A Muscle-Gain Plan, Calculated Step by Step
By Jesse · Last updated August 20, 2026
The surprise in a muscle-gain plan is how small the food part is. Two rules for sizing a surplus are in general circulation, they disagree by 251 calories a day for the body below, and the larger of them turns out to recommend almost exactly the rate of gain that raised fat mass five times as much for no extra muscle in the one trial that compared the two. Working the plan out step by step is what makes that visible.
Everything below is computed for one body: a 24-year-old man, 180 cm, 68 kg, training three to five days a week — a BMI of 21, which the BMI calculator puts in the normal weight range. Every figure comes from the same functions the calculators use, so nothing is a tidied-up illustration. Substitute your own numbers; the order is what transfers.
This is the plan that owns how large the surplus should be — where the two rules for setting it come from, and what to do when they disagree. Its mirror image, the fat-loss plan, owns the order of the steps themselves. The evidence for keeping a surplus small is argued in how many calories to build muscle, the protein evidence in how much protein you really need per day.
Step 1: Maintenance, and which way to be wrong
A surplus is defined against maintenance, so that comes first. The TDEE calculator puts resting energy at 1,690 kcal a day and maintenance at about 2,620 kcal once the multiplier for moderately active (3–5 days/week) is applied. The other four options would have given:
| Activity level | Multiplier | Maintenance | Used here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sedentary (little or no exercise) | 1.2 | 2,028 kcal | - |
| Lightly active (1–3 days/week) | 1.375 | 2,324 kcal | - |
| Moderately active (3–5 days/week) | 1.55 | 2,620 kcal | Yes |
| Very active (6–7 days/week) | 1.725 | 2,915 kcal | - |
| Athlete (twice-daily training) | 1.9 | 3,211 kcal | - |
Resting energy is calculated with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation and multiplied by the activity factor.
The spread is 1,183 kcal — 9 times the surplus this plan will eventually add, which means the activity dropdown matters far more than the surplus does. That has an awkward consequence specific to gaining: if maintenance is overestimated by even 250 kcal, the 125 kcal surplus below is not a small surplus but a small deficit, and a month passes with nothing to show for it. Choose the lower activity level when between two, and treat the first four weeks as a measurement of maintenance rather than an execution of the plan. The reasoning is in why TDEE calculators are estimates.
One more thing runs in the opposite direction to a fat-loss plan. Maintenance rises as body weight rises, so a fixed intake is a shrinking surplus rather than a shrinking deficit. Run the same calculation at the projected end weight of 71 kg and maintenance is 2,666 kcal — 46 kcal higher. Against a 125 kcal surplus that is over a third of it, quietly gone by the end of the block. It is a small effect in absolute terms and a large one relative to the lever being pulled, which is exactly why a plan that worked in month one can look stalled in month six.
Step 2: Two rules for the surplus, and why they disagree
Here is where a plan usually goes wrong, because the two available rules are not equivalent and nobody says so. The first scales to an observed rate of gain. In a randomised trial, 39 elite athletes spent 8 to 12 weeks in a weight-gain block, all of them adding four strength sessions a week. The group left to eat as it chose gained 1.5% of body weight, which across that span is 0.13 to 0.19% a week — and it gained no less lean mass than the group eating 621 kcal a day more. That rate converts to a surplus at 7,700 kcal per kilogram. The second rule is the familiar percentage of maintenance. Both, in the same four units:
| Rule | Daily surplus | Daily intake | Weekly gain | As % of body weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.13 to 0.19% of body weight per week | 97 to 142 kcal | 2,717 to 2,762 kcal | 0.09 to 0.13 kg | 0.13% to 0.19% |
| 10 to 15% above maintenance | 262 to 393 kcal | 2,882 to 3,013 kcal | 0.24 to 0.36 kg | 0.35% to 0.53% |
Surpluses converted to weight at 7,700 kcal per kilogram. The rate rule is derived from the weekly gain observed in the trial's ad libitum group; the percentage rule is a heuristic applied to maintenance calories.
