How to Ensure a Successful Lean Bulk
Replies
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To weigh in, I have been following PHUL for a year now. As I expected I have no real muscle gains due to my fear of gaining weight. I want to be more muscular but I just cannot get over the fact that I fear the fat.
I am trying a new program on this current program that was passed along to me by a power lifting trainer. It incorporates all the big lifts with heavy days and progressive overload built into it.
Again as everyone has alluded to, my biggest concern is the weight gain. I just do not want to look fat even after a clean bulk. I would rather be skinny for the rest of my life than look out of shape. BUT over anything I want to have more muscle and just cannot get over the fear.
I think most settling is hearing that even at the end of my bulk, if run at an appropriate surplus, I will never look out of shape or chubby. Is this true tho?
It really depends on your idea of out of shape and how/where you gain fat. You will probably have to get at least a little uncomfortable .. but I find that is when the magic happens. Maybe some males can post some before and post-bulk photos to give you an idea? But in the end saying you would rather look skinny forever than temporarily out of shape, that will hold you back. I would try to work on that mentality if you truly want to make progress.
As someone in medicine, I just can’t get on board with making myself fat just to build some muscle. Now gaining fat (which I see as different from getting fat) is ok with me. Just as long as people never say “gee ______ is getting fat what is he doing to himself?”
But you are doing this for your own reasons. Who cares what others think or say.1 -
To weigh in, I have been following PHUL for a year now. As I expected I have no real muscle gains due to my fear of gaining weight. I want to be more muscular but I just cannot get over the fact that I fear the fat.
I am trying a new program on this current program that was passed along to me by a power lifting trainer. It incorporates all the big lifts with heavy days and progressive overload built into it.
Again as everyone has alluded to, my biggest concern is the weight gain. I just do not want to look fat even after a clean bulk. I would rather be skinny for the rest of my life than look out of shape. BUT over anything I want to have more muscle and just cannot get over the fear.
I think most settling is hearing that even at the end of my bulk, if run at an appropriate surplus, I will never look out of shape or chubby. Is this true tho?
It really depends on your idea of out of shape and how/where you gain fat. You will probably have to get at least a little uncomfortable .. but I find that is when the magic happens. Maybe some males can post some before and post-bulk photos to give you an idea? But in the end saying you would rather look skinny forever than temporarily out of shape, that will hold you back. I would try to work on that mentality if you truly want to make progress.
As someone in medicine, I just can’t get on board with making myself fat just to build some muscle. Now gaining fat (which I see as different from getting fat) is ok with me. Just as long as people never say “gee ______ is getting fat what is he doing to himself?”
But you are doing this for your own reasons. Who cares what others think or say.
I care because I also am a young single guy and would prefer to not look unattractive to the opposite sex. I think my physique looks good as is but it could be better and frankly I hate being a man at 5’7 and 133-138 (many women are this size)0 -
well - you're not "making yourself fat" like as in oh look I was skinny and now i'm a whale. You're not making yourself obese or super fat, but you WILL put on SOME weight.
My "fat" at the moment is fat FOR ME. I'm still a lot thinner than many people my age. I'm still within the recommended guidelines for fatness.
YOu won't turn into a whale, you will gain SOME fat as well as muscle, if you bulk.
BUt it doesn't really sound like you really want to bulk after all?
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Cahgetsfit wrote: »well - you're not "making yourself fat" like as in oh look I was skinny and now i'm a whale. You're not making yourself obese or super fat, but you WILL put on SOME weight.
My "fat" at the moment is fat FOR ME. I'm still a lot thinner than many people my age. I'm still within the recommended guidelines for fatness.
YOu won't turn into a whale, you will gain SOME fat as well as muscle, if you bulk.
BUt it doesn't really sound like you really want to bulk after all?
Take steroids then. You can probably get good stuff being a someone in medicine and all. You will still gain some fat along with the muscles, but at least you'll get much more bang for your buck in muscles than doing it naturally.
Just saying.
Haha. Yeah but the side effects of testosterone are tremendous.
I see your point. I know I want to bulk and get bigger cause I’ve been complaining about it for years. I just don’t know how to tell myself I’m not getting fat even if I know I’m gaining weight (which is necessarily both fat and muscle)0 -
if you do it in a controlled environment and in an educated fashion, it's not GREAT for you, but can be effective and relatively safe. Do some research. Keep an eye on your stats like blood pressure etc. Don't go overboard on dosage. Use for a short cycle only. There is more out there than just plain old test to inject. Look into oral anabolics (Google will help you there). Don't just jump in to DBol or anything like that straight up.
