Sorry, I meant 1/2 to 2 pounds a week! .66 lbs is a reasonable gain!
On a strength routine it is a great gain!
Dan, just wondering if someone went for a strength training routine, and increased their calorie intake, where would this additional calories be used for, as you mentioned that there would be a limited amount of muscle being built.
The body is very complex. When you eat more food and you train hard, sometimes the body responds by BURNING the extra food...meaning it upregulates the metabolism! This little trick sometimes makes gaining mass hard for all of us.
When you train in a power/strength manner, the post workout caloric expenditure is much more than was previously understood. However if you do not eat enough, naturally much of this does not happen or some fat and some muscle (usually mostly muscle in this case) is used for the deficit.
So are telling me if someone's total went from 800 to 1300, and they weren't eating for size, the size of their muscles would not increase at all? (Not necessarily weight, mind you.) I find that hard to believe.
I know. It has taken us a while to understand the relationship. Look at the strongest lifters in the world. Big men, high bodyfat % on many...
THe body does its best to keep a balance.
I did not say there is NO muscle gain, rather that it is minimal.
I simply said that the idea that increase in muscle size was automatically tied to increase in strength
or increase in strength was automatically tied to increase in muscle size was incorrect.
Otherwise the strongest people in the world would have the most muscle!
And the biggest bodybuilde4rs would be the strongest...neither of which is absoutely true!