What to Expect When You First Start Lifting (Hypertrophy Timeline)

Have you ever wondered how long it’ll actually take to see results in the gym?

So many people quit early because they never get to the point where they start to see results. If they had stuck around for a few weeks, they would have made some serious gains.

Let me tell you exactly what to expect when you first start lifting and how long it’ll take to make gains.

Expectation Versus Reality

A lot of beginners expect to see muscle growth immediately after their first week. You may see some minor changes but nothing too drastic.

This isn’t very realistic and different books and research papers vary in their results on what the timeline looks like for muscle growth, but I will provide a breakdown of what to expect on your fitness journey.

Even though you won’t be increasing in muscle size in the first few weeks, you will be increasing in strength pretty drastically. This is the time of lifting where you have that superhuman kind of strength where you’re able to increase the weights really quickly. For people who have been lifting for a while, you start to make smaller increases in the amount of weight you would be able to put on compared to a beginner who can ramp it up 100%. Trust me it’s a good feeling…

Here’s an Analogy for You

Muscle growth is kind of like planting a seed and watering it every day until it becomes the flower which equals your muscles growing.

The seed spreads its roots through the soil before you actually see it sprouting. Similar to muscle growth in the beginning stages.

Your motor units are becoming better at recruiting more motor units and eventually you grow out of that and you start sprouting… Anyways moving on…

First 4-10 Weeks of Training

So to break down the time course, in the first 4-10 weeks, you’ll experience neural adaptations. 4-10 weeks is a big range but will vary between each person based on your genetics. I also don’t want you to think it is all neural in this phase, there is also some hypertrophy occurring but to a lesser extent.

When you first start working out your body has no idea what’s going on. You’re basically injuring yourself and the body tries to protect itself. So, to protect itself it has these protective inhibitory mechanisms like the Golgi tendon organ, which inhibits contraction if the tendon tension is too high. This is to prevent bone and tendon damage. With training these inhibitory factors slowly diminish and allow you to increase the weights (your strength increases).

Within your body, in the first 4-10 weeks, you’ll experience…

More motor unit recruitment
Synchronization of motor units (working more efficiently)
Increased rate coding to reach greater tension
Suppression of protective mechanisms
Less firing or responsiveness to Golgi tendon organ
Reduced Co-activation of antagonists

Basically, at first, you’re learning to control your motor unit recruitment synchronously rather than asynchronously. With this, you’ll be able to produce more forceful contraction. Greater motor units will be firing at one time.

According to Deschenes MR and Kraemer, another proposed neural mechanism by which strength increases occur is decreased co-contraction of antagonist muscle groups with training. Studies involving the use of surface electrode EMG have shown that resistance training can lead to decreased activation in the muscle capable of resisting the desired concentric movement leading to a net increase in force production [8]. For example, the rear delt becoming relaxed in a bench press when initially it was not.

Another way strength increase is through repeated practice. The body is capable of detecting leverages and biomechanical positions that result in overall improved technique which in turn leads to an increased expression of strength [9].

Post 4-10 Weeks of Training

Post 4-10 weeks you’ll start experiencing muscular adaptations

Increased myofibrils, actin, and myosin filaments (increased cross bridges)
Increased sarcoplasm
Increased connective tissue

Furthermore, the utilization of multi-joint, free-weight barbell exercises such as squat and bench press within a non-linear program have been shown to result in better strength and power gains in human movements relevant to activities of daily living and sport than do programs that focus on single joint movements and/or fixed-path variable resistance movements [10].

Upper Body versus Lower Body (Which grows faster?)

In a study by Takashi Abe et al. They also have found that the increases in muscle thickness of the upper body and hamstrings can occur by week 6 and are of greater magnitude compared with the lower extremities specifically the quadriceps during the first 12 weeks of resistance training of total body [5].

So, in general, we can expect our arms to increase more significantly compared to lower extremities.

Will the Timeline be Different if You are Male or Female?

If your curious about how it affects male and females differently, there are slight differences but in general, it’ll be similar.

Looking at untrained individuals of both male and females, who did total body resistance training for 12-weeks found that both male and female have a similar timeline for hypertrophy which was also supported by previous studies by Cureton et al. (1988), and O’Hagen et al. (1995) [6][7].

What About Age Differences?

Just to add on, in general, young men will experience the greatest absolute gains versus young women, older men, and of course children. This is due to the plasticity of the muscle aka they are able to increase size and strength much more easily.

When you first start working out your body has no idea what’s going on. You’re basically injuring yourself and the body’s like wtf is going on so it tries to protect itself. So, to protect itself it has these protective inhibitory mechanisms like the Golgi tendon organ, which inhibits contraction if the tendon tension is too high. This is to prevent bone and tendon damage. With training these inhibitory factors slowly diminish and allow you to increase the weights.

Final Thoughts

In my opinion, Hypertrophy does occur simultaneously but slower at the beginning and is dependent on the person.

Some might be faster at building muscle compared to others. Once your body becomes more efficient at lifting loads with more force. Meaning that your motor units are mostly being recruited, then you will see those hypertrophy responses.

Overall, I’d say about 4-10 weeks is the time frame you should expect before you start seeing a significant hypertrophic response for someone who is completely untrained. And after that point for the rest of the year, you should see some great progress and eventually start to become a little slower at putting on muscle as long as your diet and training regimen is on point. Of course, genetics does play a role in how well and how quickly you’re able to add mass as well.

The important thing to note is that muscles get stronger before they get bigger in the beginning stages.

After 3-6 months of resistance training, you should have gained 25% to 100 % in strength gains. At this point, you will have learned to produce force more effectively and learn to produce true maximal movement.

References

[1] An examination of the time course of training-induced skeletal muscle hypertrophy

Jason M. DeFreitas · Travis W. Beck · Matt S. Stock · Michael A. Dillon · Paul R. Kasishke II

[2] Staron RS, Karapondo DL, Kraemer WJ, Fry AC, Gordon SE, Falkel JE, Hagerman FC, and Hikida RS. Skeletal muscle adaptations during the early phase of heavy-resistance training in men and women. J. Appl. Physiol. 76: 1247-1255, 1994.

[3] The Effect of 12-Week Resistance Training on Muscular Strength and Body Composition in Untrained Young Women: Implications of Exercise Frequency

Hojun Lee1,2, In-Gyu Kim3, Changsu Sung3, Ji-Seok Kim3

[4] Moritani T, and deVries HA. Neural factors versus hypertrophy in the time course of muscle strength gain. Am. J. Phys. Med. 58: 115-130, 1979

[5] Takashi Abe á Diego V. DeHoyos á Michael L. Pollock Linda Garzarella

Time course for strength and muscle thickness changes following upper and lower body resistance training in men and women

[6] Cureton et al.

[7] O’Hagen et al

[8] Deschenes MR, and Kraemer WJ. Performance and physiologic adaptations to resistance training. Am. J. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 81: S3-16, 2002.

[9] Rutherford OM, andJones DA. The role of learning and coordination in strength training. Eur. J. Appl. Physiol. Occup. Physiol. 55: 100-105, 1986.

[10] Fleck SJ, Kraemer WJ. Designing Resistance Training Programs. Champaign, IL; Human Kinetics, 2004.