{"id":746426,"date":"2026-07-06T12:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/746426\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T12:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:25:08","slug":"why-do-some-people-gain-more-muscle-than-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/746426\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do some people gain more muscle than others?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

While scientists at a recent conference believe that some people build muscle more easily than others, the differences are more subtle than they previously thought.Flamingo Images\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Perhaps you wonder if big muscles are one of those things that only happens to other people.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve tried every machine at the gym. You\u2019ve hoisted heavy weights and sweated through bodyweight routines. You bought kettlebells. Meanwhile, you have friends who seemingly begin to inflate at the mere mention of strength training. What gives?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the riddle that scientists from around the world gathered to contemplate at a three-day conference last fall organized by Juha Ahtiainen, a muscle researcher at the University of Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4 in Finland. \u201cResponse heterogeneity,\u201d which describes how different people respond to the same training stimulus, is a hot topic in exercise science these days.<\/p>\n

Dr. Ahtiainen and his colleagues shared the key takeaways from their discussions in a recent issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology<\/a>. Here are the highlights.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s less variability than you think<\/p>\n

Strength training does work. After eight to 12 weeks of systematic training, you can reliably expect to gain between 1.3 and 1.8 kilograms of muscle on average, according to one recent meta-analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But if you assign 100 people to follow an identical program, some will gain twice that amount while others won\u2019t gain anything. That\u2019s what studies consistently find. <\/p>\n

More recently, scientists have realized muscle gain or loss fluctuates between people without any training involved, which could be a result of measurement error, normal biological fluctuation, or changes in environment or lifestyle. The question becomes: Is there more variability after strength training than in a non-training control group? Surprisingly, studies have reached conflicting conclusions.<\/p>\n

The strongest women in Canada want you to embrace your strength<\/a><\/p>\n

Overall, the scientists at Dr. Ahtiainen\u2019s conference do believe that some people build muscle more easily than others \u2014 but the differences are more subtle than they previously believed. <\/p>\n

As for the more serious worry that some people are \u201cnon-responders\u201d who don\u2019t get any benefit at all from strength training, there is hope.<\/p>\n

In a 2024 study<\/a> from Brazilian researchers, lengthening workouts from one set to four sets per exercise turned 80 per cent of apparent non-responders into responders. Another study<\/a> found that when you consider multiple outcome measures \u2014 not just muscle size but also strength, physical function and muscle fibre properties \u2014 every subject improved in at least one outcome.<\/p>\n

The basics apply to everyone<\/p>\n

There are some group differences. Older adults, for example, tend to gain less muscle for a given workout stimulus.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, women gain proportionally the same amount of muscle as men, relative to their smaller-on-average body sizes. This remains true even after menopause<\/a>, despite changes in circulating hormones.<\/p>\n

The real reason strength training helps reduce pain and rehab injuries<\/a><\/p>\n

More surprisingly, people with mostly slow-twitch muscle fibres \u2014 think skinny long-distance runners \u2014 gain just as much muscle<\/a>, proportionally, as those with mostly powerful fast-twitch fibres. The details of their workouts will differ, with slow-twitchers typically doing more reps with lighter weights to reach a comparable level of fatigue. But the results are the same.<\/p>\n

To really maximize your results, you can tweak what exercises you do, how much weight you lift relative to your max, how many sets to do and so on, as described in the American College of Sports Medicine\u2019s newly updated position stand on resistance training<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the main takeaway remains simple: Lift some weights, do it consistently and don\u2019t sweat the details. Others may progress faster than you \u2014 but if you stick with it, strength training will work for you, too.<\/p>\n

Alex Hutchinson<\/a> is the author of The Explorer\u2019s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: While scientists at a recent conference believe that some people build muscle more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[337,97,24296],"class_list":["post-746426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-noastack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}