The gap is not small. At the top end the percentage rule asks for 251 kcal a day more than the rate rule, and it implies gaining 0.35 to 0.53% of body weight a week. Now put that beside the other group in the same trial — the counselled one, eating 621 kcal a day more — which gained 3.9% of body weight, or 0.33 to 0.49% a week. The percentage rule has landed almost exactly on the rate of the group that raised its fat mass five times as much (15% against 3%) for no additional lean mass. That is the case against it, and it is a numerical coincidence worth sitting with.
The two rules scale off different quantities, which is why they part company. The percentage rule grows with maintenance calories, and maintenance is inflated by an activity multiplier; the rate rule grows with body weight, which no multiplier touches. For a light person who trains a lot, the multiplier is doing work the body weight is not, so the rules pull apart precisely for the reader most likely to be reading this. Treat the rate rule as the primary figure and the percentage rule as a ceiling never to exceed.
Two honest caveats. The 0.13-to-0.19% range comes from one trial in elite athletes rather than a body of work, and it is a range only because the intervention ran for 8 to 12 weeks depending on the athlete, so the weekly figure has to be read as an average rather than a rate anyone held. Second, a review of this exact question concluded that the surplus genuinely required to maximise muscle growth is unknown, and that the textbook calculations based on the energy content of new tissue have never been validated. So both rules are heuristics. The difference is that one of them has a measurement behind it.
This plan takes 125 kcal a day — intake of 2,745 kcal, a projected 0.11 kg a week, or 0.17% of body weight, inside the observed range and near the middle of it. Worth applying the same test to this site's own tooling: the macro calculator adds 300 kcal for a muscle-gain goal, which works out at 0.4% of body weight a week for this body — inside the counselled group's band rather than the ad libitum one. That default is a convention, not a finding, and this plan deliberately does not use it.
Step 3: What that buys, and what it does not
Over 26 weeks, 0.11 kg a week is 3 kg — from 68 kg to 71 kg. Running the body weight planner from the other direction is a useful check: asking it for 71 kg in 26 weeks returns a surplus of 127 kcal a day and a target of 2,747 kcal, within 2 kcal of the figure chosen in step 2. Two routes, one answer.
Now the part that gets skipped. That 3 kg is weight, not muscle. In the trial the rate rule comes from, the group eating 621 kcal a day more raised its fat mass by 15% against the other group's 3%, and gained no more lean mass for it — the extra energy had nowhere useful to go. Even at a modest rate, some fraction of the gain is fat, and nothing in the calorie target decides that fraction. Training and protein do, which is what the next two steps are for.
Step 4: Protein, which is cheap in this direction
The protein calculator sets a muscle-gain target of 1.8 g per kilogram of body weight, or 122 g a day — about 41 g in each of three meals. That is 488 kcal, or 18% of the 2,745 kcal target.
Compare that with the same step in the fat-loss plan, where protein takes 41% of the calorie budget and becomes the binding constraint on everything else. That asymmetry is the real difference between the two directions: in a deficit, protein competes with the rest of the diet for room, and in a surplus there is room to spare. The constraint moves from arithmetic to appetite.
| Macro | Grams | Calories | Share of intake |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protein | 122 g | 488 kcal | 18% |
| Carbohydrate | 392 g | 1,568 kcal | 57% |
| Fat | 76 g | 684 kcal | 25% |
Protein is anchored to body weight, fat is set at 25% of calories, and carbohydrate takes the remainder. The carbohydrate and fat split is adjustable; the protein figure is the one worth defending.
392 g of carbohydrate is a genuinely large amount of food, and that is the practical problem of a gaining phase: the target is easy to hit on paper and hard to hit at the table, especially on training days. The macros by food chart is useful in reverse here — the foods at the bottom of a protein-per- calorie ranking are exactly the ones that make a large target manageable. Fluid, from the water intake calculator, comes to about 2.7 litres a day at this body weight and training volume.
