To what extent is bulking superior to recomping for an intermediate lifter?

[leyanis]

Background: I’m mostly a (fairly advanced) endurance athlete. Not elite level, but I run 50-100km per week. I’m about 150lbs, 10-12%BF. In contrast, I’m not an advanced lifter. Been lifting for a few years though so I’m not new to this either.

I find going through bulk, then agressive cut phases pretty hard on my training plan. Cutting through 100km/week of running is quick but not fun at all. Plus my caloric target can vary wildly from day to day, which complicates things further.

I’d much prefer just eating as to compensate my caloric debt and not having to also worry about either eating at a surplus or having large deficits. To what extent would this affect the outcome of my lifting sessions, especially as an intermediate lifter? I’m not looking for that 5% optimization competitors are after, but if that affects 50% of the work I’m doing I’d reconsider.

Also open to papers/resources suggestions on this.

 

[dawn16]

@leyanis How tall are you?

Bulking is superior in most respects. You don’t have to question as much whether you’re progressing, and because you don’t second guess, it’s easier to commit to the process, which becomes self fulfilling. It’s easier to add muscle, and eating more is fun.

As someone else said, just bulk with a controlled surplus so the cut isn’t so heinous.

If you time your nutrition right, I don’t see why you can’t effectively train for running on a cut.

 

[leyanis]

@dawn16

eating more is fun

not always when you have to eat 4000cal a day to maintain lol.

I’m 5’9. Yeah, will probably go with the lean bulk approach.

I can train on a cut, I’m just not recovering as quickly obviously. And as I stated in my post agressive cuts can be pretty hard when doing high mileage. That’s the reason I want to minimize the frequency to which I have to do it.

 

[dawn16]

@leyanis Yea I get that about having to eat a shit ton of calories to the point of discomfort.

Whoah. Ok. You’re 5’9” and 150. No offense, that is bordering on DYEL territory. I’m about your height (a hair shorter) and, at my best natural condition was about 40 lbs heavier at the same BF%.

I think you need to figure out your goals and train and eat accordingly. Understand that one may have to give way to the other, at least in part.

 

[damon46789]

@dawn16 Bro you were not 190 at 10% bf at 5ft 9 or a bit under, that puts you at an FFMI of nearly 26 (aka most likely not possible naturally)... so 3 options here, 1) your bf was a lot higher than you thought, 2) you have the best genetics in the world) 3) you weren't natural.

150lbs at 10% body fat I wouldn't say is DYEL territory, simply because the guy is probably in a permanent deficit, so I'm sure with a week or so of bulking his glycogen levels would restore and he'd jump up by 5lbs or so. Key thing here is the bf, it's very rare to be that low and being heavy is easy once you let the body fat slip. But please don't share unrealistic expectations.

I'm a similar height and been a bit over 190 before thinking my bf wasn't very high but as soon as you start cutting and truly getting down to low bodyfat levels, you realise how much you underestimate your own bf levels. Which is why ffmi is the best way to scientifically gauage and set realistic expectations for natural limits backed with thorough studies

 

[sugarcookies]

@damon46789

Bro you were not 190 at 10% bf at 5ft 9 or a bit under, that puts you at an FFMI of nearly 26 (aka not possible naturally)

An FFMI of 25 isn't a hard ceiling.

 

[damon46789]

@sugarcookies I didn't say it was, 1) it puts him above 25 and; 2) refer to my other point on absolute very top-tier genetics. My main point is that it's EXTREMELY unlikely to be over 25 ffmi and be natural. Maybe I should have used better wording, and said extremely unlikely, I just wanted to point out to not share unrealistic expectations and which ever way you spin it, a bit under 5ft 9, weighing in at 190lbs and 10% bf is for 99.9% of people unattainable.

Using the study you've linked, we also do not know whether they took steroids, yes unlikely given the years but not out of the realms of imagination they would've taken SOMETHING - what that could be, we'll never know. And yes I know I'm being very skeptical here, but that's why I prefer to go by studies that use modern data as that can be verified easier. Most sources will show you that getting close to an FFMI of 26 will point to steroid usage. I prefer to believe those than some random on reddit that claims he has the most elite of genetics with normalised FFMI of nearly 26 naturally. Probability will show you the former is far more likely to be true

 

[d3thadd3r]

@damon46789 Nah that’s DEFINITELY achievable to most or at least many natty’s to have 77kg of fat free mass after 5-10 years of training. I’ve been training for 2.5-3 years and I’ve got almost 70kg of FFM. Most of this time I’ve been prioritising strength instead of hypertrophy gains too and easily gained 1-2kg of muscle in the past 6 months as an intermediate while also losing 3-4kg of fat. Im down 2-3kg, have more muscle and strength despite an extremely slow recomposition.

My muscles don’t look huge but they’re very dense and my physique is well developed except for my forearms and calves. And even though I’ve been prioritising strength, I’m really not that strong because all this time ive been training low reps to failure nearly every single rep, resulting in more hypertrophy than strength gains. It was until a few weeks ago that I realised to truly get strong I can’t train to failure as often as I’d like.

