It can be hard to be a newbie in a lot of scenarios. It takes years to see your practice pay off when you’re first starting to learn chess, play the violin, or speak a new language. But with exercise, newbies actually have a pretty impressive advantage.

Essentially, when you’re new to strength training and trying to build muscle, you’ll likely notice visible muscle gains quicker than a more experienced lifter does. The results are often called “newbie gains”—and yep, they really are a thing.

Here, we’re unpacking why newbie gains happen, how to maximize your progress, and how to avoid plateauing after your newbie phase ends.

What Are Newbie Gains?

Newbie gains are the relatively fast muscle growth changes that strength training beginners experience. 

When you’re brand new to exercise, your muscles are completely untrained. That means “your body responds quickly to even basic strength training two to three times a week,” says Peloton instructor Cliff Dwenger. More experienced lifters need more stimulation to experience continued muscle growth, he says.

You can think about it a little like caffeine tolerance: Someone who has never had caffeine before will probably feel the effects after just one cup of coffee. But it likely takes more caffeine for someone devoted to their twice-a-day lattes to feel the same effects.

But that’s also why newbie gains don’t last indefinitely. At some point, your body becomes used to the stress of exercise and requires more of a challenge to keep making progress. “If you were to continue improving like you do in the first six weeks, you’d basically be a superhuman in, say, two years,” says Benjamin Gordon, PhD, an assistant instructional professor in applied physiology and kinesiology at the College of Health & Human Performance at the University of Florida.

Cliff experienced newbie gains himself. “I remember I felt like my biceps were growing massively within a couple of weeks,” he recalls from when he started strength training at 16.

Why Do Newbie Gains Happen?

It all comes down to physiology. Newbie gains occur due to the changes happening to your cardiovascular system and muscles when you start consistently strength training.

For starters, your body pumps out more blood when you start exercising, which delivers more oxygen to your muscles. And the way your body uses oxygen is one measure of how fit you are, called VO2 max. This number can increase by 8–12 percent in just the first three weeks of a person beginning to exercise, Gordon says. That means if you’re new to cardio exercise, like cycling or running, the first couple weeks may feel a little rough—but then you’ll notice some dramatic improvements that can often be pretty encouraging for sticking with it, he says.

Strength training also causes a lot of quick changes to your nervous system, Gordon says. Motor neurons begin to stimulate muscles more quickly, which in turn leads to “harder and stronger contraction of the actual muscle,” he says. Your muscle fibers also start working together more efficiently, producing more force in a short period of time, he adds.

All of that combines to some pretty impressive early results. For example, maybe on your first trip to the gym, you can barely lift the bench press bar for two or three reps. But if you stick with it, by six weeks later, you may be able to do several reps with 25-pound plates added to each side, Gordon says.

How Much Exercise Do You Need to Notice Newbie Gains?

You don’t need tons of trips to the gym to experience newbie gains. Around two to three 30-minute sessions a week is enough to spark visible growth, Cliff says. “One upper body workout, one full body workout, and one lower body workout would be a good structure to start with,” he says.

Try not to get overwhelmed planning out lots of different workouts in this time period. “It doesn’t have to be a different program every week. The opposite is true,” Cliff says. “Doing the same exercises over and over again, with increasing weight, different rep ranges and tempo, is what will truly increase muscle growth.” 

You also “don’t have to be as specific with the variables when you’re new,” Gordon adds. When you start challenging your body with regular workouts, it “is going to adapt more robustly in general.” He likes to use a car analogy with his students: Imagine being a mechanic and a customer brings in a basic 1992 sedan and asks if you can give it a tune-up. “I can do things to the engine, I can vacuum it—there are all kinds of things I can do and it will improve,” Gordon says. But if someone brings in a high-end sports car, “how do you improve that?”

Advanced lifters are those top-of-the-line sports cars—or are at least pretty close. They “have either maxed out or gotten close to maxing out” the ways in which their bodies can adapt to exercise, so you have to be “more specific with those variables that you're going to stress” if you want to keep seeing progress, Gordon says.

Any modality that works your muscles will probably lead to some newbie gains, Gordon says—even something as low-intensity as yoga or Pilates, because your body has never done these movements before. But if you’re specifically looking for your newbie gains phase to deliver bigger, stronger muscles, you’ll get the most bang for your buck with a dedicated weight lifting routine, he says. 

Not sure where to start? Follow along with the thousands of strength classes on the Peloton App.

When Might You Notice Newbie Gains?

Everyone’s fitness journey is unique. Your results will depend on your program, intensity, consistency, and other factors, Cliff says. But generally speaking, you’ll likely notice some visible newbie gains in six to eight weeks after you commit to a strength training program, he says.

There will be some changes happening as early as two or three weeks to your cardiovascular system, Gordon says, but you might not notice improvements like easier breathing right away. After about 12 weeks, the neurological changes in your body start plateauing, he adds, and you may make slightly slower progress with muscle building.

