Everyone can build muscle with consistent strength training over time — if you didn’t gain muscle once, it’s probably not your genes, just that specific training phase didn’t work for you.
Mechanism
Synthesis from 5 studies
When people do more sets or reps in strength training, the physical stress on their muscles turns on a molecular switch (mTOR-p70S6K) that boosts protein building, allowing muscle growth even if they didn’t grow before — this has been shown in older adults who responded after increasing volume...
Most probable mechanism
When someone does more sets or reps during strength training, the physical stress on the muscle triggers a molecular signal that turns on protein building, helping the muscle grow — even if they didn’t grow before with less training. This has been seen in older adults who only grew muscle after increasing their workout volume (10.1152/japplphysiol.00670.2023), and in people who responded to a second round of training after failing the first (10.1002/ejsc.70095), showing that the body’s ability to build muscle isn’t fixed by genes but depends on how much stress is applied.
Mechanical tension from increased resistance training volume activates mechanosensitive structures in skeletal muscle, initiating intracellular signaling cascades (10.1152/japplphysiol.00670.2023), with repeated training phases demonstrating that prior nonresponse can be reversed by higher volume (10.1002/ejsc.70095)
Mechanotransduction signals converge on the mTORC1 complex, promoting its activation and downstream phosphorylation of p70S6K (10.1152/japplphysiol.00670.2023), a key regulator of protein synthesis that is consistently upregulated with higher training volume but not with low volume
Activated p70S6K enhances ribosomal biogenesis and translation initiation, increasing the capacity for myofibrillar protein synthesis (10.1152/japplphysiol.00670.2023), which is necessary for muscle growth and is observed across diverse populations including older adults (10.1123/ijsnem.2023-0087), postmenopausal women (10.1007/s00520-024-08973-7), and cancer survivors (10.1007/s00520-024-08973-7)
Sustained elevation in protein synthesis rates over multiple training sessions leads to net positive muscle protein balance, resulting in myofiber hypertrophy and increased muscle cross-sectional area, even in individuals previously classified as nonresponders (10.1152/japplphysiol.00670.2023, 10.1002/ejsc.70095)
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (4)
Community contributions welcome
Higher resistance training volume offsets muscle hypertrophy non-responsiveness in older individuals.
Repeated Resistance Training Reveals the Reproducibility of Muscle Strength and Size Responses Within Individuals
Contradicting (1)
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Gold Standard Evidence Needed
According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.