As an experienced lifter are we shortchanging progress at all by doing a little cut to a 'beach leanness' each year?

[johnlxyz]

@rainn If you neither bulk nor cut you cannot increase your bodyweight which at the least caps your LBM to your current bodyweight (and I think common experience permits further extrapolations than that).

 

[rainn]

@johnlxyz You don't need to bulk to build muscle.

 

[johnlxyz]

@rainn But you need to bulk to gain weight.

 

[rainn]

@johnlxyz To gain fat, yes. To gain muscle mass, no.

 

[johnlxyz]

@rainn You didn't grasp or chose to ignore the point I made about the obvious hard limit of maingaining.

If a 140 pound skinny high school starts to maingain, the theoretical level of LBM he gain attain without dying is about 133 pounds.

And I don't know if you actually believe someone can maingain themselves down to 5% bf, but wouldn't it seem strange that a strategy with such a hard cap is in other respects not only viable but efficient (the topic of this thread)?

 

[rainn]

@johnlxyz You can gain muscle without losing body fat eating at maintenance.

 

[dragonfruit10]

@jamierite74 Long bulk just means longer cutting time.

Longer cutting time just means more chance of losing muscle and mental fatigue. To keep the cut small you need to keep the bulk smaller. Doing it this way also lets you look good all year round versus a longer cut where you'll just look overweight and literally feel like shit most of the year.

 

[jamierite74]

@dragonfruit10 In theory this makes perfect sense to me too. How accurate is it? Im not quite sure. Many believe you have to get a little heavy and stay there for an extended period of time to really 'own'/grow into these heavier BWs. As if its the key to truly leveling up a late intermediate/advanced natural physique. And I gotta say to an extent anecdotally it seems the proof is in the pudding. However I always strive to find the best possible middle ground for all of this. I bulk for ~8 months (small-ish but truly measurable weight gain of 2lbs/month) and then do a ~3.5 month cut. Ive done the 1lb/month bulks but theres too much room for error. Anyways, im lean in the summer for parties, vacations, etc. But then Im still spending a decent amount of time bulking. At the same time its always on the back of my mind if Im shortchanging myself and not allowing myself to truly reach that next level

 

[dragonfruit10]

@jamierite74

Many believe you have to get a little heavy and stay there for an extended period of time to really 'own'/grow into these heavier BWs.

I don't think they do. I think you may be confusing that with the way they are demonstrating their point when arguing against maintaining.

Some research even contradicts this and suggest that being leaner in the surplus is more responsive due to nutrient partitioning (more fat cells taking them etc.). It doesn't matter if you're at 10% in a surplus or 20% in a surplus, the increase in anabolism is because of the surplus itself.

I follow the research pretty closely as well as multiple experts and I've never ever come across any justification for why it would be beneficial to increase bodyweight to a high amount in order to build muscle faster. If you're being told otherwise from some source I was start asking them for the citations and what bro science research they are basing that on.

 

[jamierite74]

@dragonfruit10 How short of a bulk do you think is too short as a more advanced lifter? Or what do you believe is the time frame sweet spot? I do these 8 month bulks looking back and wondering if id be in a different position if they were 2 year bulks. Is 4, 6, 8 months enough time in the advanced stages to make it worth it?

 

[dragonfruit10]

@jamierite74 Hard to answer. Once the body adapts after a couple of weeks from maintenance to a bulk (and vice versa), and it's in a consistent surplus of energy that it can now use, you're basically maximising the speed it can build muscle.

I personally aim for 4-6 months bulk. I've just ended a bulk 2 weeks ago due to my appetite going and the fatigue of force feeding, abs looking a bit cloudy. Now I'm doing an aggressive mini cut for 4 weeks or so, maybe 5.

My plan is to do this continually. Short bulks and aggressive mini cuts to minimise the time dieting and maximise the time massing.

