gaining muscle whilst having some fat

sardelsa

OP I was in a similar situation as you not long ago. I was very happy with my body and BF% but I wanted to be a bit bigger. Recomp wasn't working for me because I was already pretty lean and didn't want to get leaner. So I decided to start a very slow bulk and while I am gaining muscle and fat that is fine because I will only have to cut down a little to get back to where I was.

The thing is, you can start a bulk but at the higher BF% you are now, you would likely end up gaining more fat than muscle.. not very optimal and not what you want at all...so that is why people are recommending you cut down first then bulk, not because it is "terrible to be 20%" or what have you.

TavistockToad

adamnolan904 wrote: »

TavistockToad wrote: »

Seems to me that you need to cut (reduce your bodyfat more than you want to) to then bulk to get optimal muscle gain. You can then increase your weight to a level of body fat you want.

yeah thats what I just wrote, I just thought about that too. I will look into if its going to help me to reach the goals a lot faster or not to cut and stay at a low fat for a couple of years whilst gaining muscle, then put more fat on at the end, or whether its actually not so hard to gain muscle whilst staying at 20% bodyfat (and so far Ive been making good progress I think)

Well, I'll tell you something, the people who have given you advice already, they know their stuff... use their knowledge.

brentfostwood904

sardelsa wrote: »

OP I was in a similar situation as you not long ago. I was very happy with my body and BF% but I wanted to be a bit bigger. Recomp wasn't working for me because I was already pretty lean and didn't want to get leaner. So I decided to start a very slow bulk and while I am gaining muscle and fat that is fine because I will only have to cut down a little to get back to where I was.

The thing is, you can start a bulk but at the higher BF% you are now, you would likely end up gaining more fat than muscle.. not very optimal and not what you want at all...so that is why people are recommending you cut down first then bulk, not because it is "terrible to be 20%" or what have you.

ok so do you think maybe cutting to like 15% bf then bulking back up to 20% bf whilst gaining muscle at the same time is a lot more optimal than staying at 20%? Because if i keep on eating a 100-200kcal surplus a day and following my routine i'm doing now (which is a lot of cardio and martial arts 4 days a week and weight lifting on the other 3 days) you think I wont gain as much muscle but more fat with that 100-200kcal surplus (or whatever the surplus amount ends up being). Due to the fact that despite whatever exercise and lifting I'm doing, being 20% bodyfat just makes it really difficult to gain muscle and really easy to gain fat, compared to say being 15% bodyfat or 12% bodyfat whatever?

The thing I dont want to do is lose any muscle or strength, or even weight really, so if I would cut fat now, I would really want to keep on lifting a lot and not lose the fat quickly.. maybe eat a maintenence amount and keep on exercising and lifting so I stay at 100kg but slowly become more muscular and less fat as some fat is slowly replaced with muscle, slowly get down to whatever lower fat %, then I could bulk back up to 20% fat and gain even more muscle on the way. Maybe this could be the best option?

And my other option (which some people recommended but other people said isnt good because its too difficult to gain muscle and not gain fat at this bf%) is just trying to maintain 20% bodyfat, lifting a lot of weights and eating a small surplus for muscle growth, but making sure that its just the right amount so that as I gain weight I'm gaining some muscle and fat but I'm not going over that 20% fat overall mark.

The option I agree I dont want is like eating a lot, gaining muscle yeah maybe but also a lot of fat, bulking to 25 or 30% or more bodyfat or something, then cutting to 20%... sure I dont want to do that because I dont ever want to have that much fat, thats just too much for me.

AnvilHead

brentfostwood904 wrote: »

...And my other option (which some people recommended but other people said isnt good because its too difficult to gain muscle and not gain fat at this bf%) is just trying to maintain 20% bodyfat, lifting a lot of weights and eating a small surplus for muscle growth, but making sure that its just the right amount so that as I gain weight I'm gaining some muscle and fat but I'm not going over that 20% fat overall mark.

The option I agree I dont want is like eating a lot, gaining muscle yeah maybe but also a lot of fat, bulking to 25 or 30% or more bodyfat or something, then cutting to 20%... sure I dont want to do that because I dont ever want to have that much fat, thats just too much for me.

At 20% BF, your p-ratio will be nowhere near optimal and you can probably expect to put on a lot more fat than muscle regardless of how small your surplus is.

I'm probably wasting my time because you've already ignored good advice from several knowledgeable people here, but here is a good link regarding p-ratio and fat gains: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/initial-body-fat-and-body-composition-changes.html

brentfostwood904

AnvilHead wrote: »

brentfostwood904 wrote: »

...And my other option (which some people recommended but other people said isnt good because its too difficult to gain muscle and not gain fat at this bf%) is just trying to maintain 20% bodyfat, lifting a lot of weights and eating a small surplus for muscle growth, but making sure that its just the right amount so that as I gain weight I'm gaining some muscle and fat but I'm not going over that 20% fat overall mark.

