I'd love to see a video on "this is what 10lbs of muscle looks like on these frames", or similar ideas with bodyfat, actually setting expectations for we noob folk
Don't even pay attention to the scale for the first 3-6 months you'll gain water weight muscle and lose or gain fat along the way. Until you get very lean it's difficult to determine how much of your gains are actual lean muscle mass.
@@cat-le1hf you will gain pretty much nothing but water weight. A lot of people I feel mistaken the muscle they stary seeing as straight muscle the first year. But if you're hydrated (as you should be if working out) a lot of that muscle is just storing water like creatine pretty much does. I went from 160 to 176 in a full year of training mostly upper body a couple years ago. Started taking a whole vitamin shoppe stack including test booster, muscle builder, non stim and stim pre-workout and kept the calories down enough through the day that I stayed lean while "gaining" my size. After that full year I scaled it back to half workouts for 6 months and maintained that weight give or take 2 pounds each week. THEN I got a call from a job I was seeking wanting to hire me if I passed a piss test and I had been eating edibles on the weekends. I went back to training as hard everyday as I did that full year for a week with nightly sauna sessions to sweat and a full ACV detox. In that week I dropped back down to 161.5 and lost ALL noticeable size. My strength was the same though it took two weeks to get back the sets I was used to comfortably and about 6 months to get that water weight back in my arms and back. Legs never changed tho.
These estimates made me feel much better. Also thank you for clarifying that newb gainz aren't limited to a "window" wherein if you stop training the window disappears, which at least 1 prominent "evidence based" YTer has asserted. Love you Mike.
1:54 What are they? Mechanisms? 3:50 What can you expect? 9:02 When do they come to an end? 12:25 Do they hang around? 15:01 Did I diet my way out of them? 17:55 All muscles or is it per-muscle? 19:45 What if I never got mine?
To paraphrase the Joker from one of my fave Justice League episodes. "That's the thing... I'm ALREADY CRAZY." Lollll Oh and that episode is the two-parter "Wild Cards." YES, I am a nerd! - Dr. Mike
This is the perfect platform for Mike's sarcastic self-deprecating humor 😆 great entertainment while learning quality information for free, what more could you ask for, thanks Mike!
I always wondered how much muscle I gained during my noob phase. I was over 500 lbs when I started weight training. Obviously not hard at first but it took me a good 2.5-3 years to lose 260 lbs and I was strength training and in a deficit that entire time. I was so fat there's no way I could know how much muscle I gained but oh well at least I'm not dead now 15 years later. 😂
You mention Cinderella and her "crystal shoe" (or rather glass slipper). Funny story: it started from a mistranslation. The original tale is in French and she wears slippers that are described as made of "vair". Which is a homophone of "verre"(glass). Except it doesn't mean glass. It's a type of fur that's called the same in English and was considered very fancy in the middle-ages. Comes from a nordic breed of squirrel. But we mostly know the story from the Disney animated version that used the mistranslation, so we have that image of a pair of glass slippers, that make no sense at all, that would be so uncomfortable and fragile!
Mike is on another IQ level, it's not easy to pull of those kind of jokes while keeping the hole thing extremely interesting, getting educated while being entertained kinda ? we are lucky to have all that valuable informations for free, keep it up boss
I’d always figured this was how it worked. Everything I’ve seen indicates that your potential is what it is, modifying for age and whatnot, and factors like programming and stress just bend the curve. At any given gym you’ll find guys screwing around, doing whatever exercises at whatever weights they felt like doing, sometimes for years at a time. They get some gains of course, because newbies can gain with anything, but they quickly cap out. Get one of those guys into a slight surplus and programmed progressive training, and BOOM.
I spent the majority of last year cutting (I was a fatty) and this is the ONLY place I've seen that's had a definitive answer of whether or not I "missed out" on noob gains during that time. Feeling a lot better about the future now!
Great knowledge. I was the type to hit the gym hard for like 2 months straight and then fall off. Now that i've been gaining RUclips knowledge, I'm at 12 months consistent 5-7 days a week and have body dysmorphic disorder. Jk about the dysmorphia, but I am now able to look in the mirror and see success
I started in december 2022. Never trained before. My primary goal has been weight loss, but strength and muscle gains is also a goal. When I started, I was only able to to twice a week at the gym. I was in extremely bad shape and I needed half a week to recover. Then after six-seven weeks, I went up to three times per week at the gym, which I am still at. I've also started doing light cardio (walking or biking) at least 3 times per week on the days in between. Recently I've done more of this, as the weather has been very nice. I started at a body weight of 121.5 kg / 267 lb. Now, six months later, I am at 107 kg / 235 lb. Most of my working weights have doubled or tripled in that time. In the beginning, I deadlifted 40kg for 8 reps. Now, I can do 90kg for 8 reps. In the beginning, I almost fainted after doing 12 walking lunges (yes, really), now I can do 16 with 12 kg dumbbells in my hands. Now, for muscle gains, it's kinda hard to determine as I am still obese. I can tell that I have visible muscles in arms, shoulders and particularly quads, that I haven't seen before. So, I think I have made some good gains. But, I still have a lot of body fat making it hard to say for sure. In these months, I've only skipped five sessions at the gym for varying reasons (illness, family visit, easter) I definitely feel like I've been able to take good advantage of my noob gains. I am still at three times a week, and am considering increasing to four, but I'm not rushing it. Right now, I feel like I am making great progress without feeling overwhelmed. I am excited to go to the gym.
