Building muscle
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Need2Exerc1se
Posts: 13,575 Member
I see on here all the time "you can't build muscle on a deficit", and that sounds logical and correct. But something I've wondered about is what happens if you progressively lift while eating maintenance calories? Will you build muscle? I'm sure it's wouldn't be as fast as if you were eating a surplus, but it seems logical that you could.
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Yes, you can do that. It's called recomping. If you check in the Maintaining Weight section there are a few threads about it.0
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Yes, it's called a "recomp" You can build muscle a maintenance, but it's painfully slow.0
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Okay, thanks for the replies. I am not to maintenance quite yet, or rather I'm trying not to be, It's just something I've been curious about for a while.0
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VERY SLOWWWWWWWWW Process.0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »I see on here all the time "you can't build muscle on a deficit", and that sounds logical and correct. But something I've wondered about is what happens if you progressively lift while eating maintenance calories? Will you build muscle? I'm sure it's wouldn't be as fast as if you were eating a surplus, but it seems logical that you could.
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I question the claim of it being slow or painfully slow.
A lot of what I read suggests that women bulk for 9+ months after getting somewhat lean (not super lean but to a healthy BF) with the goal of adding 1-2 pounds a month. So after 9 months you've added 13.5 pounds (averaged 1.5 lbs./month) and then you're advised to aim for a half pound of weight loss per week. If half of the weight is fat, that weight loss takes around 3 months. That's a year from start of bulk to end of cut and doesn't consider the time it takes to get down to the "somewhat lean" spot.
If you look at the recomp threads there are always women who post their one year recomp photos and their results are great. It seems like 6 of one half dozen of another to me. I don't think that the recomp is necessarily better but I also don't buy that it is worse.0 -
You'll have some people on here who say it's impossible, but I don't buy it. It is hard (not much room to screw around with what you eat) and as others have said a very slow process.0
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As stated, it's a recomp. Been doing it for a year or so. Not as slow as people made it out to be in my opinion, but def slower than bulk/cut cycles.0
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I question the claim of it being slow or painfully slow.
A lot of what I read suggests that women bulk for 9+ months after getting somewhat lean (not super lean but to a healthy BF) with the goal of adding 1-2 pounds a month. So after 9 months you've added 13.5 pounds (averaged 1.5 lbs./month) and then you're advised to aim for a half pound of weight loss per week. If half of the weight is fat, that weight loss takes around 3 months. That's a year from start of bulk to end of cut and doesn't consider the time it takes to get down to the "somewhat lean" spot.
If you look at the recomp threads there are always women who post their one year recomp photos and their results are great. It seems like 6 of one half dozen of another to me. I don't think that the recomp is necessarily better but I also don't buy that it is worse.
It has to do with which you can handle mentally and which you can adhere to.0 -
So, if you eat at a surplus and gain muscle faster than you would at maintenance, but then you have to eat a deficit to lose the fat, does all that take longer than if you stayed at maintenance while doing the recomp?0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »So, if you eat at a surplus and gain muscle faster than you would at maintenance, but then you have to eat a deficit to lose the fat, does all that take longer than if you stayed at maintenance while doing the recomp?
It would really depend on how much you personally gain doing a recomp versus a bulk and how effectively you lose fat. For someone who has a very tough time adhering to diet, a recomp is probably better. For someone who is a "hard gainer" a bulk is probably better (hard gainers find it tough to eat enough, so gains on a recomp may be very small).0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »So, if you eat at a surplus and gain muscle faster than you would at maintenance, but then you have to eat a deficit to lose the fat, does all that take longer than if you stayed at maintenance while doing the recomp?
It would really depend on how much you personally gain doing a recomp versus a bulk and how effectively you lose fat. For someone who has a very tough time adhering to diet, a recomp is probably better. For someone who is a "hard gainer" a bulk is probably better (hard gainers find it tough to eat enough, so gains on a recomp may be very small).
Oh, I am most definitely not a hard gainer.0
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