Lean Bodies Consulting

Ok, so we’ve established answers to the following questions in the first three parts of this series so far:

1. Would I have to do a bulk?

2. How long would I bulk for?

Alright, how about some practical steps? We’re not going to get into the training aspect of this right now as it’s a rather varied topic, so we’ll just keep the focus on nutrition - which really is what will be the final determinant of gains. By that I mean, I don’t care how hard you’re training, if you’re not eating enough to support muscle growth, you’re not going to be gaining size. Period. (exception to the rule - newbies and those new to ‘effective training’)

To go back to another point made in one of the previous posts - expect to gain at least some bodyfat. If you expect to stay lean, expect to stay the same. I’ll give you a few case examples:

1. I was emailing back and forth with a client prospect who has been solely focused on muscle gain for many, many months. She works with another trainer. In our communications, she ended up sending me her pre- and current ‘bulking’ pictures for review. First thing I noticed? Nothing. Literally, I couldn’t tell a difference at all. I asked her what the difference in weight was. The answer? One pound. I believe this was over the course of about nine months. ONE POUND. Now, it’d be great if there was some massive recompositioning here but there wasn’t - no visible changes. I questioned her on this and she said her trainer wants to her stay lean while gaining size.

The results show how effective that strategy is.

2. A client of my own who I worked with for a little over a year. We did a few cut/bulk cycles and yes she gained some body fat during the bulks. But she had a great mindset for all of it (vital necessity in my opinion) and had the big picture in front of her the whole time. The numbers will make my point for me.

November 19/07
Weight - 110 lbs
Waist - 30 1/4
Hips - 33 3/4
Thighs - 17
Chest - 31 1/2
Arms - 9 1/2
Calf - 10 1/2

Contrast that to her final biweekly:

September 16/08
Weight - 109.4 lbs
Waist - 24 1/4
Hips - 33 1/4
Thighs - 17 3/4
Chest - 32 1/4
Arms - 10
Calf - 11

The most glaring point there is that she weighs basically the same as her starting weight - but her waist is 6 inches smaller. Now that’s a recomp.

A successful bulk is obviously determined by the results gained - hopefully you’ve added some muscle and not too much fat. It’s fine to gain, gain, gain, but if you end up the same bodyweight and the same bodyfat - basically you look the same as you did pre-bulk - it doesn’t seem like you did very well. Now if you end up the same bodyweight, but you’re even leaner (see Case #2 above) then you definitely had a successful run. Gaining 20lbs only to lose 20lbs and look no different - that’s not a good bulk.

How much do I need to eat?

Enough!

You need to definitely have more energy coming in than going out. Again, insufficient food intake = no gains. Look around the gym - most people there are trying to gain some muscle, get stronger, etc. Are they? They appear to be working pretty hard and yet, a year from now, chances are they’ll look no different. Something isn’t working. Could it be what they’re doing/eating outside of the gym? Could it be that they train hard for 45 minutes (trying to bulld muscle?) and then they hop on the elliptical for 30 minutes PWO (trying to get the cuts?). It doesn’t work.

So how much food? I generally recommend that you start at an assumed maintenance intake. I say assumed because all of the predictive equations are just estimates. They’re not going to necessarily be 100% accurate, but it’s a starting place for us. If you’re not coming off a hard diet, around 15x total bodyweight is a good ball part. Pay attention to results though - if you’re gaining (beyond water and glycogen) then clearly this is not maintenance. If you’re coming off a hard diet, start a bit lower as metaoblism will be slightly depressed. Stay there for two weeks and reassess. Did the scale go up? Go down? Stay the same? Adjust accordingly. Assuming you were at maintenance, start adding calories. Again, we’re trying to avoid getting too sloppy so take it easy and just systematically raise them. Start at 10% above maintenance, stay there for a bit, and reassess. What’s happening? Nothing? Add another 10%. You basically continue to add calories until you start to see an upward trend on the scale, but not so quickly upward that it’s clear (in the context of expected rates of muscle gain) that you’re gaining too much fat per given pound of weight gain. If you are gaining too much fat, scale the calories back a bit. It’s all about a simple outcome based approach. Base your adjustments on your results.

I’ll touch on macros next time.

Continuing on with the answers to the following questions …

How long should I bulk?
How long do I have to bulk?

The first ‘it depends’ answer was to counter with the question of how much muscle do you want to gain?

To that we add the following:

2. How much muscle do you gain when eating in a caloric surplus and how much fat you gain when eating in a caloric surplus - or basically your muscle-to-fat-gain ratio. This basically refers to one’s partitioning ability - simply where the extra calories go. Does it wind up in muscle cells or fat cells? Ideally all of it would go to muscle, but sorry, not gonna happen. You might as well accept it now.

Now ideally at least more of the extra calories are partitioned towards muscle than they are towards fat. What affects this? First and foremost, genetics. Some people simply partition more calories towards muscle than others do. The less fortunate partition more calories towards fat cells than they do muscle. So on the one hand you might have someone gaining more muscle for a given weight gain and some gaining more fat than muscle (sucks!) for a given weight gain.

So we have things like the aforementioned genetics, higher-than-normal testosterone levels and other optimally ranged hormones (lower cortisol responses, healthy thyroid levels, etc) as well as good insulin sensitivity in the muscles.

Scientists refer to something called the p-ratio when discussing the partitioning of calories. The p-ratio is again, largely influenced by genetic factors and varies little within a person. Diet, training, etc (basically lifestyle factors) have the potential to influence it about 5-15% - not very much.

So, that tells us there’s not a lot you can do to shift your own innate muscle-to-fat-gain ratio (or even your fat-to-muscle-loss ratio when dieting) beyond the relatively small (yet hardly insignificant) effect nutrition, training (and drugs) has on it.

So we obviously get that diet and training should be on point during a bulk. From a dietary standpoint, you obviously need to be certain you’re eating enough to sustain not only the growth of new muscle tissue but the maintenance of it as well. This is one of the biggest pitfalls of those seeking out more muscle - they don’t eat enough. You can’t build a house out of sweat people. No raw materials? No muscle. Ample caloric intake is the biggest factor to be aware of.

Training of course is important as well, but the supporting growth factors - hormones, caloric intake, etc. - determine how much you can gain and support. Training is just a stimulus. Many think that because they’re training heavy and hard, the muscle is just going to come as a result. Again, it’s just a stimulus - if the supporting growth factors are not there, it’s just not going to happen.

Ok, so this ties into the next point:

3. How much fat are you comfortable gaining? This is going to be determined by one, how much over maintenance you’re eating and two, the aforementioned muscle-to-fat-gain ratio or how well your body partitions extra calories. For those with better partitioning ability, more of their new weight is going to be muscle and less is going to be fat, so they’re probably going to have an easier time of it. For those less fortunate, it’s going to be a different story. They’re going to gain more bodyfat for a given weight gain. How much are you comfortable with gaining? Remember, you’re going to gain some. Expect not to and I guarantee you that you’re going to look exactly the same at the end of your bulk.

These three points are really the determining factors of the length of your bulk - how much muscle do you want/need to gain, how much muscle/fat do you gain when consuming calories in excess of maintenance (a requirement), and how much body fat are you comfortable gaining along the way.

More next time …