38 year old female, 200 pounder here. Just hit my 5th month, 4-5 days a week training and starting to take this more seriously and came here to find an estimate for when noobie gains will end for me. Great news for me in the video. Thanks, love this channel! ❤
like a beginner I can say that this video was more motivatinal and instructive than many other.... after 7 months I havent seen mayor results and this video gave me some light to the process... the way you explained the growth in time was so clear that motivated me... thank so much...
Your points on muscle memory are spot on. I was dedicated to bodybuilding and took it to the max for about 6 years. I went from 160-250 below 10% bf in that time period. I quit lifting completely for 3 years, I went back to the gym and perfect diet three weeks ago and I’m already up 20 lbs and leaner than I was three weeks ago. Better gains naturally than I ever got enhanced in my prior training period.
The Cinderella glass slipper thing is a misspelling in French, because Cinderella was written by a French author, named Charles Perrault: it was supposed to be "vair", a type of expensive fur, but he wrote "verre", which has the same pronunciation but means "glass".
A lot of this is making a lot of sense to me, especially the part about being primed for growth after a hard diet. I did an extreme diet (600-800 cal/day) with no exercise (was recovering from Guillan Barre Syndrome at the time) for 9 months, lost 90kg, then started seriously weight training and gained about 5kg of muscle over the next 9 months. I liked the ending too. Much more important than being jacked is being happy in yourself, whatever you look like.
I started training for the first time in my 40's. What blew my mind was how quickly I saw changes. After 3 weeks of regular training (an hour of weight training 3x a week, plus running every day (except after leg day)) I started to see results. It was nothing major, not the type of thing anyone else would notice, but I remember sitting at my desk at work and noticing my forearms looked bigger and more defined. I mean, if I'd measured I'd probably put on maybe 1/5th of an inch, but just seeing that change in size and definition in such a short time was massively motivating. I just want to say a massive thank you for this channel. I can't express just how much it helps to get actual, real scientific advice from someone who actually understands and explains what to do without over-promising to sell snake oil.
Man even if you cant put up large amount of muscles the health benefit of as simply as staying fit and lean really is worth it by doing good balanced diet and lifting weight.
I'd love to see a video on preparatory hypertrophy and the mechanisms at play for muscle growth over the long-term. Thanks for the great content, as always!
I've lost about 70lb's in the last 7 months, still going to lose an extra 15-20lb's to hit my goal of getting my bodyweight to 180lb's. I've been working out this whole time and I kind of gave up on the noob gains for the sake of weight loss, but I'm glad to hear that I haven't really given up on anything just postponed 'em. Thanks Mike.
I love you so much. Your videos are unbelievably helpful (and ridiculously entertaining/hilarious). Please never quit producing this incredible content!
My struggle is that I have no money and only have dumbbells at home. I’ve been working out and lifting little by little more and more since Jan 1st 2024. I finally am starting a proper routine and proper diet just in the past couple weeks. Working out 3-4 days a week depending on soreness. My big problem is finding ways to work my legs properly to build muscle. I tend to either do a full body workout or split muscle groups but still figuring that out.
Listening to all of your advice has gotten me a pound a week and losing fat in a bit over a month lifting and 3 months cycling. Compound super sets and bicycle training 20miles a day. 1g protein per lb body weight. I would definitely agree it is from muscle memory.
I really wish I stayed with lifting when I was young. I had arms before ever touching a weight and responded well to weight lifting. I went from struggling with benching 85lbs to 320 1rep max in 6 months. I got lazy and fat after a year of lifting, a back injury and pain killer addiction. Now I'm mid forties. I'm still responding okay and building muscle but not overdoing it and avoiding injury is the biggest challenge. I look forward to seeing my progress photos over the next year. I have a juiced 25yo trainer and have to keep reminding him of my age. Appreciate being pushed hard but have to be very aware of my injury risk due to past injuries. One bad injury and it stops my progress and is frustrating.
I gained 25 pounds my first year, when I was 14-15. Probably because of puberty, because I wasn’t eating shit. But puberty helped because I still grew a lot of muscle
I finally found cycling, the first exercise I've ever enjoyed. Recently, I started to think it'd be nice to have an upper body to match my legs. Also, I live in Alaska, so it'd be nice to keep in shape in the winter. I've only been going to the gym for a month, and I'm really liking working out for its own sake. I knew so little about it, I had no idea that initial progress was so fast and obvious. I love getting that "runners' high" feeling in the rest of my body, not just the legs.
Dr Mike, would you say that there is a skew in the sample we have of all lifters towards the high responders to training? I feel as if the people who have a better response in their first 3 years or so tend to stick around and keep training past that, but the genetic pipsqueaks drop out faster. Do your numbers account for this effect (if you believe it exists)?
You forgot that 'pipsqueaks' are the most motivated people because they don't want to look like pipsqueaks and training hard is the only thing that can make them look and feel 'normal'. I know one guy like that, he looks like he was a POW if he doesn't eat or train right for a month, it's a tough life.
