15/01/2026
Tape measurements are NOT a good indicator of muscle growth (especially for natural lifters).
Here’s why…
If you’re bulking, measurements usually go up.
That doesn’t mean you’re building bigger arms or glutes - it usually means you’re storing more body fat.
If you’re cutting, measurements usually go down.
That doesn’t mean you’re losing muscle — it often just reflects lower body fat.
For natural trainees, realistic muscle gain is slow.
Around 0.25kg of muscle per week at best - and that’s with near-perfect nutrition, training, sleep, and consistency.
Muscle simply doesn’t grow fast enough to show up meaningfully on a tape week to week.
The one time tape measurements do work:
If your goal is to drop body fat. ✅
In that context, reducing waist, hip, or limb measurements is useful (because you’re tracking fat loss, not muscle gain).
Outside of that, tape measurements are mostly just bravado. 🤷♂️
So when should you use tape measurements for muscle growth? 🤔
Only when your body is at the same body-fat percentage as a previous time. 💡
For most people, that realistically means year to year, often around the same point each summer (not week to week or month to month).
This is also why the results you see from me and my team were built without using tape measurements once. We focused on structure, ex*****on, and consistency 🙌
not chasing weekly numbers that don’t reflect real change 🙅🏻♂️
What actually matters in the meantime:
• Bodyweight trends
• How you look over time
• Strength and performance
• Compliance to nutrition, training, and output
And if you’re going to measure anything, it needs to be done under the same conditions every time - similar to comparing the same week of a menstrual cycle, not random days affected by food, water, stress, or sleep.
Progress isn’t random, and It definitely isn’t measured by pulling a tape tighter or looser each week. 🚨
Structure > shortcuts.
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