Getting muscular without adding calories

The thing is, when you stress your muscles with heavy loads, you actually injure them by tearing them and then when rested, they heal back bigger than they were like if you break a bone and it grows more bone over to help protect. Isn't that correct? So if we are talking about the body healing itself and how it goes about doing that, one would think you could indeed build muscle at or around the same calories by constantly working that muscle - tear, heal, tear heal.

Then why do competitors bulk if this is true? Why go through hard dieting to dial in for a competition, if adding muscle this way worked?

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Because professionals need to add incredible bulk and slabs of muscle. Obviously you need to eat far more to add weight and size to your frame. When they cut, they lose a lot of weight quickly and get to a body fat percentage that is not maintainable. Obviously you would lose muscle with such extreme dieting and in such a short period of time for an extended period of time. And let's not forget therebis fat on muscle, so when you lose fat, obviously you would look and be smaller. But I know for fact ii lost weight while adding muscle where there used to be flab. If you take an untrained overweight person with no muscle and train him hard with weights and lean him out at a slow rate, I still find it hard to believe he can't gain muscle. The premise most people are giving is that when someone loses weight you see muscle that was already there and that just seems ridiculous to me. It takes hard work to build muscle. Fat untrained people don't have all kinds of muscle just sitting there waiting to be seen

I completely disagree with that. if you've been over weight your entire life you've built muscle in order to move around that extra weight. you see it all the time on the extream weight loss tv shows.

there was a 19 yearold base ball phenom who certainly didn't workout a day in his life, he picked up the trainer and threw him around like a rag doll when they first met.

You are talking about strength, not muscle mass. The strongest guy I ever saw in a fight was 170 lbs with skinny little arms. He could throw much larger guys around but couldn't bench 130 lbs. strength and muscular development are two different things. That's why bodybuilders and strong men look different.

true, true. But i think your other post was more to the point.

you'll get very close to your full genetic potential in the first few years of lifting... maybe not because you progress so quickly but because you naturally develop close to your potential anyway, and the few years gets you that much closer to the max

i think most, not all but most, men would be very happy with how muscular they are if they maintained close to thier current level of muscle mass and dropped the fat.

Another good article on the subject

http://www.muscleandfitness.com/workouts/workout-routines/best-body-recomposition-workout

Good articles - thanks for posting. I think a lot of people on MFP confuse "losing weight" with "losing fat". It's true that you can't gain weight on a caloric deficit -- that would violate the First Law of Thermodynamics (excluding the gain of water weight). However, you can lose fat and simultaneously gain muscle while on a caloric deficit -- but the mass of fat loss will exceed that of LBM gain...

So I was involved in a recent discussion where everyone said you can't get muscular unless you add calories, so I thought I'd throw it out to the community to get your thoughts. Here are some questions.

1. If I am overweight, untrained and really have no muscularity and I currently eat 4000 calories a day, if I cut my calories to 3000 a day and weight train hard, it is impossible for me to gain muscle?

2 If I am a 180 pound man, and keep around my normal calories or even slightly under my calories and I train hard, it is impossible for me to gain any new muscle?

I'm really curious about this topic and looking forward to the responses from those of you who are knowledgeable on this topic. When I pointed out that I had lost weight and built muscle, I was told the muscle I had just showed more as I lost weight. The thing is, I didn't really have any muscle. And if that's true, how did I go from a 36" waist to a 32" while adding more than an inch to my arms? How did my pants get loose, while my shirts got tighter in the chest and arms?

Looking forward to your comments.

I almost feel like you cut and pasted some of my comments on earlier threads.

I lost 20ish lbs doing a bunch of cardio/high rep low weight stuff at 1350cals, and then started doing 5x5 and slowly eating more (1500, 1700, 1800, 2000, and now 2500) over the next 6 months. During that time I lost another 5 lbs over the first 2 months and then just settled in to 190. At 218 my arms were 12.25". Before i started lifting they were 11". Now they are at 12.5"...and folks keep telling me it is just definition from fat loss (Umm...huh?)...or water (That is a lot of water to be holding for 6 months)...or "newbie gains" (Gains of what they can't say because then it would have to be muscle, which they swear can't ever ever happen if I am not eating at a surplus).
Meanwhile I am needing to buy new pants because the old ones don't stay up any more, and I don't want to look like one of those saggy bottom boys.
And having spent the last month wearing tights at a Ren Faire, and had lots of women I don't know compliment my butt and legs...I think this working out with heavy weights thing is working for me.

Unsure where you are getting your info from but bodybuilders definitely DON'T try and lose weight quickly. It's a pretty well known fact that lean people with large deficits don't retain LBM very well hence slow cutting is the norm.

