How long until I see results?
Strength within a few weeks, measurable muscle growth within a couple of months, and a change other people notice usually after several months.
Early strength gains come largely from your nervous system getting better at the movement. Muscle starts growing early too, but measurements in the first weeks are muddied by swelling from muscle damage.
The less trained you are, the faster progress comes, and it slows as the years go by. Taking photos and measurements every month shows change that a daily look in the mirror misses.
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- Damas, F. et al. (2016). Resistance training-induced changes in integrated myofibrillar protein synthesis are related to hypertrophy only after attenuation of muscle damage. J Physiol 594(18). In the first weeks, muscle protein synthesis mostly went to repairing damage; by week 10 it tracked actual growth.
- Moritani, T. & deVries, H.A. (1979). Neural factors versus hypertrophy in the time course of muscle strength gain. Am J Phys Med 58(3). The first weeks of strength gain are neural, not structural.