How long does it take for muscle to build up [vs steroids]

Let's say I do a good workout, eat my 3,000 calories, and my necessary protein. I realize muscle gain occurs only during sleep and doesn't all occur during the first night's sleep, and that high testosterone levels accelerate your ability to expedite muscle growth. I'm not going to use steroids, I simply saw their effect through a National Geographic program and how they could show immediate growth in one day, but my real question is how long does it take for one workout to show its full effect without them, as in normal growth? Sometimes when I gain weight, it's a 3-5 days after a workout, I can't tell if it's all muscle growth b/c I don't know when it's supposed to all accumulate [assuming you did the whole hypertrophy/diet thing right].

noticeable change will be around 4 - 5 months time.

4 months??? That seems a bit overestimated to me. I'm not talking about looking in the mirror and seeing yourself bigger, but rather physical weight gain. Which I guess is what you're talking about in terms of being noticeable, but how long does it take for the effects of one workout [ie you gain .2 pounds of muscle] to show? 2, 3, 4 days? I know it varies to each person according to testosterone levels, but surely there's an average..

no one can really tell u how effective one workout is at building up whatever muscles u worked out that day

just know that muscles grow given a progressive overload on them...and with proper nutrition and rest...if u have all these things down...over a period of time..u will be building muscle

at this point...the only thing i use to gauge whether im atcually building muscle or not is if i can lift more than i did last workout..and the workout before that...basically if im stronger 2 months down the road..im my mind..i built muscle..

[QUOTE=UCFBuilder;518317233]no one can really tell u how effective one workout is at building up whatever muscles u worked out that day

just know that muscles grow given a progressive overload on them...and with proper nutrition and rest...if u have all these things down...over a period of time..u will be building muscle

at this point...the only thing i use to gauge whether im atcually building muscle or not is if i can lift more than i did last workout..and the workout before that...basically if im stronger 2 months down the road..im my mind..i built muscle..[/QUOTE]

From January to March of this year I did gain muscle , people even gave me verbal compliments.. I did gain substantial strength [tripling in some exercises]. I had to stop working out for personal reasons, and I took some gaps, but now I'm starting again. I did exactly what you're supposed to, working out EVERYDAY, but sometimes I'm just curious as to the actual benefit of one particular day. During the summer it's actually harder for me to workout [I'm really busy, traveling, etc] than during college, so I'm not having the every day drive that I had before that got me the results. Now I leave on a two week trip to Italy, and I won't have a gym, just some resistance bands, so I don't want to lose too much..

Steroids would be much quicker however you will notice weight gain as you asked within a week or so if eating in excess. Visible differences take a few months in my mind.