Hey Dr. Mike! I've heard you reference a handful of times something to the effect of 'if you're fat, you can still gain without being in a surplus.' is there any good research showing at which body fat % this is considered effective? Is there a BF% where you'd tell someone to not worry about a surplus, just maintain b/c you've got plenty of stored energy already?
Plenty of reasearch, but none of the papers directly address your question. Think of it like this: If a morbidly obese person who has never done any kind of resistance trainging before goes on a diet and starts working out, they could get about 20% to maybe 60% of the amounts of muscle that Israetel mentions in this video, assuming a) they train decently, b) they get enough protein and c) the caloric deficit isn't too aggressive. Arbitrary numbers, of course, but they're not that far away from reality. If an almost "maxed-out" IFFB Pro at 250lbs and a BF of 20%+++ tried to gain muscle at maintenance, it would most likely be a waste of time. If they were expected to gain 1-2 pounds of muscle in a year on a sufficient surplus, they would only gain a tiny fraction of that, if they were lucky, not to mention that, at such high level, that kind of progress wouldn't even be measurable.
11:27 The first time I looked at this I thought wow that is kind of a long process. Then I imagined how long it takes to get a degree, or becoming a doctor and I thought hey at least this is actually significantly easier than those and that was motivational for me.
Loving my noob gains. I started resistance training not long before turning 60. I have no reason to assume my genetics are better than average. Over a few months I've built up from 0 to 90 min/week to 240 min. My body weight hasn't changed but I can see bigger delts, pecs, traps and lats and smaller gut. If it wasn't my prodigious gut I could probably lay claim to a v-taper for the first time in my life. I haven't ignored legs but a long history of running and riding giving me a reasonable level of base musculature has made my lower body gains less obvious.
After my 3 year of university, i was 135lbs at 6ft. Worked that summer in a gym cleaning and worked out all the time and put on 30 pounds. The noob gains were strong with me
I recently spoke to someone about how to overcome a plateau, and was informed that I was simply enjoying noob gains. Kinda bummed that i'm not actually a genetic marvel who grows 10-15% stronger every week. But i am very excited to hear that some of my noob gains may just be delayed due to my diet. I hope I can experience that level of growth again when i come off my caloric deficit.
Just wanted to chime in here to say that I did not get my noob gains when I started. I thought maybe I had bad genetics for a while, and maybe I still do. But my fourth year of training is when I finally started to put on some muscle. I switched up my technique a bit to focus on RPE instead of doing X amount of reps each set. I started eating more protein too. Things are finally growing :D
Hey, Dr. Mike. Quick question. Bought the Simple Template 2 day and 4 day. I have consistently been doing 2 days a week and feel like I recover best with a lot of rest since I don't sleep particularly well. How much of a difference is 2 days vs. 4 days in terms of gains? Am I least getting 80% of what I could be getting?
I was super skinny fat when I started (28 years old, 132 pounds at 32% body fat) and at the end of my first year of lifting I was 172 pounds at 18%. I did it 100% natty (always have been, always will be), just good nutrition and lifting like my life depended on it. I think that works out to ~51 pounds of lean mass gain, which is crazy high based on your estimate. Unfortunately I never got much bigger than that (186 after 3 years of training) and then stopped training when my kids arrived and work/life balance changed. I'm now 45, a fat ass, and getting back at it. I've lost 15 pounds and 4" off my waist in 1.5 months. I love your videos, thank you for making them.
Advice against training burnouts for noobs: Start with the amount of days you can easily implement. Once you get a taste for it and start itching to add days, add one day. And so on. I went from 2 to 4 days per week within 3 months and it never felt a strain to add it to my already busy life. I love going to the gym. Even when I have a shit sesh, I look forward to going back. Never been in this place mentally before and I'd do it again like this any time.
Hey Mike, by 'muscle' do you mean the mass of water, glycogen, etc in the muscles along with the lean tissue or just the lean tissue? I think 10 pounds of PURE lean muscle in the first year is a little bit of an overestimate. My best guess would be that most average people can put on about 7 pounds in the first year.
I went from 100 to 132 in my first 2 years of training, with height staying the same and could see my abs clearly the entire time. Even after dropping some water weight I stayed at 125
I do in fact mean muscle. Also, glycogen and water count in lean tissue. They don't count in DRY muscle weight, which you can't find out unless you BIOPSY the person! - Dr. Mike
Your numbers don't make sense. The body is orughly 60% water, and muscles even more so at 76-79%, so if you were interested in dry mass for whatever reason (you wanna be the most jacked desiccated corpse in the morgue?), you'd have to adjust from 10 to 2-2.5, not 7.
It seems like noob gains is just a way of explaining that if a muscle is small, your body is very willing for it to grow. If it is larger (i.e. closer to your genetic potential) it takes more effort to get it to grow, and it does it slower. Regardless of the circumstances, if a given muscle is small and you start training and eating properly, it should grow quickly. Then the caveat is, all of this is influenced by genetics.