The option I agree I dont want is like eating a lot, gaining muscle yeah maybe but also a lot of fat, bulking to 25 or 30% or more bodyfat or something, then cutting to 20%... sure I dont want to do that because I dont ever want to have that much fat, thats just too much for me.

At 20% BF, your p-ratio will be nowhere near optimal and you can probably expect to put on a lot more fat than muscle regardless of how small your surplus is.

I'm probably wasting my time because you've already ignored good advice from several knowledgeable people here, but here is a good link regarding p-ratio and fat gains: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/initial-body-fat-and-body-composition-changes.html

I didnt ignore advice on what I actually asked. I asked what is the most efficient way to go about reaching 115kg at 20% bodyfat when I'm 100kg right now and I'm already near to my ideal bodyfat range. I took advice from anyone who could accept what my actual end goal is and who could advise with that in mind, I didnt accept people telling me that my goal is not to end up at 115kg 20% bf, saying things like "how could this be your ideal?! You should want to be 12% bodyfat!!" because firstly its not even respectful of them, for exaple I dont go onto bodybuilding sites and say "eeewww how could you want to be so big, its so unhealthy, it looks disgusting and its so bad for your heart, how could THIS be your ideal?" I would never be so rude to say that to someone. I dont advise people on here (in this thread) that I think they must stop doing weights, be vegan, and do gentle exercises like walking, yoga and tai chi, to live a long life. If someones goal is to be athletic, quite well built and 10% bodyfat, they arent so healthy in my opinion, any kind of muscle building actually isnt that healthy and people who are more sedintary and just doing gentle exercises probably live longer in the end. So i dont even know where this elitism comes from when I say I want to be between 18-23% bodyfat and people are saying that's wrong and being a bodybuilder is the only right way to be. From too many websites obsessed with the ideal image and cutting and having to have abs I think. Actually people who have say 20% bodyfat probably live longer too compared to people with 10% (who in old age just waste away quickly). Now even if people who were giving advice thought it was so much better to be lower bodyfat for gaining muscle, they could have said "I advise going down to 12%, hovering around 10-15% for a couple of years whilst building muscle, then in the end bulking back up to 20% fat whilst gaining as much more muscle as you can, then hopefully at the end of the bulk having managed to put on enough muscle and being happy at the end of this bulk where youre now 20% fat again". At least that would advise with my end goal in mind. But some people say "no you must stay at 15% bodyfat etc.", they are advising me to change my goal, rather than advising how I can reach my goal, which isnt really advice I want no, not at all.

Also I got different advice. So I cant really be criticised for ignoring advice: Some people advised me to lose weight and eat a calorie deficit. Some people advised me to eat a maintenence amount. Some people advised me to eat a surplus and try to stay at 20%bf whilst gaining weight overall. But the ones advising me to lose weight are also the ones who told me that in the end I shouldnt want to be 20% bodyfat, so I dont know how relevant their advice is to anything.

So far I havent noticed a problem with gaining too much fat, I was gaining strength and muscle whilst I was going from 83kg to 102kg, as well as gaining more fat too. But I seemed to hit more of a wall around 95kg-100kg and its difficult for me to even eat enough to gain more weight now. Because I've been doing so much cardio ive been losing fat and I'm in a slight deficit right now (slowly losing weight), but I have noticed that I get weaker when I lose too much weight despite carrying on with weight lifting 3 days a week, and I get stronger when I get heavier, like even if I just get fatter and not increasing weight in muscle but just in pure fat it seems like my lifts increase.

What Im going to do now is read about the difference between people of low bodyfat say 12%, and people who are say 20% and even higher just for interest say 40%, the difference in how they can gain muscle. I have a feeling that people are just completely overreacting from having been indoctrinated to think that all men have to be ripped, and actually its not so difficult at all to stay at 20% bodyfat whilst building quality muscle. I have been doing fine so far I think. Though I know the earlier years are easiest and I want to be more efficient in the later years of gaining muscle. So I am going to look into it, and if i see that it actually is so much better to be 12% bodyfat for gaining muscle, that at 20% most of my surplus will go to fat and not to muscle despite what exercise and lifting I do and what I eat, if I do see that then I will slowly drop my bf% down to 15%, then in the end bulk back to the desired 20% at the end of having put on enough muscle.

Thank you for links I'm just going to read about this now until I can figure out what the best option is.