Why gain muscle?
How much muscle will I gain?
For men:
- Year one: 20-25lb, 9-11⅓kg
- Year two: 10-12lb, 4½-5½kg
- Year three: 5-6lb, 2½kg
- All subsequent years: minimal amounts
So overall about 14-16kg above baseline
For women: Half the above.
How to gain muscle?
Do three things and you'll gain muscle:
- Eat a caloric surplus
- Eat a protein surplus
- Expose your muscles to high levels of tension (i.e. lift)
How much caloric surplus?
14-16 kcal per pound of bodyweight is your baseline
- Year one: 175 calories/dayover baseline
- Year two: 120 calories/day over baseline
- Year three: 60 calories/day over baseline
Sources: https://bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/calories-for-muscle-gain
How much protein?
2.5-3.0 g per kilogram of bodyweight
Source: https://bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/protein-requirements-growth
How much/what kind of muscle tension?
You need high tension but also the right volume. High tension means 70-85% 1RM. No need to lift more than 85% of 1RM.
doi:10.1249/00005768-197500740-00003 and doi:10.2165/00007256-200737030-00004 are the classic papers on this.
30-60 reps per session: 3 sets of 10, and sometimes two different exercises per bodypart
5×5 is fine too; things like the Madcow or Stronglifts 5×5 give about the same muscle-tension as 3×10, and muscle tension is the whole point.
Train twice per week. The research is clear on this. Three times is not better than twice.
More complicated ways of getting that muscle tension
Heavy negatives (130% of 1RM) work but volume should be very low: 14-16 seconds of tension per session
Isometrics: A study doing 10 seconds of isometrics, three times a day (30s/day), six days a week, had the best gains in bicep size
I said three workouts a week is not better than two, but there might be an exception in the first week of a mesocycle. So a mesocycle would be: train four times a week for one week, train twice a week for five weeks, rest a week, repeat.
If you're taking about truly training to failure, and not just stopping when it feels difficult, it depends on your recovery capacity. It's much harder to recover from a session when you did 3 sets to complete failure, than one where you left one or two reps in reserve per set. Yes the stimulus may be greater, but do will be the fatigue. And it's not necessary when starting out, because beginners van achieve adequate gains training very far away from failure.
Think of training as a triangle with volume, intensity and frequency as each corner. If you hard on one (so training to failure = going all in on intensity), you'll have to compromise on the other two to ensure that you recover enough before the next workout (so less volume and frequency in this case).
If you want more information on failure training and training beyond failure, you can look up high intensity workouts (HIT) and their advocates. Like Mike Mentzer. However, it can feel a bit culty and weird to go down that rabbit hole.
I'm not sure if this works but I do dropsets after the last exercise in that muscle group that I train so I don't have to compromise on the other two
So for push day, I'll dropset chest flies after I do all my benching, and I'll dropset my very last tricep exercise
As long as you can recover adequately, find it enjoyable, and are getting results, just stick to it. Dropsets are a great thing to use to get more stimulus in.