Is Recomp a one time thing?

boymom121

Can you recomp more than once?

I was at a point for the past few years where I dropped some pounds and then was maintaining and working out and I made some progress building muscle. What I concluded was Recomping. And now since 12/2018 I started eating in a surplus because from what I was reading if I wanted to gain more muscle I’d need to surplus for a while. So I’ve been in a surplus for about 6 mos going over my cals 500 sometimes a tad more. I feel like I’ve gained strength in the gym and some new muscle tone showing up but idk if it’s just the mind game of gaining a little fat during a surplus that’s getting to me. Kinda soft in my tummy right now.

Stats:
Female, 32
Starting weight Dec 125lb
Current weight right now: 131.5
Workout: I changed my workouts from going 3 times a day splitting up groups to now doing a PHUL type 4 days a week to start training upper and lower twice a week instead of once like my other workout was having me do.

Just trying to figure out where to go from here. Fitness is hard sometimes because of the fact you have to try it for a few mos and hope you go in the right direction.

From similar experiences you may have had where do you think I should go from here? Keep in my surplus and PHUL or is it possible to recomp again or is that just for newbies?

In a surplus it’s expected to gain a little fat right, it mostly wants to go to my stomach. Whoopee. Lol

Not the best lighting for the pic but I took a quick one just now to show comparison. I can’t tell if I’m losing progress or not. Thanks in advance.

Rammer123

Simply put, no recomping is not a one time thing. The reason it may seem that way for some people is that the progress will continue to slow as the progress you make in muscle gain inevitably slows. For most people, it is generally less fun and less motivating to gain 0.25lbs of muscle and lose 0.25 pounds of fat a month. You likely will not see the effects but they are there if you are training appropriately and eating to sustain your body.

Personally I prefer to eat a little more in the winter time with holidays, colder weather, less day light, and then in the spring time, I go on a slight not too aggressive 6-10 week cut to feel good in the summer with the warmer weather and longer days.

Depends on what type of person you are. It's tough to be patient and stick it out just training hard and eating at maintenance. Most people (me included) are impatient and like to see changes quickly. I would advise against drastic changes in your body weight from different parts of the year and bulking and cutting requires you to be able to cut slowly, otherwise you will likely be spinning your wheels if you are cuttting too aggressively in the cutting phases. I would stick in the 5-8% percent change in body weight between peak bulking weight and low cutting weight.

steveko89

A 500 cal surplus is a little much for a lean bulk, IMO. In my experience recomp has been more of an on-going, continuous improve type thing, mostly because I'm really back at cutting in the traditional sense.

Since I started lifting in 2015 I've stayed in the 170s for almost the entire time and gone from 18+ %bf to ~12%, if the metrics are to be believed. I'm undoubtedly stronger and bigger in the right places, while maintaining the same waist size. Conceptually, I really like the PHUL style and think it's advantageous to work across a wide rep range, though I find that I'm too much of a bro and will skip leg days too often so full-body 3x/week is still better for me personally.

sijomial

"Is Recomp a one time thing?"

No - it's just your body's normal reaction to effective training.