Step 5: What goes on the bar
The surplus is the smallest lever in this plan and the training is the largest, which is the reverse of how gaining phases are usually discussed. Loads can be worked out from a single set already in the training log. Take 80 kg for 5 reps: the one-rep max calculator averages four established formulas and estimates a one-rep max of about 92 kg, which fills in the rest of the table:
| Percentage | Load | Typical reps |
|---|---|---|
| 100% of 1RM | 92 kg | 1 |
| 95% of 1RM | 87 kg | 2 |
| 90% of 1RM | 83 kg | 3-4 |
| 85% of 1RM | 78 kg | 5-6 |
| 80% of 1RM | 74 kg | 7-8 |
| 75% of 1RM | 69 kg | 9-10 |
| 70% of 1RM | 64 kg | 11-12 |
| 65% of 1RM | 60 kg | 13-15 |
| 60% of 1RM | 55 kg | 16-20 |
Estimated by averaging the Epley, Brzycki, Lombardi, and Lander formulas, then rounded to the nearest kilogram. Round again to whatever the plates in your gym allow.
Most hypertrophy work sits between 65 and 85% of one-rep max — here, roughly 60 to 78 kg. The reason to have the whole table rather than one number is that progress means the table moving: adding reps at a fixed load has a ceiling, and once you are at the top of a rep range the next step is more weight, which recalculates everything. Re-estimate the max every two months rather than every week, because the formulas carry their own error and week-to-week noise will swamp real change. The full percentage reference is in the one-rep max percentage chart.
Step 6: The review loop, which is the actual plan
Judge a gaining phase on three things together, never one alone: the seven-day average of morning weights, waist circumference measured weekly at the navel, and the load and reps on two or three main lifts. Weight alone cannot tell you what you gained. The lifts alone cannot tell you whether the surplus exists. Review every four weeks and change exactly one thing.
Seven-day average weight flat for three weeks
Most likely cause: The surplus is smaller than intended, either because maintenance was underestimated or because it has risen with body weight
What to change: Add 100 to 150 kcal and hold it for another three weeks
Gaining faster than 0.19% of body weight a week
Most likely cause: The surplus is larger than the training stimulus can use
What to change: Remove 100 to 150 kcal. Weight arriving faster than muscle can be built is arriving as fat, and it has to be dieted off later
Weight climbing but the main lifts have not moved in a month
Most likely cause: A training problem wearing a nutrition disguise
What to change: Fix the progression before touching intake. Extra calories cannot compensate for a programme that is not adding load, reps, or sets
Waist growing faster than the lifts
Most likely cause: The ratio of the gain has tilted towards fat
What to change: Cut the surplus back to the bottom of the observed range — about 97 kcal a day here — rather than abandoning the gaining phase
Weight up, waist stable, lifts progressing
Most likely cause: Nothing. This is what the plan is trying to produce
What to change: Change nothing at all until one of the three stops being true
Appetite cannot keep up with the target
Most likely cause: The calorie target is spread across food that is filling relative to its energy
What to change: Change the food before lowering the target: liquid calories, oils on cooked food, and dried fruit or nuts add energy without much volume
There is also an exit, which most gaining plans omit. After six to nine months in a surplus, or once body fat has risen past where you want it, the move is not an immediate deficit. Returning to maintenance gradually, then deciding what to do next, avoids the swing between extremes that costs part of what was built. The reverse diet calculator builds that ramp week by week.
What this plan cannot tell you
- How much of the gain is muscle. A scale weighs everything equally. Waist circumference alongside the load on the bar is the practical substitute, and it is a trend rather than a measurement.
- His actual maintenance calories. The 2,620 kcal estimate has an error bar several times wider than the surplus itself, which is why the plan is written to self-correct at four weeks.
- How much he can gain at all. Training history, sleep, age, and how close he already is to his own ceiling matter more than any figure on this page, and none of them are inputs to a calculator.
- Anything about the programme itself. The loading table sets weights. It says nothing about exercise selection, weekly volume, or progression scheme, all of which decide whether the surplus becomes muscle.
