Measuring Progress As An Advanced Natural Bodybuilder

For The Grams

The way I see it, you have several ways of measuring progress as an advanced natural lifter. If you are not advanced, you can still use these methods, but they are perhaps less necessary as faster progress allows for less accuracy needed. But you should keep reading. After all, you’re already here, and presumably that means you care enough about training that you plan on one day becoming advanced.

If you have been lifting diligently for 5+ years, especially 10+ years, you are probably going to be relegated to somewhat slow progress. This will, of course, add up over time to significant and noticeable gains, but sometimes even year to year it can be difficult to track.

And if you can’t track it, how do you know what you are doing is working?

First, leanness at a given bodyweight. So, if you have a picture of yourself from a year ago and you are now the SAME BODYWEIGHT but leaner, you probably gained muscle. However, this isn’t very exact because the 2–3+% error inherent in ALL measuring methods (even DEXA) is already more than the scraps of muscle you’re fighting for. At 200lbs, 3% bodyfat is 6lbs of muscle, and that’s very good going for a year of training. Still, you can probably eyeball this to within a degree of accuracy that it’s useful.

Also consider using a weekly average weight rather than a single day.