muscle mass and weight gain

Factual Questions
1

In GQ instead of IMHO because I think I can get a ballpark factual answer, even if it’s not precise to .0001 ounces… :stuck_out_tongue:

Presume a reasonably fit tallish (5’9") adult woman. Not running marathons or anything, but has been regularly doing cardio 4+ days a week for more than a decade, pretty much solidly in the middle of the “healthy” range for BMI.

Realizing that cardio is not the sole measure of health/fitness, she finds a gymnastics/aerial class which meets once a week and allows her to muscle/strength train – basically a form of bodyweight training.

After a little more than a year, she has definitely gotten stronger, and somewhat more toned. She’s also gained 5ish pounds.

My question is, is this a reasonable amount of weight gain, given the whole “muscle weighs more than fat” thing? Or is it an indication that she’s slipping up somewhere, and needs to take steps to correct it?

I’m not saying that weight gain is completely unexpected, but I sort of thought that it would be somewhat balanced by additional fat loss; i.e. that a gain of 2ish pounds would be more normal, 5 is an indication that I’m gaining fat, too, and perhaps should put a stop to that before it gets worse.

2

Do her cloths still fit the same dispite the weight gain?

3

It’s within the realm of what would be normal, but if she’s only doing it once a week, it’s a bit surprising.

Also, muscle does not weight more then fat.

4

Without steriods a man can only gain between 10-15 pounds of pure muscle per year.

A woman would be less. So 5lbs of muscle sounds perfectly resonable.

The way to go is by appearence. Genearlly a gain in muscle, rather than fat or muscle and fat, will make you look better.

It also means you gain it in appropriate place. For me it mean you’d get smaller in the gut but bigger eleswhere for women it means in the butt. Of course where a person puts on weight is unique but generally men put it on first in their stomach while women put it on in their buttocks.

5

This is anecdotal, but last year I embarked on a physical therapy program for my shoulder, every day using little girly weights to do these little wimpy lifts, and was pretty shocked that I put on 5 pounds in 3 months from this alone. No doubt it was from hitting numerous obscure little muscles that ordinarily don’t get a lot of action.

So yeah, if it’s at least moderately intense exercise, and you do it regularly, sure you could put on 5 pounds in a year. But like others said, the fit of your jeans is probably the best indicator of whether it was muscle or fat. Muscle is 10% denser than fat, not much different really, but when you increase muscle it doesn’t tend to give you a pot belly.

6

Not necessarily. If you have a subnormal amount of muscle relative to a particular motion or effort, it is relatively easy to put on a few pounds of muscle, especially with body weight exercises like gymnastics. Once you’ve hit a threshold, however, i.e. can perform the action repetitiously without significant exertion before muscle fatigue, it is harder to put on additional muscle. That is why doing the same exercise over and over again, like pushups, has a limited benefit in terms of increasing muscle mass. You’ll start out doing, say, twenty per set with significant effort, and put on some muscle until you get up to thirty or forty in a set but once you get past a certain point, but additional exercise doesn’t increase fiber growth very fast; you just (slowly) increase fatigue resistance. This is because the particular type of Type II (“fast twitch”) fibers that provide fatigue resistance are limited by the those with a lower fatigue threshold if you are maxing out your low per rep. In order to build muscle fiber evenly, and thus continue to grow muscle mass without topping out, you have to vary both the number of repetitions and intensity of exercises such that you encourage even growth of all Type II fibers.

This isn’t true. Muscle tissue masses about 1.06 kg/l, whereas adipose tissue is ~0.92 kg/l.

Stranger

7

It is also possible that she gained more than 5 lbs. of muscle, if she gained muscle and lost fat at the same time. This is relatively common, and part of the problem of relying on weight to determine if an exercise program is “working”.

But a gain of 5 lbs. a year is a good goal, at least for the first year. (After that, it slows down, a lot.) How your clothes fit, and how much your lifts are going up (using perfect form) are better measurements than weight. It is perfectly possible to improve your appearance dramatically without losing an ounce, even while your waist gets smaller.

Best measurement of all is how you look naked. Clothes are designed to mislead, and to form fat into more socially acceptable configurations. Muscle holds its shape better even without cloth pushing it into place, and thus makes a better measure of trained status.

Regards,
Shodan

8

Yes, mass. Not weight.

9

Mass per unit volume, which is to say that muscle is denser than fat. Hence the observation that you can weigh the same, but your clothes fit better or looser.

