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So you've reached a plateau in body weight. It's not too hard to maintain that setpoint, but you're not having any luck putting on additional muscle. How do you figure out what you need to change?
As I see it, there's 3 things that we can change: diet, training, and drugs.
We all know that you can put on weight by eating more. But we don't just want to put on weight, we want to put on muscle. My "theory" is that if the body wants to put on muscle, it will. For example, a boy in puberty or a guy on his first cycle will put on muscle even if he isn't training or eating to support muscle growth. The body wants to gain muscle so it does its best to make this happen using the calories and protein that it's receiving. It's kind of like how if you diet like a dumbass and crash your metabolism, your body will do everything it can to hold onto its fat stores even though your calories are extremely low. Conversely, if the body doesn't want to gain muscle but you eat more than maintenance calories, the body will store those extra calories as fat, not muscle.
Back to the question, how do you know what's holding back additional muscle gains? How can you tell if your body wants to gain muscle (because of your training and drugs) but simply needs more calories to do so? How do you know if your diet is fine but you need to create a stronger impetus for muscle growth through training? Or maybe your current drug use isn't enough to support further muscle growth? (As they say, you're only as big as your dose.)
I'm sure there's no definitive way to tell what's holding you back, and maybe the best way to proceed is through trial and error: change one variable, see what happens, and then reassess. Still, it would be interesting to hear people's thoughts and experiences.
As I see it, there's 3 things that we can change: diet, training, and drugs.
We all know that you can put on weight by eating more. But we don't just want to put on weight, we want to put on muscle. My "theory" is that if the body wants to put on muscle, it will. For example, a boy in puberty or a guy on his first cycle will put on muscle even if he isn't training or eating to support muscle growth. The body wants to gain muscle so it does its best to make this happen using the calories and protein that it's receiving. It's kind of like how if you diet like a dumbass and crash your metabolism, your body will do everything it can to hold onto its fat stores even though your calories are extremely low. Conversely, if the body doesn't want to gain muscle but you eat more than maintenance calories, the body will store those extra calories as fat, not muscle.
Back to the question, how do you know what's holding back additional muscle gains? How can you tell if your body wants to gain muscle (because of your training and drugs) but simply needs more calories to do so? How do you know if your diet is fine but you need to create a stronger impetus for muscle growth through training? Or maybe your current drug use isn't enough to support further muscle growth? (As they say, you're only as big as your dose.)
I'm sure there's no definitive way to tell what's holding you back, and maybe the best way to proceed is through trial and error: change one variable, see what happens, and then reassess. Still, it would be interesting to hear people's thoughts and experiences.