This is supported by scientific research. I posted this earlier in the thread, by I'll repost it, since it speaks to the low-deficit / high-deficit issue:

---

This study, published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2011, studied two groups of subjects on hypocaloric diets: one on a slow-reduction (SR) diet and the other on a fast-reduction (FR) diet. Both groups performed heavy-lifting strength training during the study. They found that the slow-reduction group both gained lean body mass and performed better on strength and power tests.

"The aim of this study was to compare the effects of 5–6%
BW loss at slow rates (SR) and fast rates (FR) on changes in body com-
position and strength- and power-related performance in
elite athletes. We hypothesized that the faster weight loss
would result in more detrimental effects on both LBM
and performance. Surprisingly, LBM increased by 2.1% ±
0.4% in SR, accompanied with improved performance in
CMJ and all the 1RM parameters, whereas there was no
significant change in LBM or improvements in strength-
and power-related performance, except 1RM squat, in
FR. Total LBM increased more in SR than in FR, with
weekly gains in LBM of 0.3% ± 0.0% and 0.0% ± 0.1%
(p = .02) for SR and FR, respectively. Consequently, the
slower weight-loss intervention had more positive effects
on LBM and performance than the faster weight-loss
intervention
...
athletes who want
to gain LBM and increase strength- and power-related
performance during a weight-loss period combined with
strength training should aim for a weekly weight loss of
0.7% of BW, whereas athletes who only want to keep
LBM might increase their weekly weight-loss rate to
1.0–1.4% of BW"

http://bit.ly/1oll53w (link is a pdf)

Interesting. However, I think the difference is the type of athlete and their expertise. In the study above, the people were athletes who compete in non strength sports for the most part and also did some resistance training. (3hrs/week on average it seems) Starting BF% at 16-17% for guys and 29% for girls. Not exactly lean IMO. The possibility of losing LBM while dieting is much higher for leaner individuals.

Then there is this

Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation.

Helms ER1, Aragon AA2, Fitschen PJ3.



Author information





Abstract

The popularity of natural bodybuilding is increasing; however, evidence-based recommendations for it are lacking. This paper reviewed the scientific literature relevant to competition preparation on nutrition and supplementation, resulting in the following recommendations. Caloric intake should be set at a level that results in bodyweight losses of approximately 0.5 to 1%/wk to maximize muscle retention. Within this caloric intake, most but not all bodybuilders will respond best to consuming 2.3-3.1 g/kg of lean body mass per day of protein, 15-30% of calories from fat, and the reminder of calories from carbohydrate. Eating three to six meals per day with a meal containing 0.4-0.5 g/kg bodyweight of protein prior and subsequent to resistance training likely maximizes any theoretical benefits of nutrient timing and frequency. However, alterations in nutrient timing and frequency appear to have little effect on fat loss or lean mass retention. Among popular supplements, creatine monohydrate, caffeine and beta-alanine appear to have beneficial effects relevant to contest preparation, however others do not or warrant further study. The practice of dehydration and electrolyte manipulation in the final days and hours prior to competition can be dangerous, and may not improve appearance. Increasing carbohydrate intake at the end of preparation has a theoretical rationale to improve appearance, however it is understudied. Thus, if carbohydrate loading is pursued it should be practiced prior to competition and its benefit assessed individually. Finally, competitors should be aware of the increased risk of developing eating and body image disorders in aesthetic sport and therefore should have access to the appropriate mental health professionals.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24864135

Notice they make no mention of gaining LBM during a dieting phase. As bodybuilders are the leanest sport, they are most likely to lose LBM while dieting. If it was easy to gain LBM while dieting (naturally) I think people would do that.

So the difference is context really. Overweight noobs can gain "some" LBM while dieting, not indefinitely. Leaner individuals with training experience

are not likely to have the same result during a dieting phase with adequate resistance training.

Notice they make no mention of gaining LBM during a dieting phase. As bodybuilders are the leanest sport, they are most likely to lose LBM while dieting.

Not sure that's supported by evidence -- just because the study made "no mention" of gaining LBM doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and the study I cited does make mention of LBM gains in a caloric deficit, so I'm going to go with that unless presented with something definitive to the contrary.

But to your point about bodybuilders, yeah, I would agree that people who have almost no body fat to lose would have to lose LBM. It stands to reason that if the body has no adequate reserve of fat to oxidize for energy, it is going to resort to gluconeogenesis. However, most of the people who are interested in this aren't in the 2-3% BF range to begin with - not on MFP.