Will Everyone Experience Newbie Gains?

Again, everyone is different, and you shouldn’t expect your results to be exactly what your gym buddy experienced. But as long as you stick with a workout program for several weeks, it’s very likely most people will see some early changes in endurance, stamina, strength, and muscle size, Gordon says.

The one major time people don’t experience newbie gains, though? When they don’t stick to a regular training plan. “The more you can make [exercise] a regular thing, the better,” he says. “Try to make the hurdle to exercise as minimal as possible.”

That typically means choosing an activity that you enjoy and that you can access relatively easily so you’ll be more likely to adhere to your new routine. But “anything is better than nothing,” Gordon says.

Can You ‘Maximize’ Newbie Gains?

That “anything is better than nothing” mindset will deliver some results in the gym, but if your goal is to build as much muscle as possible during your newbie gains phase, you’ll need to pay a little extra attention to the details—namely, your workouts, diet, and recovery habits.

For starters, you need to progressively challenge yourself over time or your gains will slow down. That means increasing the weight you’re lifting and/or the number of reps and sets you’re doing once your typical exercises start to feel too easy, Cliff says.

You’ll also want to support your workout efforts with a protein-rich diet, which is crucial for muscle growth, Cliff says. A good benchmark to aim for is to get about 1 gram of protein per pound of your body weight each day, spread throughout your meals and snacks. “Focus on lean meats, fish, eggs, plant-based protein sources, and high-quality protein powder,” Cliff says. (Just make sure to get the OK from your healthcare provider before trying any new supplements.)

You also need to make sure you’re eating enough total calories, Gordon says. “I’ve seen plenty of clients in the past who have told me it’s impossible, they can’t gain muscle mass. And then we look at what they’ve been doing, and they’re just not eating enough calories.”

And even though it may seem counterintuitive, you also need time off. You should give yourself at least 48 hours between workouts that focus on the same body parts when you’re trying to build muscle, as well as one or two full rest days each week. That’s because your muscles heal and repair when you rest, leading to gains in size and strength.

You can even consider a deload week, in which you purposely reduce the volume and intensity of your workouts “so that muscles and joints can recover [while you] train with lower impact,” Cliff says.

Don’t skimp on sleep, either. Getting too little rest can lead to difficulty gaining muscle and muscle loss. Aim for at least seven hours a night. If that’s a struggle right now, check in on your sleep hygiene: Stick to a consistent bedtime and wake-up time; keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet; and avoid screens in the hour before you hit the hay.

How Long Do Newbie Gains Last?

Again, everyone is different, and how long you experience newbie gains will depend on how hard you’re working and how consistent you are—not to mention your genetics, Cliff says, which play a big role in body composition. But typically, you can expect the newbie gains phase to last from about six to 12 months, he says. “After this phase, the strength training has to be more frequent and more complex.”

That said, there will still be some changes in your newbie gains earlier than the year mark. After about six to eight weeks, Cliff suggests implementing more complex movements and workout structures, such as lifting four to five times a week following a split-training program where you work different muscle groups on different days. You might experiment with lowering your reps but increasing the weight to boost strength, he adds. Just make sure your form is on point when you’re ready to progress, otherwise you can risk injury.

These shifts may look different depending on your goals. As your newbie gains phase comes to an end, you might decide to continue focusing on gaining muscle, pivot to increasing your power output, or decide you want to train for a race, for example. “A misconception that a lot of people have is that they think all you have to do is just do more exercise and you’re automatically going to get better,” Gordon says. Instead, it requires targeting your activities and modalities to the end goal you’d like to achieve.

It’s also time to fine-tune other factors that affect muscle growth, like nutrition, recovery, and sleep. “To continue building muscle after the newbie gains, it’s important to optimize these components,” Cliff says.

Try not to get discouraged at this point. Sometimes people tap out when they no longer see progress at the same rate, Gordon says. “You need to understand where you’re at in the process and what you should expect,” he says. If you saw gains from doing the bare minimum for six weeks, you’re going to have to make some changes eventually, but it certainly doesn’t mean exercising is no longer worth it.

The Takeaway

The term “newbie gains” refers to the period of time when people who are brand new to strength training typically see faster results when it comes to building muscle size and strength. These changes can be visible in the first six weeks of training and may last up to a year in some folks. While everyone is different, almost every exercise beginner will see impressive results at first, as long as they stay consistent with activity.

Newbie gains occur because your body isn’t used to exercise yet and can therefore change and adapt very quickly to a new stimulus. As you grow accustomed to strength training, you’ll need to progress your training to continue seeing changes. Essentially, your muscles require new and more stimulus to continue adapting and growing, which will likely happen at a slower rate. Prioritizing a protein-rich diet, quality sleep, and rest days can also help you maintain your gains.