Or just embrace the fluff temporarily. Do it in winter so that you're covered anyway. Let the ladies wait until you cut again!2 -
all your testosterone comes from you legs
I have not heard this before---no reason to doubt it, but I had no idea that working legs would increase testosterone production.
Here you go buddy... https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/testosterone-advantage-training3 -
There is no reason why you can't add muscle without gaining little to no fat. you've just got to be sensible about your calories and macros, it's really about experimenting until you find your sweet spot. Something else to take note of... The fatter you become the less muscle you will build. In other words keep your body fat low and you'll produce more muscle. For gents it's keeping your body fat around 12% and women around 20% if you go over this you'll be better off cutting for a while before trying to eat a bit more.
Bulking is just outdated information and it just really isn't good for you to do it. Remember every time you add a lot of weight it gets harder to lose it. Your body doesn't care about how good you look. It just cares about your survival, if you are going through a period of low calories your brain will start slowing things down and as soon as you increase calories your body will want to hold onto any and all calories you don't use and hold it in the form of fat.10 -
lukejoycePT wrote: »There is no reason why you can't add muscle without gaining little to no fat. you've just got to be sensible about your calories and macros, it's really about experimenting until you find your sweet spot. Something else to take note of... The fatter you become the less muscle you will build. In other words keep your body fat low and you'll produce more muscle. For gents it's keeping your body fat around 12% and women around 20% if you go over this you'll be better off cutting for a while before trying to eat a bit more.
Bulking is just outdated information and it just really isn't good for you to do it. Remember every time you add a lot of weight it gets harder to lose it. Your body doesn't care about how good you look. It just cares about your survival, if you are going through a period of low calories your brain will start slowing things down and as soon as you increase calories your body will want to hold onto any and all calories you don't use and hold it in the form of fat.
What would you call putting on weight to gain muscle if not bulking? Do you use another term for it? I am not suggesting OP gains a ton of weight and let his bodyfat get out of control but he needs to gain to see progress at this point due to his stats.
Also I personally have no issues losing weight after gaining, no metabolic issues or gaining fat when I increase calories. Do things properly and you won't have these issues.8 -
lukejoycePT wrote: »There is no reason why you can't add muscle without gaining little to no fat. you've just got to be sensible about your calories and macros, it's really about experimenting until you find your sweet spot. Something else to take note of... The fatter you become the less muscle you will build. In other words keep your body fat low and you'll produce more muscle. For gents it's keeping your body fat around 12% and women around 20% if you go over this you'll be better off cutting for a while before trying to eat a bit more.
Bulking is just outdated information and it just really isn't good for you to do it. Remember every time you add a lot of weight it gets harder to lose it. Your body doesn't care about how good you look. It just cares about your survival, if you are going through a period of low calories your brain will start slowing things down and as soon as you increase calories your body will want to hold onto any and all calories you don't use and hold it in the form of fat.
Brian Shaw might have something to say about that.5 -
lukejoycePT wrote: »all your testosterone comes from you legs
I have not heard this before---no reason to doubt it, but I had no idea that working legs would increase testosterone production.
Here you go buddy... https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/testosterone-advantage-training
That is just an article. A T-nation article is not a credible proof source. Do you have something in the way of peer reviewed studies or meta analyses to back up this assertion?8 -
lukejoycePT wrote: »all your testosterone comes from you legs
I have not heard this before---no reason to doubt it, but I had no idea that working legs would increase testosterone production.
Here you go buddy... https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/testosterone-advantage-training
That is just an article. A T-nation article is not a credible proof source. Do you have something in the way of peer reviewed studies or meta analyses to back up this assertion?
This is interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058750
From the article:
The acute endocrine response to a bout of heavy resistance exercise generally includes increased secretion of various catabolic (breakdown-related) and anabolic (growth-related) hormones including testosterone. The response of testosterone and AR to resistance exercise is largely determined by upper regulatory elements including the acute exercise programme variable domains, sex and age. In general, testosterone concentration is elevated directly following heavy resistance exercise in men
Doesn't specifically say legs, but since the/legs/glutes have the most muscle mass of the body most people can have a more physically taxing workout doing compound exercises that involve these muscle groups, but a physically demanding resistance workout involving any bodypart would have the effect of raising T.3 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »lukejoycePT wrote: »all your testosterone comes from you legs
I have not heard this before---no reason to doubt it, but I had no idea that working legs would increase testosterone production.
Here you go buddy... https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/testosterone-advantage-training
That is just an article. A T-nation article is not a credible proof source. Do you have something in the way of peer reviewed studies or meta analyses to back up this assertion?
