curiouser and curiouser. bump fer later

Is it safe to assume a caloric surplus or at least maintenance level cals?

But as with bulking and cutting being more efficient overall than a recomp...

This is the part that interests me the most. I want to try to lean bulk this year (recomp) since being lean is great for long distance running, and that is currently my primary focus. Can you define "efficient" for me in this context? Do you mean faster, easier or something else? Ultimately I would like to gain about 6kg while retaining my current bodyfat percentage.

If bulking and cutting is much more efficient I don't mind trying it within reason. Is there some middle ground I can/should aim for (between a fast bulk and cut and an extremely slow year long attempt at a "lean bulk" with a very small caloric surplus)? Right now I believe I am eating right at my maintenance level but am prepared to up my calorie targets slightly at the beginning of March

Thanks!

I have been discussing the same thing with my wife. My plan was 24 weeks hypertrophy, then 24 weeks of strength. But I have not researched too much yet, I still have a ways to go on this cut before I am comfortable bulking again.

There is no reason you cannot train for both effectively, why not just run 5/31 in conjunction with the bb style assistance like you said, but i'm assuming this was just a hypothetical question.

This is also the basis for Layne Norton's PHAT program. Keep and progress strength adaptations while adding in hypertrophy work. JoeJ did this program with good results and I did a modified version of it when I did a bulk (I couldn't keep up with the volume and recover). I thought it worked very well as I gained reasonable muscle and really pushed my strength up. (squats from 235 to 280 over 3 months) So, I thought this approach was very efficient.

Not an expert by any means but I think hypertrophy helps strength more than strength helping hypertrophy. One of the good rationales for a program that includes both.

You may also just try a periodized workout with strength and hypertrophy, like doing your normal exercise with 3/5/8 then repeat back at 3.

Reguardless, we WAY overthink most decisions we make in the gym. Just keep lifting heavier **** than you did last time...

I think the added strength would give you an advantage in hypertrophy. Being able to squat 225 in the 8-10 range is going to yield greater muscle gains than being able to do 135. That's why all beginners, no matter the goal, should start out on something like SS or SL.

Whether the added mass will give you a strength advantage is a more interesting question. On it's doesn't seem logical to me that taking a year off to focus on bodybuilding is going to give you a strength advantage say, 2 years down the road, over where you would have been had you focused on powerlifting the entire time.

That being said, there's not a whole lot of difference between the BBB version of 5/3/1 and a good bodybuilding routine. A bodybuilding routine would work across various rep ranges to take advantage of all aspects of hypertrophy, and BBB accomplishes that.

When you say "taking a year off to focus on hypertrophy" if you mean having the most aesthetically pleasing physique possible, you're probably going have to some of that assistance work over to working smaller muscle groups. If you mean you just want to "add mass" then I don't think you really need to change anything, just eat more.

Agree with other posters, in addition there is another consideration: are your strength goals related to pure numbers on the board or also at power to weight ratio? If its the latter, then I think it would be difficult to balance the the potential strength benefit of the extra muscle gained against the extra bodyweight... Like say in 12 months you could put on 20lb of muscle through focussing on BB training. Would it be valuable enough to compensate for the extra 150lb you'd need to add to your total because you'd be up a weight div (or 2)?

See that's just it... right now I can deadlift ~2.5x body weight. Now let's say I add 20 lbs of muscle... Maybe that means I would be able to add 2.5 * 20 lbs to my deadlift relatively quickly after that?

That's a big maybe:) I don't know if you'd ever really know. The other variable is that you'd have no idea how much your strength would have increased anyway during that time... maybe you would have added that 50lb to your DL without the gain in BW, meaning you would be lifting like 2.8x body weight... It's an interesting notion though!