Is this a solid plan?

dill_milk

I got a 4 month summer gym membership and thinking of making the most of it so I came up with this bulk/cut cycle:

198 starting weight
190 (lose 8 pounds fat) - 1 month cut
196 (gain 3 pounds muscle / 3 pounds fat) - 3 month bulk

Total change: -5lbs fat +3pounds muscle

Is this realistic? I won't neccessarily be lean after the cut, but I would be at an acceptable bf%. If it goes well, I could repeat the cycle a few more times, getting leaner and more muscular every time. 1 year would be three cycles, or -15lbs bf and +12lbs muscle. That would be quite an improvement I would think.

jessef593

It depends on your current bf%. If it's too high you don't notice a thing even after gaining that mild amount of muscle. Which how large your deficit is going to be I'll have to assume your bf is relatively high.

jdholland5508

I think in theory that is a great idea. Are you new to training? If you are you will respond much better to training and might not even have to do the bulk/cut cycle. You could just eat at maintenance and recomp your body. If you have been training for 1.5+ years this is usually the recommended strategy but putting on 12lbs muscle in a year is almost impossible if you are not new. I would say cut to a point that you feel happy with and then slowly bulk up like 1-2lbs a month till you feel a little fluffier than you want then start a cut again. Putting arbitrary timelines on it might not be the way to go.

dill_milk

jdholland5508 wrote: »

I think in theory that is a great idea. Are you new to training? If you are you will respond much better to training and might not even have to do the bulk/cut cycle. You could just eat at maintenance and recomp your body. If you have been training for 1.5+ years this is usually the recommended strategy but putting on 12lbs muscle in a year is almost impossible if you are not new. I would say cut to a point that you feel happy with and then slowly bulk up like 1-2lbs a month till you feel a little fluffier than you want then start a cut again. Putting arbitrary timelines on it might not be the way to go.

I've been lifting inconsistently for 2 years now and have bulked and cut twice but each time my eating outpaced my training and I ended up with more fat than muscle and had to cut for longer than I would have liked. I think doing it in short cycles like this would help me stay more motivated and consistent and keep the cut periods nice and brief. My bf% is somewhere between 15-20% and I'm pretty sure I still have a lot of muscle to gain.

Chieflrg

dill_milk wrote: »

I got a 4 month summer gym membership and thinking of making the most of it so I came up with this bulk/cut cycle:

198 starting weight
190 (lose 8 pounds fat) - 1 month cut
196 (gain 3 pounds muscle / 3 pounds fat) - 3 month bulk

Total change: -5lbs fat +3pounds muscle

Is this realistic? I won't neccessarily be lean after the cut, but I would be at an acceptable bf%. If it goes well, I could repeat the cycle a few more times, getting leaner and more muscular every time. 1 year would be three cycles, or -15lbs bf and +12lbs muscle. That would be quite an improvement I would think.

Not realistic in thinking you will lose 8lbs of only fat. Especially at your weight and time frame to lose that amount.

Without knowing your programming and how you respond, your leucine & protien demands, your age, height, how male you are, etc. It would be difficult to speculate how well you develop muscles with the info we know.

You could do a few three months bulk of course. Would I recommendit? Not necessarily.