Bro that Arnold was on point. But I'm making noobmaxing a thing. Helps that my job is basically cardio and core all night six days a week, but my genes are definitely a key. I build fast, but I plateau fast too. So if I rest more(sometimes a whole week) between limit breaking workouts) i tend to build more steadily. I can't afford too much calorie burn tbh, work burns at least 1500-2500 calories in a shift pretty easy depending on business, and a third meal per day is just not in the budget. Wouldn't recommend it to get jacked tho. It's slow and steady, but the results do add up, and my core particularly shows for it.
about 4 months into my first year of training started off lifting every single day, then tapered off to 2 rest days a week and the progress has been insane.
Ends with a good point about people who don't end up jacked. Yes, so what? Isn't the bigger goal just fitness, good strength for life, longevity, mental discipline, and fun? Personally I never tried training to begin with to gain lots of muscle, I wanted to get stronger and see what my body could do. That's why now I train mostly calisthenics these days, I feel like getting good at the skill is more fun than adding more weight to infinity. Like, I'd rather get to sets of 10 pull-ups and then start experimenting with harder variations than go from 200 lb. lat pull-downs, to 215, to 230, etc.
As an outsider, i never heard this called noob gains before, but i definitely experienced this, and it seems like its something that everybody should take advantage of. Like, the idea that something is better than nothing with exercise. You can make pretty amazing improvements over doing nothing, without a massive amount of effort or complexity. Everybody should scoop up their noob gains. It eventually occurred to me that this is basically gym class exercise lol. Basic activity, simple exercises, etc, go a long way.
I had a years worth of dieting where i didnt gain much muscle but i still kept up the gym work. Now i just switched to my maintenance calories and the first month i went up 2kg of muscle lost another 2kg of fat and gained like 2kg of water weight aswell (used a InBody Scale to get the numbers) i was pretty shocked at the sudden numbers changes. i guess im currently enjoying my delayed noob gains :D. nice to understand more propperly what is happening so thx alot.!
mike with side hair is gonna scare me at nights
It scares me in broad daylight
Wide Mao Zedong John Cena
Star Trek doctor, jacked.
Jacked Harry Potter’s been learning from dumbelldore
And the huff and puff house
Best comment of 2021
Engorgio!
Too fucking funny nevermind
Dumbleswole
I'd love to see a video on "this is what 10lbs of muscle looks like on these frames", or similar ideas with bodyfat, actually setting expectations for we noob folk
Don't even pay attention to the scale for the first 3-6 months you'll gain water weight muscle and lose or gain fat along the way. Until you get very lean it's difficult to determine how much of your gains are actual lean muscle mass.
@@cat-le1hf you will gain pretty much nothing but water weight. A lot of people I feel mistaken the muscle they stary seeing as straight muscle the first year. But if you're hydrated (as you should be if working out) a lot of that muscle is just storing water like creatine pretty much does. I went from 160 to 176 in a full year of training mostly upper body a couple years ago. Started taking a whole vitamin shoppe stack including test booster, muscle builder, non stim and stim pre-workout and kept the calories down enough through the day that I stayed lean while "gaining" my size. After that full year I scaled it back to half workouts for 6 months and maintained that weight give or take 2 pounds each week. THEN I got a call from a job I was seeking wanting to hire me if I passed a piss test and I had been eating edibles on the weekends. I went back to training as hard everyday as I did that full year for a week with nightly sauna sessions to sweat and a full ACV detox. In that week I dropped back down to 161.5 and lost ALL noticeable size. My strength was the same though it took two weeks to get back the sets I was used to comfortably and about 6 months to get that water weight back in my arms and back. Legs never changed tho.
@@sgt.lincolnosiris4111 Going from that long ass story, you were definitely not eating enough if you stayed well lean while "gaining"
@@rickterrance4981noted and ignored
@@sgt.lincolnosiris4111did you get the job though?
These estimates made me feel much better. Also thank you for clarifying that newb gainz aren't limited to a "window" wherein if you stop training the window disappears, which at least 1 prominent "evidence based" YTer has asserted. Love you Mike.
Love you back! - Dr. Mike
Who said that?
dont be afraid to name drop, youd be doing a service to us
The idea of a noob gains window to me is fundamentally ridiculous. It makes zero sense. Hope a lot of people who believe in it see this video.
probably jeff nippard
Albus Dumbbelldoer: "Leg Day? After all this Time?"
Severus in-shape: "Always!"
Why u tryna make us cry bro
1:54 What are they? Mechanisms?
3:50 What can you expect?
9:02 When do they come to an end?
12:25 Do they hang around?
15:01 Did I diet my way out of them?
17:55 All muscles or is it per-muscle?
19:45 What if I never got mine?
You the goat vro 🐐 🔥
Thank you.
Legend!
The longer this channel goes on, the more insane mike becomes until he just snaps one day, calling it right now!
Elliot Hulse syndrome, huh?
@@peetos-chan2835 I don't think Mike would turn that specific flavor of insane. He'd be more manic and incoherent type
Comedy on progressive overload 🤣
To paraphrase the Joker from one of my fave Justice League episodes. "That's the thing... I'm ALREADY CRAZY." Lollll
Oh and that episode is the two-parter "Wild Cards." YES, I am a nerd! - Dr. Mike
@@peetos-chan2835 I totally forgot about that guy, so I went to check out some of his recent stuff. Lmao
This is the perfect platform for Mike's sarcastic self-deprecating humor 😆 great entertainment while learning quality information for free, what more could you ask for, thanks Mike!