This is interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058750
From the article:
The acute endocrine response to a bout of heavy resistance exercise generally includes increased secretion of various catabolic (breakdown-related) and anabolic (growth-related) hormones including testosterone. The response of testosterone and AR to resistance exercise is largely determined by upper regulatory elements including the acute exercise programme variable domains, sex and age. In general, testosterone concentration is elevated directly following heavy resistance exercise in men
Doesn't specifically say legs, but since the/legs/glutes have the most muscle mass of the body most people can have a more physically taxing workout doing compound exercises that involve these muscle groups, but a physically demanding resistance workout involving any bodypart would have the effect of raising T.
Yes, I think it is pretty well established science that T levels increase with resistance training. I've also read some info that the anabolic effect of this is fairly transient. But I'm specifically looking for a proof source that supports the assertion:Plus all your testosterone comes from you legs so you would want to work those as much as possible.
I get that the legs are larger muscles. But the assertion above is questionable and a T-nation article that refers to a study of 9 subjects hardly is a convincing case. It would be interesting if the assertion were true.2 -
An interesting meta analysis on the effects of weight training on hormones. Says nothing about all the testosterone coming from the legs. Only references that larger muscles will produce a larger effect but that all muscles worked help increase T.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293581734_THE_EFFECT_OF_STRENGTH_TRAINING_ON_THE_TESTOSTERONE_LEVEL_IN_MEN_Corespondence_to
An interesting excerpt from the conclusions:Different methods of strength training make a different impact on the level of TE in men, and among them the method of submaximal effort to failure manifests the strongest effects, and it is reasonably characterized as the method for muscle hypertrophy
In the body of the study they define submaximal effort as 75% of max for 8 to 12 reps. So, not the "heavy" lifting typical in strength oriented programs. Interesting!3 -
I think the longer that you strength train, eat well, and establish a healthy lifestyle the more confident in bulking and cutting you will get. After you've proven you can bulk and cut you'll feel like "I got this". So, the sooner you get started the sooner you will either succeed or fail.... might as well get started!
I'm a big fan of the squat and deadlift. Nothing feels better than watching these lifts go up!2 -
As a tall, skinny guy my fear is the opposite... I fear I'll return to the weakling that I always was.0
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »lukejoycePT wrote: »all your testosterone comes from you legs
I have not heard this before---no reason to doubt it, but I had no idea that working legs would increase testosterone production.
Here you go buddy... https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/testosterone-advantage-training
That is just an article. A T-nation article is not a credible proof source. Do you have something in the way of peer reviewed studies or meta analyses to back up this assertion?
This is interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058750
From the article:
The acute endocrine response to a bout of heavy resistance exercise generally includes increased secretion of various catabolic (breakdown-related) and anabolic (growth-related) hormones including testosterone. The response of testosterone and AR to resistance exercise is largely determined by upper regulatory elements including the acute exercise programme variable domains, sex and age. In general, testosterone concentration is elevated directly following heavy resistance exercise in men
Doesn't specifically say legs, but since the/legs/glutes have the most muscle mass of the body most people can have a more physically taxing workout doing compound exercises that involve these muscle groups, but a physically demanding resistance workout involving any bodypart would have the effect of raising T
Exactly! But because the legs are such a big muscle mass in the body, working these will produce much more growth hormone and a full body growth response than say a tricep dip.
Performing deadlifts, back/front squats you work everything anyway. You could literally just do these exercises day in day out in a simple strength cycle and look incredible and balanced physically
People place bench press in with these compounds but realistically it’s not a compound. I’d opt for push press or military press instead.
I was literally posting that T nation article for the guy above to give him a little insight into it. He didn’t seem to require scientific documents on the studies just more clarity but the data is out there if you search for it.
People believe what they want to believe, if it suits what they enjoy then they will probably adopt it into their training.
If they don’t enjoy it they will claim you don’t need it or avoid it all together. I know plenty of guys who wont squat or deadlift because it’s too much work. You can probably guess what kind of results they get.
8 -
billkansas wrote: »As a tall, skinny guy my fear is the opposite... I fear I'll return to the weakling that I always was.
The only people who are weak are the ones who never try at all.4 -
lukejoycePT wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »lukejoycePT wrote: »all your testosterone comes from you legs
I have not heard this before---no reason to doubt it, but I had no idea that working legs would increase testosterone production.
Here you go buddy... https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/testosterone-advantage-training
That is just an article. A T-nation article is not a credible proof source. Do you have something in the way of peer reviewed studies or meta analyses to back up this assertion?
