I think the difference is that you’re thinking of adding 4.3 pounds of muscle mass to already heavily trained individuals, whereas I’m thinking of adding 4.3 pounds of muscle mass to untrained individuals (the people in the study). Obviously the rate of muscle gain slows down, or bodybuilders would all weigh 100,000 pounds, but I bet all those bodybuilders added muscle at an extreme rate when they first started training. My first year of training I added about 40 pounds while keeping my body fat levels in the single-digit range; by my fifth year of training I wasn’t really adding any weight at all (wasn’t bodybuilding, so this was a good thing). Maybe it wasn’t all muscle, but a lot of it was.
Well, yes. Muscle does hold a lot of water.
:shrug:
OK. I don’t really have a dog in this race. I’m willing to accept to believe that you believe you put on 4 lbs of muscle in that time. I’ve never seen any evidence to suggest that’s possible, and nobody seems willing to provide any (and if they have it, PLEASE show me it, because I could use a million dollars), but I guess I don’t have a problem with you believing it’s possible.
But from my POV, the conversations’s become a little silly with a lot o dubious anecdotal evidence of miracles.
Sorry, I gotta go back to this. 40 pounds of muscle in one year? Really?
Here’s a good thread to look at:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12081027
We discuss how the maximum possible muscle growth rate is - at the low end (my assertion) 1lb per month, and at the high end (other assertions) 18-19 lbs per year.
Certainly nothing in the region of 40lbs in a year. 4lbs in 12 weeks meets my assertion for bodybuilders using steroids, so I guess it’s possible in really extreme cases (but I assume we’re not talking bodybuilders here, let alone steroids - in fact we’re talking cardio exercise, as cited).
Sorry, guys. I can’t see anything that leads me to beleive that could possibly be muscle growth. And claims of 40lbs of muscle in a year are insane.
But I accept I can’t cite this is any way - I’ve just never seen this happen any more than I’ve seen people fly, and I’ve never seen any evidence that it’s possible. I’m willing to be proved wrong (heck, I’d love to be proved wrong).
Someone find me a good cite, and I’ll believe it. I’ll be rich pretty quick, too, which is nice! 
I think the key word in this quote is “assertion.” Shouldn’t you be bringing some cites to the table?
Regardless, I did your work for you. Here’s one cite from the Department of Exercise and Sport Science,Tokyo Metropolitan University that says that muscle cross sectional area increased by 7.8% from two weeks of resistance training. This was based on muscle biopsies and MRI scans, so lets call it accurate. Given that the average person comprises 42% skeletal muscle mass (Marieb, Elaine; Katja Hoehn (2007). Human Anatomy & Physiology (7th ed.). Pearson Benjamin Cummings. p. 317.), that means that two weeks of resistance training would add muscle mass of 3.27% of total body weight. Take a 200 pound man, and that’s an additional 6.6 pounds of muscle from two weeks of resistance training.
Cite’s in your court, buddy.
40 pounds of additional weight in one year while maintaining single digit body fat. Some of it was water weight (I was taking creatine, so this was unavoidable), but I have workout diaries from that time and I went from 185 to 225 and I had my body fat measured by calipers at 225.
It’s still in yours; that’s not an applicable cite. “Muscle cross sectional area”? This is not muscle mass. You can’t take a percentage increase in cross sectional area and apply it to the weight of a man.
Increasing muscle size (largely through water) is fairly easy. That’s not muscle mass.
I can increase muscle size temporarily in a one-hour workout. The muscle mass has not increased in this period. Two weeks of intensive training can increase muscle size (your cross-sectional area) drastically, but stop for two weeks and it shrinks right back down. It’s not added mass.
And I reiterate - “I make this assertion - prove it’s untrue” is not valid. I can’t cite a negative, and you know it. I’m not asserting anything other than that I do not believe it is possible to do what is being claimed, and both cites so far have not proved this claim.
So, to make clear my position - in case I’m not being clear enough, which is possible - I do not believe that the claimed increase in muscle mass is possible in the stated timeframe; it is far beyond my relams of experience. I have asked for evidence that it is possible, but not yet received any. “fat-free tissue” and “cross-sectional area” are not muscle mass. You can’t just pick phrases you think sound similar - the studies cited don’t use the prhase “muscle mass” for a reason.
And 40lbs of muscle mass in a year is far beyond the realms of human capability (in the sense that I’ve never seen anyone accomplish even half of that - including people using steroids). Either you have superpowers, or something else was going on.
Incidentally - also single digit body fat for an entire year? That’s remarkable. That puts you at Mr Universe levels (and far beyond them - they don’t maintain that for a year, just for a competition).
I commend you, man. seriously. You’re the fittest man in the universe! What are you doing posting on a messageboard instead of sharing your secret with the world and making millions? 
With that level body fat and your muscle mass gain, you can win worldwide bodybuilding competitions easily.
I think a picture is in order! Because you’re gonna make He Man look like a couch potato!