I always wondered how much muscle I gained during my noob phase. I was over 500 lbs when I started weight training. Obviously not hard at first but it took me a good 2.5-3 years to lose 260 lbs and I was strength training and in a deficit that entire time. I was so fat there's no way I could know how much muscle I gained but oh well at least I'm not dead now 15 years later. 😂
Plus.... probably garbage tier genetics seeing how I was 500+ lbs...
Dude u probably had a shit ton of muscle already just from carrying around all that mass all day!
@@zed1123 I know my calves were huge 😁because I was still somewhat active even as big as I was, incredibly.
@@swiper1131 proud of you
@@Danny-db9du hey thanks a ton, homie.
Youre edutainment is hall of fame level. Informative comedic and highly accurate. Happy to learn from you doc.
You mention Cinderella and her "crystal shoe" (or rather glass slipper). Funny story: it started from a mistranslation. The original tale is in French and she wears slippers that are described as made of "vair". Which is a homophone of "verre"(glass). Except it doesn't mean glass. It's a type of fur that's called the same in English and was considered very fancy in the middle-ages. Comes from a nordic breed of squirrel.
But we mostly know the story from the Disney animated version that used the mistranslation, so we have that image of a pair of glass slippers, that make no sense at all, that would be so uncomfortable and fragile!
To be fair, she was using magical PEDs.
Mike is on another IQ level, it's not easy to pull of those kind of jokes while keeping the hole thing extremely interesting, getting educated while being entertained kinda ? we are lucky to have all that valuable informations for free, keep it up boss
Yes and remember to not skip the ads 💯
Why am I not surprised that someone that doesn't know the difference between "hole" & "whole" thinks a fairly bright dude is a "genius".
The hole was always interesting my friend.
@@blackphoenix8932 english might be his second language, going off the pluralised “informations”.
@@theknowledgebridge6195 or it might be third or fourth
Can't believe you guys got a collaboration with Arnold
I’d always figured this was how it worked. Everything I’ve seen indicates that your potential is what it is, modifying for age and whatnot, and factors like programming and stress just bend the curve.
At any given gym you’ll find guys screwing around, doing whatever exercises at whatever weights they felt like doing, sometimes for years at a time. They get some gains of course, because newbies can gain with anything, but they quickly cap out. Get one of those guys into a slight surplus and programmed progressive training, and BOOM.
I come for the education, I stay for the comedy.
I just come.
I spent the majority of last year cutting (I was a fatty) and this is the ONLY place I've seen that's had a definitive answer of whether or not I "missed out" on noob gains during that time. Feeling a lot better about the future now!
Great knowledge. I was the type to hit the gym hard for like 2 months straight and then fall off. Now that i've been gaining RUclips knowledge, I'm at 12 months consistent 5-7 days a week and have body dysmorphic disorder. Jk about the dysmorphia, but I am now able to look in the mirror and see success
“Jk”
Yeah right. Don’t worry, we’re all there
I started in december 2022. Never trained before. My primary goal has been weight loss, but strength and muscle gains is also a goal. When I started, I was only able to to twice a week at the gym. I was in extremely bad shape and I needed half a week to recover. Then after six-seven weeks, I went up to three times per week at the gym, which I am still at. I've also started doing light cardio (walking or biking) at least 3 times per week on the days in between. Recently I've done more of this, as the weather has been very nice.
I started at a body weight of 121.5 kg / 267 lb. Now, six months later, I am at 107 kg / 235 lb. Most of my working weights have doubled or tripled in that time. In the beginning, I deadlifted 40kg for 8 reps. Now, I can do 90kg for 8 reps. In the beginning, I almost fainted after doing 12 walking lunges (yes, really), now I can do 16 with 12 kg dumbbells in my hands.
Now, for muscle gains, it's kinda hard to determine as I am still obese. I can tell that I have visible muscles in arms, shoulders and particularly quads, that I haven't seen before. So, I think I have made some good gains. But, I still have a lot of body fat making it hard to say for sure.
In these months, I've only skipped five sessions at the gym for varying reasons (illness, family visit, easter)
I definitely feel like I've been able to take good advantage of my noob gains. I am still at three times a week, and am considering increasing to four, but I'm not rushing it. Right now, I feel like I am making great progress without feeling overwhelmed. I am excited to go to the gym.
38 year old female, 200 pounder here. Just hit my 5th month, 4-5 days a week training and starting to take this more seriously and came here to find an estimate for when noobie gains will end for me. Great news for me in the video. Thanks, love this channel! ❤
Good luck and wish you the best! Have fun moving and enjoying your body, however you do that for you!
You look a lot like Steven Seagal 🤔
@@LtCommanderTato😂😊
I just can't get enough of his humor. Great content. Great humor. Thanks, man.
like a beginner I can say that this video was more motivatinal and instructive than many other.... after 7 months I havent seen mayor results and this video gave me some light to the process... the way you explained the growth in time was so clear that motivated me... thank so much...
Are you in a caloric surplus? Are you training hard? Are you training regularly with good techique and intensity?