My current main lift stats are only:
242lb bench press
352lb squat
287lb deadlift (only started training once a week since about 2 months ago)
205lb lat pull-down
15 strict pull-ups

The surprising thing is half this time I haven’t trained legs so I’d easily be up to 405lb+ squat. My legs are just naturally strong and I usually squat once a week, 2 sometimes. I’ve got huge delts and pecs too despite only benching heavy weights and low reps and only being able to bench up to 242lbs.

I believe I have natural potential to get to a 400lb bench, 500lb squat and deadlift probably similar numbers to my potential squat and by the time I’m lifting those numbers then I believe I’ll have at least 170lbs FFM. My dad is pretty fat but his calves and forearm muscles are absolutely giant and big forearms also run on my mums side of the family. I’ve easily got another 10lbs+ to grow in my calves and forearms and by the time that happens I’ll probably have at least another 10lbs of muscle throughout my whole body, putting me at 170lbs+ of FFM (over 25). I’m still growing despite a slight weekly caloric deficit. I should probably just do a proper cut then bulk though because I’ve got more fat than I like but at the same time not as much strength as I’d like so I’m afraid of losing strength during a full on cut. I’d love to bench over 225lbs as my working weight (6-8 reps), squat 330lbs as my working weight and deadlift 400lbs+ for my working weight. My best so far is 225lb bench for 5 and 330lb squat for 2.

 

[ilearn]

@sugarcookies I’d say it pretty much is when you’re doing the amount of cardio this guy is doing.

 

[dawn16]

@damon46789 OP said 10-12. I know DEXA isn’t perfect but it put me at 10 and change. 5’8.5”, somewhere between 190-195:

https://imgur.com/a/Ut0dDey

Please don’t try to tell me what I was or was not. Unlike a lot of the delusional folks on fitness subs, I’ve been doing this a very long time and have a pretty good handle on my own capabilities and limitations.

As for unrealistic expectations, I didn’t say OP could or should get there, just an indicator of how much more mass his frame could carry.

 

[damon46789]

@dawn16 Yeh fair enough, you know yourself better than me of course. I'm only a bit taller than you and visually don't look that different than your pic but I'm 15-20lbs lighter so to me it's surprising that that's 190-195. But I think on reflection and a little bit more reading on the topic that maybe I've placed a little bit too much importance on the original study on FFMI.

I've been in the game a long time too and ive seen the "25 ffmi natty limit" shared across so many sources and articles, but looking further into it, all of those actually cite the original 1995 Kouri study. So for a very long time I've just assumed based off those calculations I didn't have much left to gain and therefore doubted anyone around my height that have, but I think a big part that I've probably underplayed is how much skeletal structure plays a part in the weight someone can gain, and that's not just determined by height.

 

[leyanis]

@dawn16

DYEL territory

DYEL definitively not, but probably nowhere as muscular as the average lifter here I would agree. Doing a fuckton of cardio sure isn’t the best strategy for getting bigger. My focus in the gym for the last few years was more towards functional reinforcement, though I’m restructuring my lifting sessions to doing more hypertrophy now.

Eating 4000cal isn’t so bad but not sure I could go well above this 300cal clean bulk. I’m already eating all the fucking time lol.

Anyway, thanks for the input!

 

[dawn16]

@leyanis Yea, no judgment here, people have different goals, and even if you’re not adding a lot of size, I think lifting makes perfect sense for a runner, exactly as you say, as functional reinforcement. Even if you don’t add much muscle, your lifting will make you a better runner.

 

[mommajulesberry]

@dawn16 hell pete rubish off of peds is closing in on squatting his mile time, he’s probably a good source of information in terms of how to combine the two pursuits

 

[dawn16]

@mommajulesberry Ha, didn’t know that. Pretty cool. Alex Viada used to be another good source for that. There was another guy I think, former military, but can’t remember his name. Edit: It’s Tony Cowden.

https://www.capableincorporated.com/tony-cowden/

 

[davwms]

@leyanis You bulk if your mass is that low. If you don't have mass to recomp, you can't recomp. Recomp requires fat stores. It's as simple as that. If you would describe yourself as "cut" or "lean" and you want to gain muscle, you'll go nowhere fast on a recomp.

For instance. I am also 5'9 and lean bulked to 185. I have slight six pack definition but it has to be the right light or after a pump. I am recomping but don't mind living life and having the occasional days that are above maintenance. When my BF% reduces, I will bulk more aggressively again and then do exactly what I'm doing now. If I get too fat, I'll do a mini cut.

You need to learn what all of these terms mean and use them as tools to get the things you want and increase your performance as necessary.

 

[leyanis]

@davwms Great, thanks for the reply and additional info. Yeah that’s a lot of stuff to learn. Took me years to learn how to run properly (including all the other stuff, functional work and everything). Been lurking in BB subs for a while so I’m not totally foreign to these concepts but that’s a lot to think about/manage. Sometimes I feel like my life is like, work, workout, eat and sleep. I don’t hate it but it still feels like a part time job!

 

[doks]

@leyanis Try “lean bulking”, which means eating in a small surplus (about 300 calories above maintenance). This will minimize fat gain but still allow for muscle growth to occur.

 

[leyanis]

@doks Which would minimize the frequency I need to cut. That’s probably the best solution indeed.

 

[davwms]

@leyanis Lean bulk into either a recomp or a mini cut. Rinse and repeat the same process.

It is the way.