I wouldn't be able to do aggressive cuts if it was longer than say 6 weeks. So I'd make the argument that it's a little more optimal from a gaining perspective to do shorter bulks, because it gives you more massing time throughout the year. If you bulk longer, you have to cut longer, and if you cut longer it has to be a smaller deficit to avoid the issues so it's just more downtime.

but to better answer your question, I'd say minimum 3 months for bulk and minimum 2 weeks for cuts. If you do the math with surplus and deficit numbers, you'll find that over the next 2 years it's all zero-sum. You can basically do whatever you like and there will be very little difference.

 

[jamierite74]

@dragonfruit10 Ah I see what you mean. With this method you are truly maximizing the total time spent in a bulk (even if its not all at one time) b/c youre now implementing aggressive mini cuts and this is the only method that supports aggressive cutting (Ive read the mini cut manual so im familiar with them). In theory it seems like a good idea, i wonder how it truly compares to longer pases. Out of curiosity what rate of weight gain do you usually aim for and how long have you been lifting? Lets say you do a 5 month bulk and 4 week mini cut. Is it like up 10lbs, down 8lbs? This does get my wheels turning as another avenue. Instead of 8 months of the year in a surplus I could get 10 months out of your method. Of course with my method I could get a little more surplus time by gaining weight slower (~1lb/month) but I think that has its own drawbacks as mentioned above.

 

[dragonfruit10]

@jamierite74 I do my bulk quite loose since I see it as a more relaxed way of going about food then say an aggressive bulk. I aim for 300 over maintenance for around .25-.3 KG gain per week. But I think it ended up being above that slightly on my last bulk.

My mini cut atm is 700 deficit but again, some days it's 300-400 and I try not to stress.

There is an argument for longer smaller cuts for 2 reasons where it might be worth the loss of bulk time

• You can't get really shredded on a mini cut due to small duration. If you want to get to say 9% for a holiday it's going to be very difficult unless you're already starting very lean. Longer cut is better for this to push the cut longer without impacting muscle gain. You can even gain muscle on a small deficit.
• It's mentally tough to do a big deficit. More demanding than you think if you haven't tried it before. It's definitely a get in get out mindset so it's only really useful for a quick reset to get back to the bulk.

If you're worried about accuracy, best advice I can give you is that you'll never be accurate. Even the food labels are way off sometimes for calorie tracking. TDEE will vary daily.

Getting in the ball park is all you want to really aim for. If accuracy was possible then my bulk would be like 90 calories above to try and maximise everything, but 300 accounts for error.

 

[jamierite74]

@dragonfruit10 Thanks for the run run down. Sounds like a valid approach. If I didnt go to ~9% most years then Id probably do this more often, and I probably will implement it in some way shape or form. And a little extra calories to account for error is the EXACT reason I gain ~2lbs/month instead of 1 or less like Ive tried to do in the past. Theres just too many variables that throw things off. Labels like you said, varying levels of activity daily, eating food that you didnt weigh/make yourself, water weight flucuations making the waters muddy, the list goes on and on. It doesnt matter how meticulous you are with your macros and weigh ins.

 

[loriequin]

@dragonfruit10 How much weight are you gaining in 4-6 months?

 

[dragonfruit10]

@loriequin I gained 6kg on my last bulk which was somewhere around 5 months in total.

It's a bit high and I overshot my target a little of 0.25kg per week, but not by a whole lot. (0.3kg)

Next time I think I'll target 0.2kg to be able to bulk longer since that should also be more than enough for me to maximise things.

 

[akblessings]

@jamierite74 You don’t need to be at 15%-20% bodyfat to gain muscle.

 

[elxdalto]

@jamierite74 what's the point of lifting if all you do is look fat all the time? cut away.

 

[angelica009]

@elxdalto 15-20% is definitely not fat

 

[lusciouslyn]

@elxdalto I hear you but it depends for a small portions of people.
Some fat Bois make good coin picking up heavy stuff. Plus some ladies don't mind a bit of fluff.. more of you to love lmao