How Much Protein to Build Muscle?

Building muscle asks your body for the raw material — amino acids — to lay down new tissue, so the muscle-gain goal starts from a base band of 1.6–2.2 g/kg. This page pre-selects a very active training level, which nudges both ends of that band up by 0.3, landing you at 1.9–2.5 g/kg with a recommended midpoint of 2.2 g/kg. The idea is simple arithmetic: the harder and more often you train, the higher within the range you sit, because frequent training raises the daily turnover of protein your muscles need to repair and grow. These are general estimates for healthy adults, not medical advice.

Take a 180 lb (about 82 kg) adult. At the recommended 2.2 g/kg midpoint that is roughly 180 g of protein a day, sitting inside a range of 155–204 g as you move from the low to the high end of the band. A metric 80 kg adult lands at about 176 g, in a range of 152–200 g. The two examples differ only because 180 lb and 80 kg are not the same weight — the g/kg factor is identical. Once you have your protein figure, build the rest of the plate around it with the Macro Calculator, which locks protein in first and splits the remaining calories between carbs and fat.

The body-weight method above is quick and accurate enough for most people. Its blind spot is composition: protein feeds lean tissue, not fat, so if you carry more fat than average the scale-weight figure can run a little high. If you know your body fat percentage, work out your lean body mass first, then enter that body fat % here to switch to the sharper lean-mass target. For a lean trainee the two methods land close together. These figures are general estimates for healthy adults, not medical advice.