If you want a good understanding of the science behind lifting. This chanel here and jeff Nippards are toptier
Your points on muscle memory are spot on. I was dedicated to bodybuilding and took it to the max for about 6 years. I went from 160-250 below 10% bf in that time period. I quit lifting completely for 3 years, I went back to the gym and perfect diet three weeks ago and I’m already up 20 lbs and leaner than I was three weeks ago. Better gains naturally than I ever got enhanced in my prior training period.
That death face tho, cut going well Dr. Mike
Awesome video as always
The Cinderella glass slipper thing is a misspelling in French, because Cinderella was written by a French author, named Charles Perrault: it was supposed to be "vair", a type of expensive fur, but he wrote "verre", which has the same pronunciation but means "glass".
A lot of this is making a lot of sense to me, especially the part about being primed for growth after a hard diet. I did an extreme diet (600-800 cal/day) with no exercise (was recovering from Guillan Barre Syndrome at the time) for 9 months, lost 90kg, then started seriously weight training and gained about 5kg of muscle over the next 9 months.
I liked the ending too. Much more important than being jacked is being happy in yourself, whatever you look like.
I started training for the first time in my 40's. What blew my mind was how quickly I saw changes.
After 3 weeks of regular training (an hour of weight training 3x a week, plus running every day (except after leg day)) I started to see results.
It was nothing major, not the type of thing anyone else would notice, but I remember sitting at my desk at work and noticing my forearms looked bigger and more defined. I mean, if I'd measured I'd probably put on maybe 1/5th of an inch, but just seeing that change in size and definition in such a short time was massively motivating.
I just want to say a massive thank you for this channel. I can't express just how much it helps to get actual, real scientific advice from someone who actually understands and explains what to do without over-promising to sell snake oil.
Man even if you cant put up large amount of muscles the health benefit of as simply as staying fit and lean really is worth it by doing good balanced diet and lifting weight.
I'd love to see a video on preparatory hypertrophy and the mechanisms at play for muscle growth over the long-term.
Thanks for the great content, as always!
Unfortunately I don't know enough about that yet, but maybe someday! - Dr. Mike
I've lost about 70lb's in the last 7 months, still going to lose an extra 15-20lb's to hit my goal of getting my bodyweight to 180lb's. I've been working out this whole time and I kind of gave up on the noob gains for the sake of weight loss, but I'm glad to hear that I haven't really given up on anything just postponed 'em. Thanks Mike.
Harry Spotter
Hairy Spotter is hanging right over your face while you bench.
Female here. Love your content. ❤️
Honestly you’ve changed my life man, thank you for everything you do.
You are a born comedian man for real even if you try you still are funny. Please do the comedy sketch in the beginning of your videos!!!!
I love you so much. Your videos are unbelievably helpful (and ridiculously entertaining/hilarious). Please never quit producing this incredible content!
Even if I wasn't into lifting I'd probably still listen just to hear your deadpan humor. I love it!
The leg thing happened to me. Never trained them for years, then after the first 1.5 yrs I gained 3 inches in each quad.
That Arnold impression was fire.
Lost it at "even the dog didn't look at him the same" - I love the humor that is being brought in :D
That was possibly the best Arnold impression ever.
My new work commute is 30 minutes. Podcast the shit out of your videos! Thanks for all the knowledge.
Spot on Arnold impression
My struggle is that I have no money and only have dumbbells at home. I’ve been working out and lifting little by little more and more since Jan 1st 2024. I finally am starting a proper routine and proper diet just in the past couple weeks. Working out 3-4 days a week depending on soreness. My big problem is finding ways to work my legs properly to build muscle. I tend to either do a full body workout or split muscle groups but still figuring that out.
Listening to all of your advice has gotten me a pound a week and losing fat in a bit over a month lifting and 3 months cycling. Compound super sets and bicycle training 20miles a day. 1g protein per lb body weight. I would definitely agree it is from muscle memory.
That was a pretty solid Arnold impression
I found when my bench/row was approaching my body weight,the muscle gain got more obvious .Before that I guess tendons were just strengthening.
17:32 “I only remember the shoe for some reason.” It’s okay Dr. Mike, there are loads of us on here.
I really wish I stayed with lifting when I was young. I had arms before ever touching a weight and responded well to weight lifting. I went from struggling with benching 85lbs to 320 1rep max in 6 months. I got lazy and fat after a year of lifting, a back injury and pain killer addiction. Now I'm mid forties. I'm still responding okay and building muscle but not overdoing it and avoiding injury is the biggest challenge. I look forward to seeing my progress photos over the next year. I have a juiced 25yo trainer and have to keep reminding him of my age. Appreciate being pushed hard but have to be very aware of my injury risk due to past injuries. One bad injury and it stops my progress and is frustrating.
I gained 25 pounds my first year, when I was 14-15. Probably because of puberty, because I wasn’t eating shit. But puberty helped because I still grew a lot of muscle
I'm so happy I found your YT channel Dr. Mike. I've learned so much from you. Keep up the great work!!!
