Newbie Gains Guide: The Beginners Guide to aim 5x Muscle Growth

90% of the beginners who start with some kind of workout have a prime aim of maximum muscle growth in the least possible time. And for a newbie, you can easily gain 20-25 pounds of muscles in your first year of lifting itself. Aiming for these newbie gains is easy, provided you employ the right strategy to maximize muscle growth.

As a newbie, the first year of your lifting alone can give you strength and gains more than what you can achieve in the next four years combined. So, this first year of your training is very crucial and you should not waste your newbie gains at any cost. An individual can naturally gain 40-50 pounds of muscle in his whole lifetime. Thus imagine, what if you can make most of your newbie gains in the first year itself?

But then why I am not seeing any newbie gains yet?

Most Beginners will be really surprised to learn these facts. But some of them after this point will question themselves. It`s been 5 to 6 months probably less or little more, but you have not noticed any such gains. Whether have you wasted your newbie gains or you are doing something wrong? Don`t worry, your gains are not wasted. It`s just that you don`t yet understand how to start the newbie gains.

In order to experience the full potential of newbie gains, your training and nutrition should be in order. Fortunately, it is not rocket science and you can tweak these two things from today onward easily. Your real gains are waiting to reach you. They just need a kick start from you. In this article, we will be sharing the exact strategies to maximize your newbie gains and aim for 5x muscle growth.

What exactly are Newbie Gains?

The Newbie Gains is a phenomenon where a beginner experiences quick development in strength and muscle mass. Graduating from a steady lifestyle to a swift life, you are introducing a new challenging stimulus for your body i.e. a training regime. This new stimulus enables an accelerated muscle growth in your body even you indulge in fairly basic training.

However, the more challenging and the more foreign your training is; the more you will reap the rewards. So, no matter how hard or intimidating your workout session is; keep going and put close attention to maximizing your muscle gains in this phase. You will be having gains of your lifetime.

But, this phase of your newbie gains will never stay with you for a lifetime. Once your body adapts your training style and this new stimulus, the speed of your gains will get compromised. No matter how much you will try afterward with different training styles, you will not be able to match the gains of this phase in the coming years.

How to Maximize Newbie Gains?

The time period for which a beginner experience newbie gains is very crucial. It is really important for you to use the full potential of this period to accelerate your muscle growth. But as a newbie, you are prone to make a lot of mistakes during this time. Such mistakes can waste your newbie gains and slow down your progress. However, you can follow these tested beginner muscle building tips to maximize newbie gains.

1. Focus on Compound Exercises

The Compound Exercises are pioneers in laying a solid muscle-building foundation for the beginner. It works various muscle groups and multiple joints at once. This enables you to lift large amounts of weight and progress more quickly in terms of strength and muscle building.

Furthermore, these movements also increase the production of testosterone and growth hormone in the body which is linked to faster muscle growth. The additional benefit, a beginner can avail from compound movements is the reduced risk of injury during his training.

Also, distance yourself from including isolation exercises in the early stages and put more focus on compound exercises. This way you can target the maximum muscle growth in your newbie phase and save yourself from getting injuries.

2. Stay away from Over Training

The new phase of training is so exciting that you can easily overindulge in your training. Doing more exercise doesn’t mean you will get extra gains. Instead, the opposite is true. As a beginner, less is more. Your body is experiencing a new stimulus and you should proceed with gradual progression both in terms of frequency and lifting heavyweights.

A 3-4 day training schedule per week is enough to achieve maximum muscle growth. Shorter duration of workouts with 8-10 reps max per set is a good enough number to force your body to grow muscles.

Furthermore, you are giving your body ample time to recover by staying away from overtraining. But if you tend to over train, your body needs to handle load which is beyond its reach at this beginning stage. This is sure to kill your gains and even hold you back from making any progress.

3. Employ Right Nutrition Strategy

If you have to build muscle and strength, exercising alone will not be able to fulfill your goal. A right nutritional strategy along with a good workout program is a key to building muscles. Exercise contributes to only 20% of your muscle-building efforts. Whereas, it is the right diet that completes the remaining 80% of your muscle-building efforts. (Check this Cheap Diet Plan to do Bodybuilding in a Budget)

A right muscle building diet is no rocket science. You simply need to start with a calorie surplus diet. Plan to eat 300-400 more calories in your day than what your daily requirement is to build muscles. Also, you should include the right amount of macronutrients namely carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. A 65:25:10 ratio of Carbohydrates to Protein to Fats is a good split of macronutrients in your diet to build muscles. (Read: How to plan your daily calorie intake?)

Furthermore, keep close attention to what you eat before a workout and after a workout. These two meals are the most important meals of your day where building muscles are concerned. You can also include supplements like Creatine and Whey Protein in your diet to build muscles.

Creatine is a good supplement that can accelerate your muscle growth by transporting nutrients to the muscles. And with a whey protein supplement, it becomes really easy for you to hit your daily protein intake. Whey protein is a real blessing especially for those who have a hard time eating lots of chicken and eggs in their diet. (Read: Are you eating enough Protein your diet?)

4. Get an adequate sleep

The sleep fairy will come during your good night’s sleep and will reward you with muscle gains. Not exactly, but the phenomenon of sleep is a reward that accelerates your muscle growth. An adequate amount of sleep of about 8 hours is of utmost importance.

When you sleep, your body increases the production of the hormone testosterone and reduce the amount of hormone cortisol in the body. Testosterone is the hormone that is responsible for muscle growth whereas the cortisol hormone is linked to stress in the body.

No matter how good you are doing in terms of training and nutrition. If you are lacking enough sleep, you are wasting your gains. So, it is very important you take enough sleep. Also, ensure to eat before your sleep. As it increases protein synthesis in your body which helps in repairs and building of new muscles in the body.

5. Patience goes a long way

You have started lifting weights and experiencing newbie gains. Sure it is an exciting feeling to have your muscles growing. But that doesn`t mean that the ripped and jacked dudes you see in the gym or on the beaches have built this amazing physique overnight. It needs consistency and patience to win the game.

It is a common sight that most beginner lifters during this phase start to fall into the temptation of having instant results. You want to become hulk from a skinny dude in just a couple of months. But breaking your expectations, this isn’t going to happen overnight or in some months.

During this newbie phase, you surely are getting quick results. But it doesn’t mean this pace of progress will remain the same for the rest of your life. So, it is important you set your expectations right and never overestimate things. Because doing so, you are unsettling yourself, and chances of quitting training is likely very high when your gains slow down.

How long can you get newbie gains?

A lot of beginner lifters stay curious to know till when can they experience newbie gains. As you now know that, you are not going to keep on getting your newbie gains at the same pace you are getting today. They will be slowed down after some time.

In general, a newbie lifter experiences faster muscle gain for only up to one year. And after that, the gains are slowed down. After one year of training, it keeps on getting hard and harder to build muscles and strength.  This is why it takes a lifetime to aim for 60% muscle growth whereas you can build your first 40% in the first year itself.

If you go by Lye Mc Donald`s model, your potential for muscle growth keeps on decreasing by 50% every year. And after 4 years of proper training, your potential for muscle building reduces to only 2-3 pounds every year. This model may have no scientific evidence to support. But you can get a glimpse now that the pace of your newbie gains will not stay a lifetime with you.

The Bottom Line

The period of newbie gains is a golden period for any beginner lifter. So, it is always important for a beginner lifter to follow above-mentioned strategies to maximize muscle building. You should then leave no stone unturned to use the full potential of your newbie gains.