This is interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058750
From the article:
The acute endocrine response to a bout of heavy resistance exercise generally includes increased secretion of various catabolic (breakdown-related) and anabolic (growth-related) hormones including testosterone. The response of testosterone and AR to resistance exercise is largely determined by upper regulatory elements including the acute exercise programme variable domains, sex and age. In general, testosterone concentration is elevated directly following heavy resistance exercise in men
Doesn't specifically say legs, but since the/legs/glutes have the most muscle mass of the body most people can have a more physically taxing workout doing compound exercises that involve these muscle groups, but a physically demanding resistance workout involving any bodypart would have the effect of raising T.
Yes, I think it is pretty well established science that T levels increase with resistance training. I've also read some info that the anabolic effect of this is fairly transient. But I'm specifically looking for a proof source that supports the assertion:Plus all your testosterone comes from you legs so you would want to work those as much as possible.
I get that the legs are larger muscles. But the assertion above is questionable and a T-nation article that refers to a study of 9 subjects hardly is a convincing case. It would be interesting if the assertion were true.
Dude, you have google. I don’t have time to go find all the knowledge for you, especially after you insulted me in an earlier post.
If you wanna learn about this stuff go look for it. I would probably start will any peer reviewed studies on stimulating muscle growth first though as you need to brush up on that first.
Yes, well, I've done the research as you can see from the meta analysis I posted above. None of what I've read says anything remotely like "all your testosterone comes from your legs" as you stated.5 -
lukejoycePT wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »lukejoycePT wrote: »all your testosterone comes from you legs
I have not heard this before---no reason to doubt it, but I had no idea that working legs would increase testosterone production.
Here you go buddy... https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/testosterone-advantage-training
That is just an article. A T-nation article is not a credible proof source. Do you have something in the way of peer reviewed studies or meta analyses to back up this assertion?
This is interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058750
From the article:
The acute endocrine response to a bout of heavy resistance exercise generally includes increased secretion of various catabolic (breakdown-related) and anabolic (growth-related) hormones including testosterone. The response of testosterone and AR to resistance exercise is largely determined by upper regulatory elements including the acute exercise programme variable domains, sex and age. In general, testosterone concentration is elevated directly following heavy resistance exercise in men
Doesn't specifically say legs, but since the/legs/glutes have the most muscle mass of the body most people can have a more physically taxing workout doing compound exercises that involve these muscle groups, but a physically demanding resistance workout involving any bodypart would have the effect of raising T.
Yes, I think it is pretty well established science that T levels increase with resistance training. I've also read some info that the anabolic effect of this is fairly transient. But I'm specifically looking for a proof source that supports the assertion:Plus all your testosterone comes from you legs so you would want to work those as much as possible.
I get that the legs are larger muscles. But the assertion above is questionable and a T-nation article that refers to a study of 9 subjects hardly is a convincing case. It would be interesting if the assertion were true.
Dude, you have google. I don’t have time to go find all the knowledge for you, especially after you insulted me in an earlier post.
If you wanna learn about this stuff go look for it. I would probably start will any peer reviewed studies on stimulating muscle growth first though as you need to brush up on that first.
He already posted info to back his assertions. You haven't.8 -
An interesting meta analysis on the effects of weight training on hormones. Says nothing about all the testosterone coming from the legs. Only references that larger muscles will produce a larger effect but that all muscles worked help increase T.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293581734_THE_EFFECT_OF_STRENGTH_TRAINING_ON_THE_TESTOSTERONE_LEVEL_IN_MEN_Corespondence_to
An interesting excerpt from the conclusions:Different methods of strength training make a different impact on the level of TE in men, and among them the method of submaximal effort to failure manifests the strongest effects, and it is reasonably characterized as the method for muscle hypertrophy
In the body of the study they define submaximal effort as 75% of max for 8 to 12 reps. So, not the "heavy" lifting typical in strength oriented programs. Interesting!
You do realise back squat will be performed in strength cycles. You can’t do maximum effort all the time. You will not see increases and you will burn out your CNS.
For example
Squat:
5 x 5 each session till you plateau
Next session: Test 8 rep max
Following week: Test 5 rep max
Then: Test 3 rep max
Then: Test 1 rep max
Start 4 X 8 at 75% of 8RM each session untill you plateau
Test 8 rep max
Test 5 rep max
Test 3 rep max
Test 1 rep max
And so.
A program like above is the kind of thing you’d look at for strength.
You won’t see the kind of gains you want with doing high reps/low weight. Unless you are doing roids. You could lift a water bottle and see results on steriods
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