Which leaves the plan doing what a plan should: fixing the order, making the collisions visible, and scheduling the moment you find out whether any of it was right.
Common questions
How do I make a muscle-gain plan?
In this order: estimate maintenance calories, choose a weekly rate of gain, add the surplus that rate implies, set protein inside the resulting total, fill the remainder with carbohydrate and fat, then set the training loads and a review date. For the worked example on this page — a 24-year-old man, 180 cm, 68 kg, training three to five days a week — maintenance is about 2,620 kcal, the surplus is 125 kcal, the target is 2,745 kcal a day, and protein is 122 g. Note the order: the surplus is chosen from the rate, not the other way round.
What order should I set calories, protein, and training in?
Maintenance, then rate of gain, then the surplus that rate implies, then protein, then the remaining carbohydrate and fat, then the loading table, then the review date. The order matters because each step narrows the next: pick the surplus first and you will pick it from a heuristic rather than from a rate, and set carbohydrate first and protein has to squeeze into what is left. Only the fluid step can be moved without consequence.
Which surplus rule should I use, a percentage of maintenance or a percentage of body weight?
The body-weight rule, with the maintenance rule as a ceiling. They are not interchangeable: for the body on this page, 0.13 to 0.19% of body weight a week is a surplus of 97 to 142 kcal, while "10 to 15% above maintenance" is 262 to 393 kcal — up to 251 kcal a day more. The reason is that the maintenance rule inherits the activity multiplier, so it grows for someone who trains a lot even though their capacity to build muscle has not changed. The body-weight rule does not.
How much weight will I gain in six months?
About 3 kg for this worked example: 0.11 kg a week, or 0.17% of body weight, held for 26 weeks. Two things are worth saying about that figure. It is total weight rather than muscle, and some fraction of it will be fat whatever the rate. And it is slow enough to be invisible week to week, which is why the plan is judged on seven-day averages, waist circumference, and load on the bar together rather than on any single weigh-in.
How much of my calorie target should protein be?
Here, 18% — 122 g at 1.8 g per kilogram of body weight, costing 488 kcal of a 2,745 kcal target. The share is the interesting part. The same rule applied inside the fat-loss plan on this site takes 41% of a much smaller budget and becomes the constraint everything else has to fit around. In a surplus there is room to spare, so the practical difficulty moves from arithmetic to appetite.
What weights should I lift?
Work backwards from a set you can already do. One set of 80 kg for 5 reps estimates a one-rep max of about 92 kg, which gives a full loading table: roughly 78 kg for sets of 5 to 6, 69 kg for sets of 9 to 10. Most hypertrophy work sits between 65 and 85% of one-rep max, and the point of the table is that progress means the whole table moving up over months, not adding reps to the same load forever.
What do I change if the scale is not moving?
Check the surplus before doubting the plan. A flat seven-day average for three weeks usually means the surplus is smaller than intended — either maintenance was overestimated at the start, or it has risen with body weight, which for this example is 46 kcal a day by the end of the block. Add 100 to 150 kcal and hold it for another three weeks. Change one thing per review, because changing two makes the next four weeks of data unreadable.
When should I stop gaining, and how do I come off a surplus?
Stop when body fat has risen past where you want it, when the lifts have not progressed for a couple of months despite a real surplus, or after six to nine months in a surplus regardless. The exit is not an immediate deficit: raise intake back to the recalculated maintenance figure over several weeks first, then decide. Swinging straight from surplus to aggressive deficit is the usual way people lose part of what they built.
The questions this page does not answer are the evidence ones — whether a 500 kcal surplus is too much, whether to bulk and cut or gain slowly, and whether a surplus is needed at all. Those are argued, with the studies, in how many calories to build muscle.
These are general estimates for healthy adults, not medical advice, and the worked example is an illustration rather than a prescription for anyone. If you are under 18, pregnant, or managing a medical condition, talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before changing your intake or starting a resistance-training programme. See our methodology for the sources behind these figures.