9 = 75.08 g
John’s fat target is 75g per day (675 kcals).
Carbohydrates
Once the fat and protein targets have been calculated we are once again left with the final macro, which is carbs. Carbohydrate should be kept as high as possible whilst adding the required amount of weight per month
Example
John’s muscle gain target calories are 3379 kcals per day.
3379 - 640 protein calories = 2739 kcals
2739 – 775 fat calories = 1964 kcals
Once protein and fat has been subtracted John is left with 1964 kcals to be used from carbs.
There are 4 kcals per 1g of carbs (just like protein)
1964 kcals / 4 = 491g
John’s carb target is 491g per day (1964 kcals)
So Overall...
John’s total daily macros for muscle gain:
John’s calories: 3379kcals
John’s protein: 160g
John’s carbs: 491g
John’s fat: 75g
Fibre
No matter your goal don’t ignore the need for fibre either:
- Fibre aids the body and regulates blood sugar
- It helps maintain bowl health
- It Lowers cholesterol
- Helps regulate blood sugar
How much do you need?
A typical range should be 10-13g of fiber per 1000 calories.
That means if you consume 2000 calories per day ingesting 20-26g of fiber will be an optimal amount.
Overview
Without delving into the importance of micro-nutrition (vitamins and minerals) which I will save for future posts - the above article will be a strong starting point for calculating your ‘initial macros’ and calories.
The recommendations here won’t be 100% perfect, as no theoretical calculator will ever give you exactly what you need. That said, they’re a calculated guess, and one which I’ve found to be a highly effective estimation method.
As you begin your flexible diet remember to monitor progress. If you aren’t moving in the right direction (either weight isn’t being lost when trying to lose fat or weight isn’t being added when in a muscle gain phase) then calories need to be added/reduced accordingly until you start seeing progress.
Next Steps
So we have been through how to set and understand your goals and how to calculate your targets (either for fat loss or muscle gain). Next we will look at how to set up your diet and monitor your progress.
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