Heh, I read that thread you linked to. It consists of a couple unsupported assertions by you (which I guess we should just accept unquestioningly because you’re apparently a personal trainer), and some claim by someone named EmAnJ that the maximum muscle mass you can gain in a year is 18.25 pounds.
Wow, only 18.25 pounds, that seems low. And awfully specific. And based on what sounded to me to be bullshit reasoning. I felt the need to track down his cite. Wait, it wasn’t a cite, it was an unsupported quote from someone named Dr. Michael Colgan. And on searching, EmAnJ’s exact quote seems to be repeated verbatim all over the internet by just about everyone but the actual Dr. Michael Colgan.
Who is Dr. Michael Colgan? Well, turns out he has an internet site. What he doesn’t have are any published journal articles. What he does have are a couple of crappy articles about how your nutritional deficiencies can cause a whole host of problems, followed by (Coincidence!) an offer to sell you some supplements designed to overcome the very nutritional deficiencies that Dr. Michael Colgan so kindly warned you about. How generous of the man.
CSA is the standard method of measuring muscle hypertrophy.
You’re right, that’s added blood flow, and wouldn’t result in an increase in muscle CSA.
You’re not being asked to prove a negative, you’re being asked to prove anything at all. Cite any of your claims. Cite any paper showing average mucle mass gain. Anything, and I’ll review it. Anything at all, but stop with your unsupported assertions.
Wait, you expect me to swallow your unsupported assertions, but you question mine? It was my first year of training, I was a young male in an intensive athletic training program. My teammates had similar results. If you’ve never seen anything like that before, then I don’t know what to say.
This is getting silly. As I’ve repeatedly stated, I can’t prove it’s not possible. You are the person claiming it is, so I’m asking for proof of that.
“Prove it isn’t” is pretty childish. You are asking me to prove a negative and are now reducing this conversation to semantics.
If your response to anyone who challenges your claims asking for proof is simply to ask them to prove you’re wrong, then there’s nothing more to be said here. other than that the claim remains univerified.
Well, at least you’ve finally admitted you’re making them.
Can I get a clarification here: you are saying that you - and a whole bunch of other people - put on 40lbs of muscle mass in a period of one year, and that at the same time you all retained *single-digit body fat *for that entire year?
Just to make sure I’m not misunderstanding the claim being made.
And I’ve repeatedly told you, I’m not asking for proof that it’s not possible. I’m asking for any evidence at all of average muscle gain of untrained individuals. If you can’t understand that that’s not proving a negative then there’s no point in continuing this conversation.
I’ve said several times that I’m not asking you to prove a negative. I’ve said several times that I’m asking you to provide evidence of average muscle gain in untrained individuals engaged in resistance training programs. If you are incapable of understanding that that’s not proving a negative then we have nothing further to discuss.
I’ll say it once again so that you get a second shot at understanding what I’m asking for; provide any cite, that you find acceptable, that shows average muscle gain in untrained individuals.
You’ve repeatedly said it’s not possible to gain (I think) 10 pounds of muscle in a year. That opinion must have been informed by something. Provide the “something” that informed that opinion.
To remind you, I provided cites of muscle gain in untrained individuals that directly contradicted your claims. You argued against my cites, and claimed the doctors and scientists who ran the studies to explicitly measure gains in muscle hypertrophy , well you claim those same doctors mistook increased blood flow for muscle hypertrophy. That’s a pretty bold claim.
There’s no finally involved here. I’m fully aware that my claims of muscle gain are unsupported assertions; that’s why I argued by actually doing research and providing cites to journal articles, something which you have conspicuously failed to do. I don’t expect my unsupported assertions to carry any weight, which is a level of self-awareness that you should aspire to.
Lucky me, I actually saved my training diaries from 30 years ago. Starting weight 187 pounds at 4% body fat. 12 and a bit months later, 226 pounds at 9% body fat. Body fat was only measured twice, so it might have been higher in between. Took 20g/d of creatine the whole period, so there was some water weight gain.
Actually, I’m not interested in discussing this; you either believe me or you don’t, and I don’t really care. In my last post I told you what I expected of you; cites showing muscle gain in untrained individuals. And don’t try your cop-out of I’m asking you to prove a negative, because I’m not.
Here (warning: PDF) is a claim from Mark Rippetoe that an untrained athlete added 31lb of lean body mass in 6 weeks (though he calls him an “outstanding example” and “genetically gifted”).
Single digit bodyfat for men doesn’t seem that unattainable for someone training seriously. The figures seem to vary but according to the American Council on Exercise:
Essential Fat: 2-5%
Athletes: 6-13%
Fitness: 14-17%
Average: 18-24%
It’s very lean, but not unrealistically or unhealthily so.
Here we go, I did the research that you failed to do:
My 40 pounds of weight gain reflected an increase of 22% in body mass, so it looks like I was right on the money in terms of what’s expected from a year of training.
Just yesterday I saw a commercial for a gadget that eliminates the double chin which made me think of this thread:
https://www.necklineslimmer.com/?MID=786443
I have no idea if it works (and the bright “As Seen on TV” makes me believe it probably doesn’t) but I thought y’all would get a kick out of it.