I finally found cycling, the first exercise I've ever enjoyed. Recently, I started to think it'd be nice to have an upper body to match my legs. Also, I live in Alaska, so it'd be nice to keep in shape in the winter. I've only been going to the gym for a month, and I'm really liking working out for its own sake. I knew so little about it, I had no idea that initial progress was so fast and obvious. I love getting that "runners' high" feeling in the rest of my body, not just the legs.
Dr Mike, would you say that there is a skew in the sample we have of all lifters towards the high responders to training? I feel as if the people who have a better response in their first 3 years or so tend to stick around and keep training past that, but the genetic pipsqueaks drop out faster. Do your numbers account for this effect (if you believe it exists)?
Genetic pipsqueak here. Still training and loving it.
You forgot that 'pipsqueaks' are the most motivated people because they don't want to look like pipsqueaks and training hard is the only thing that can make them look and feel 'normal'. I know one guy like that, he looks like he was a POW if he doesn't eat or train right for a month, it's a tough life.
Have started to train, and I was surprised how fast I did progress, thanks for explaining "Noob Gain"
Hey Dr. Mike! I've heard you reference a handful of times something to the effect of 'if you're fat, you can still gain without being in a surplus.' is there any good research showing at which body fat % this is considered effective? Is there a BF% where you'd tell someone to not worry about a surplus, just maintain b/c you've got plenty of stored energy already?
I’ve heard (from More Plates More Dates) that going above 20% is no longer beneficial for gains and will just be extra weight you have to shave off
Plenty of reasearch, but none of the papers directly address your question. Think of it like this:
If a morbidly obese person who has never done any kind of resistance trainging before goes on a diet and starts working out, they could get about 20% to maybe 60% of the amounts of muscle that Israetel mentions in this video, assuming a) they train decently, b) they get enough protein and c) the caloric deficit isn't too aggressive. Arbitrary numbers, of course, but they're not that far away from reality.
If an almost "maxed-out" IFFB Pro at 250lbs and a BF of 20%+++ tried to gain muscle at maintenance, it would most likely be a waste of time. If they were expected to gain 1-2 pounds of muscle in a year on a sufficient surplus, they would only gain a tiny fraction of that, if they were lucky, not to mention that, at such high level, that kind of progress wouldn't even be measurable.
Yeah the shoe is not crystal, in French it was « vair » which is a fur, and it became « verre » (kinda the same prononciation, but it means glass).
Not a bad impression. Always impressed and even a little overwhelmed by how much info you put in these videos. Thank you sir.
11:27 The first time I looked at this I thought wow that is kind of a long process. Then I imagined how long it takes to get a degree, or becoming a doctor and I thought hey at least this is actually significantly easier than those and that was motivational for me.
Tore my ACL a few years ago… getting back into the grind. Nothing stops me but me.
great, this is what i get for being a girl. Math :(
This cleared up a lot of my doubts. Thank you, Mike
Can't believe all this is free for us to use. Could listen to him all day
Loving my noob gains. I started resistance training not long before turning 60. I have no reason to assume my genetics are better than average. Over a few months I've built up from 0 to 90 min/week to 240 min. My body weight hasn't changed but I can see bigger delts, pecs, traps and lats and smaller gut. If it wasn't my prodigious gut I could probably lay claim to a v-taper for the first time in my life. I haven't ignored legs but a long history of running and riding giving me a reasonable level of base musculature has made my lower body gains less obvious.
It doesn't matter if it was the worst Arnold impersonation because even bad impersonations are seriously fun.
I opened your video on another window and switched tabs. For a second I thought there was an Arnold ad only to see its Mike. really good!
You had hair?
After my 3 year of university, i was 135lbs at 6ft. Worked that summer in a gym cleaning and worked out all the time and put on 30 pounds. The noob gains were strong with me
Dr Mike needs to do more Arnold impressions! NOW!
I recently spoke to someone about how to overcome a plateau, and was informed that I was simply enjoying noob gains. Kinda bummed that i'm not actually a genetic marvel who grows 10-15% stronger every week. But i am very excited to hear that some of my noob gains may just be delayed due to my diet. I hope I can experience that level of growth again when i come off my caloric deficit.
Just wanted to chime in here to say that I did not get my noob gains when I started. I thought maybe I had bad genetics for a while, and maybe I still do.
But my fourth year of training is when I finally started to put on some muscle. I switched up my technique a bit to focus on RPE instead of doing X amount of reps each set. I started eating more protein too. Things are finally growing :D
What is RPE?
It's the protein that made your gains not the rpe or whatever the fuck
I just started watching your channel and I am falling in love with your vids!
Hey, Dr. Mike. Quick question. Bought the Simple Template 2 day and 4 day. I have consistently been doing 2 days a week and feel like I recover best with a lot of rest since I don't sleep particularly well. How much of a difference is 2 days vs. 4 days in terms of gains? Am I least getting 80% of what I could be getting?
Some people can't get self depreciating humor right. This is perfectly timed and worded. Hilarious. Content is good too.
Dr Mike talking about feeling tall is like this ectomorph saying I am only as jacked as I feel.
