Do you really need a 500-calorie surplus to build muscle?
This outdated recommendation is ruining your muscle build.
Do you really need a 500-calorie surplus to build muscle?
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: A surplus helps maximize muscle gain, but +500 calories/day is more than vast majority of people need.
After newbie gains, pure muscle gain isn’t realistic. Your goal becomes maximizing muscle while minimizing fat.
Based on your training age, you have a threshold for the amount of muscle that can be built per week. Any surplus above that is generally stored as body fat.
Do you need a surplus at all?
But what about maingaining? Can’t I build muscle without eating more? Yes, you can build muscle at maintenance with a few caveats:
The more experienced a lifter you are, the harder it is to build at maintenance. Ergo, those training for <1 year will likely make much more noticeable gains than more experienced lifters
You have to actually be eating at maintenance, not in low adapted maintenance. Most people don’t even know what their top of their maintenance range is, so in adapted maintenance your ability to build muscle is even lower than at maintenance.
Muscle growth at maintenance is ~1/7th the pace of a surplus. Slow enough, that it may feel invisible
Determining a surplus
To be in a surplus, you need to consistently eat above the top end of your maintenance.
So, to start a build, you need to know what your maintenance calories are. If you don’t know where maintenance is, you’re guessing. So you’ll need to:
Step 1: Find maintenance (steady weight range).
Step 2: Add calories until your rate of gain matches your training age + goals (see next slide).
Think of this as data-guided trial and error. Your metabolism and genetics decide your exact number.
% Rate of gain per week
Thankfully, Greg Nuckols (of Stronger By Science) released some great muscle-building guidance last fall. Below is what current research says on recommended weight gain per week (per current bodyweight) based on your training age.
Should I be Conservative or aggressive?
Why we recommend the conservative side for most lifters:
It provides more runway - building muscle is hard mentally. if you can keep the rate of gain slow you’re far more likely to spend more time in the build gaining muscle, and net more muscle in the long run than being too aggressive and bailing a few months in (think be the turtle not hare!)
Losing fat is hard - Most of our clients still have a ways to go in losing body fat, so the risk to reward for a few more ounces of muscle vs adding additional bodyfat isn’t worth it.
Maximum lbs per week
Now that we know the optimal rate of gain per week, it’s important to note that percentages don’t scale infinitely. So, you’ll need to match your targeted percentage range with the maximums below and choose the lower number.
For Ex: A 205lb advanced lifter aiming for 0.35% (0.67 lbs/week). That exceeds the 0.62 lb cap → so he’d default to the lower number.
Maximum lbs per week
Using the assumption that ~100 calories surplus = a +0.2lb rate of gain per week, let’s evaluate which maximal gains per week even come close to a 500 calorie surplus.
An Example
Once you’ve determined your goal rate of gain, you can determine your initial calorie surplus.
👩 140-lb intermediate trainee female
• Choosing the lean build option: +0.21–0.46 lbs/week (~100–230 cals above maintenance)
👨 180-lb intermediate male
• Choosing the lean build option: Conservative: +0.27–0.59 lbs/week (~130–300 cals above maintenance)
👉 Both FAR below the generic +500 calorie recommendation.
We need to do better
This data isn’t new. Aragon, Peos, McDonald, Nuckols? They’ve been saying it for years.
Yet the 500-calorie myth keeps getting recycled. We owe it to lifters to stop pushing advice that makes them afraid of building muscle.
This is why it's a problem: They try it once, slap on excess body fat, and then never attempt a build again, assuming it “doesn’t work for them.”
That ruins future opportunities to build muscle efficiently. Bad advice doesn’t just slow progress; it makes people quit building altogether.
When we know better, we need to do better.
Are you ready to start building?
If this busted a myth you’ve believed, let’s get you building the right way.