Regards,
Shodan

10

Yes, I agree, but a pound of fat weighs the same as a pound of muscle. Muscle is more dense, and therefore takes up less space, but a pound is a pound.

11

To answer a few questions:

Yes, my pants still fit. However, from prior experience, I can gain quite a bit before they start to feel tight – if I’m paying attention I might notice after a 10 pound weight gain, I definitely will by 15. However, I don’t want to start a diet at 15 pounds overweight when I could have done so when only 5 pounds overweight, presuming I should attempt to diet at all. (That is, the gain is fat and not muscle.)

I’ve tried tape measures, too, but aside from the issues of really getting an accurate measure (half an inch closer to the waist or the hips can change the circumference measurement by half an inch or more, so am I seeing actual weight loss/gain, or did I move the tape relative to last time?), I have no idea what normal fluctuations are in terms of full stomach vs. empty, bloat, water retention, or whatever.

I can’t say that weight gain has ever been a goal of mine. I want to look fit and reasonably toned, and basically, not be dumpy or fat. I started out at a good weight for my height, doing cardio only, I just lacked any regular muscle strengthening/toning exercise so my arms looked kind of flabby. My only other goal is a reasonable amount of strength; I basically just don’t want my body to get in the way of itself. I’m not looking to become some sort of muscle-bound bodybuilder. I’m in reasonably good shape at the moment, but if I’m declining I want to nip that in the bud before it gets any worse. Hence the whole “is this muscle or fat” thing. If it’s a reasonable amount of muscle to have gained over a year, I’m not going to stress over 5 pounds. If I’m gaining fat, I probably need to figure out what in hell is going on and do something about it… and again, it’s easier to lose 5 pounds than 15.

What do I look like naked? Unfortunately I don’t have a full-length mirror, plus being a bit freaked about the weight gain hasn’t helped in being able to make a certain, objective determination of “how I look.” Sometimes I think my tummy looks normal. Sometimes I’m convinced it’s bigger than it used to be. See above regarding measuring to be sure. I do, definitely, have much more definition in the upper-arm and shoulder muscles, however.

Re: mass vs. weight… since I’m not actually planning to weigh myself on the moon, I think it’s okay if I think of this in terms of how much I weigh on a planet with 1G of gravity, since that’s really the only context my body is going to be in. :stuck_out_tongue: Also, I think the common understanding of the parlance is that an equal volume of muscle weighs more than the same volume of fat. Saying “one pound equals one pound” is kind of a weird thing to get hung up on (of course it does… one pound of feathers equals one pound of bricks, too, but that’s still a lot more feathers than bricks), when the meaning of the phrase has been a part of common understanding for decades.

12

This is as stupid as saying gold doesn’t weigh more than feathers. Implicit in there is that you are talking about a like volume.

Now, if someone said a lb of fat weighs more than a lb of muscle, you’d be right. Instead, not only is your argument pedantic, but it’s wrong.

13

I agree it’s a stupid nitpick, but still, it’s a common misconception, and just because everyone says it doesn’t make it even close to correct. Fighting ignorance and all. :wink:

14

I don’t see where anyone has misconceived anything at all. No one here has said or implied that one pound is more than one pound. I mean, that’s just dumb.

15

<irritated hijack> Oh, for pete’s sake. You know what the intended meaning was. You gonna tell me that lead *doesn’t *weigh more than feathers, even though a pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of lead? </irritated hijack>

16

Link
Link
Link

I can find more if you want.

17

It doesn’t. At least not by the pound. :wink:

18

Ok, I’ll leave it. It’s a nitpick because I work in the fitness industry and I hear this ALL the time. Sorry for the hijack.

19

Five pounds in a year is well within norm. You may have gained more muscle than that since long slow distance cardio puts you in a catabolic state. The problem is that the scale can’t tell you about body composition.

What you’re doing is great for overall fitness, much better than just cardio. The only way to know for sure would be to have taken measurements before and compare them to now. Not just waist measurements, but wrist, thigh, biceps, shoulders, chest.

If you want to know current body fat, the cheapest and most reasonably accurate way is to do some caliper measurements. Be sure you’re taking the measurement at the right site, do it three times and average the readings.

If you were working out really hard, lifting heavy weights, etc. you would put on more muscle. But women tend not to gain as much muscle as men, so even then you wouldn’t be “big.” I’ve seen women who can lift more weight proportionally than I can that look like swimsuit models. They are muscular, not “ripped.” You don’t need to worry about looking like a musclebound freak unless you’re using chemical enhancement.