Exactly 50% of people have below median genetics, not below average
I still hope for another chunk of newbie gains every time I make a little optimization tweak 😌
I was super skinny fat when I started (28 years old, 132 pounds at 32% body fat) and at the end of my first year of lifting I was 172 pounds at 18%. I did it 100% natty (always have been, always will be), just good nutrition and lifting like my life depended on it. I think that works out to ~51 pounds of lean mass gain, which is crazy high based on your estimate. Unfortunately I never got much bigger than that (186 after 3 years of training) and then stopped training when my kids arrived and work/life balance changed.
I'm now 45, a fat ass, and getting back at it. I've lost 15 pounds and 4" off my waist in 1.5 months.
I love your videos, thank you for making them.
So glad that dr Mike let the monk look go
Came here for the jukes
Advice against training burnouts for noobs: Start with the amount of days you can easily implement. Once you get a taste for it and start itching to add days, add one day. And so on. I went from 2 to 4 days per week within 3 months and it never felt a strain to add it to my already busy life. I love going to the gym. Even when I have a shit sesh, I look forward to going back. Never been in this place mentally before and I'd do it again like this any time.
I’m glowing to have SHREDDED fucking abs after watching all your videos 😂 God damn, your perfectly timed tangents and jokes are way too funny!
Hey Mike, by 'muscle' do you mean the mass of water, glycogen, etc in the muscles along with the lean tissue or just the lean tissue? I think 10 pounds of PURE lean muscle in the first year is a little bit of an overestimate. My best guess would be that most average people can put on about 7 pounds in the first year.
I went from 100 to 132 in my first 2 years of training, with height staying the same and could see my abs clearly the entire time. Even after dropping some water weight I stayed at 125
@@Bdavis2475 what were your lifts?
I do in fact mean muscle. Also, glycogen and water count in lean tissue. They don't count in DRY muscle weight, which you can't find out unless you BIOPSY the person! - Dr. Mike
Your numbers don't make sense. The body is orughly 60% water, and muscles even more so at 76-79%, so if you were interested in dry mass for whatever reason (you wanna be the most jacked desiccated corpse in the morgue?), you'd have to adjust from 10 to 2-2.5, not 7.
@@RenaissancePeriodization Ok, thanks for responding Dr. Mike. Love your content as always.
Dr. Mike is the only comedian I need
It seems like noob gains is just a way of explaining that if a muscle is small, your body is very willing for it to grow. If it is larger (i.e. closer to your genetic potential) it takes more effort to get it to grow, and it does it slower. Regardless of the circumstances, if a given muscle is small and you start training and eating properly, it should grow quickly. Then the caveat is, all of this is influenced by genetics.
Bro that Arnold was on point. But I'm making noobmaxing a thing. Helps that my job is basically cardio and core all night six days a week, but my genes are definitely a key. I build fast, but I plateau fast too. So if I rest more(sometimes a whole week) between limit breaking workouts) i tend to build more steadily. I can't afford too much calorie burn tbh, work burns at least 1500-2500 calories in a shift pretty easy depending on business, and a third meal per day is just not in the budget. Wouldn't recommend it to get jacked tho. It's slow and steady, but the results do add up, and my core particularly shows for it.
That Arnold impression was sooo on point
Dude, that is a great Arnold impression!
about 4 months into my first year of training started off lifting every single day, then tapered off to 2 rest days a week and the progress has been insane.
Just love the attitude of Mike and how he talks about everythin'😅😅😅
Pretty good Ahnold impression, honestly
Arnie impression was a solid 7.5
As someone from Aruba, I would like to confirm that the only pirates we have, run a open bar on their ship and give tours.
I came to this video for the noob tips, I stayed because this guy is derelict and hilarious 😂
Ends with a good point about people who don't end up jacked. Yes, so what? Isn't the bigger goal just fitness, good strength for life, longevity, mental discipline, and fun?
Personally I never tried training to begin with to gain lots of muscle, I wanted to get stronger and see what my body could do. That's why now I train mostly calisthenics these days, I feel like getting good at the skill is more fun than adding more weight to infinity. Like, I'd rather get to sets of 10 pull-ups and then start experimenting with harder variations than go from 200 lb. lat pull-downs, to 215, to 230, etc.
Mike's accents and impressions are great.
As an outsider, i never heard this called noob gains before, but i definitely experienced this, and it seems like its something that everybody should take advantage of. Like, the idea that something is better than nothing with exercise. You can make pretty amazing improvements over doing nothing, without a massive amount of effort or complexity. Everybody should scoop up their noob gains. It eventually occurred to me that this is basically gym class exercise lol. Basic activity, simple exercises, etc, go a long way.
haha your arnie impressions. just heard you do a flawless one on a more recent vid (but forgot to comment), they really make me smile.
Yup you're right Mike! I do listen to my own podcast while driving.
7/10 Arnold impression. 10/10 information.
Ive been very worried about what happens dieting in my deficit working out with resistance, thank you so much for this video!
I had a years worth of dieting where i didnt gain much muscle but i still kept up the gym work. Now i just switched to my maintenance calories and the first month i went up 2kg of muscle lost another 2kg of fat and gained like 2kg of water weight aswell (used a InBody Scale to get the numbers) i was pretty shocked at the sudden numbers changes.
i guess im currently enjoying my delayed noob gains :D. nice to understand more propperly what is happening so thx alot.!
He's going to ***pump us up!!!***
Was actually fairly impressive impersonation. :D