Getting muscular without adding calories

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  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,220 Member
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    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.

    The study you posted was conducted using athletes from football, volleyball, cross-country skiing, judo, waterskiing, motocross, cycling, track and field, rifle shooting, freestyle dancing and ice hockey to name a few. I'm sure most, if not all of them, would have benefitted from adding strength training 3x per week. I'm sure they each had some muscle as necessary for their sport, but I'm sure they would have experienced new lifter gains.
  • chrisdavey
    chrisdavey Posts: 9,834 Member
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    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.

    Are you implying that lean people trying to get leaner can gain LBM if they were to stick to the .7% BW loss stated in the study above?
    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.

    Really?

    I know a lot of bodybuilders who use this site. They are typically not on the forums.

    Once again, the answer seems to be context dependent.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    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.

    That has been my point all along. We were never talking about body builders adding slabs of muscle while cutting. We are talking about untrained overweight people or at least with significant body fat to lose.

    Consider that Arnold was basically the same size for most of a decade. Jay Cutler too. Stallone has been basically the same size for 30 years. And those guys are jacked up on anabolics. At some point, you will stop gaining mass. New research suggests this is due to myostatin, which supposedly works to keep humans from getting super muscular, so now they are marketing an egg yolk lining supplement they claim limits myostatin lol.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    I have a question. There is really no perfect way to determine lean body mass right? And one factor people don't discuss is the fat around and within the muscles. If I take a fat guy who has been working out and lean him down, his arms and chest will obviously look smaller since there is less fat in and around his muscles. No one ever addresses this. Does smaller size necessarily mean less muscle? I see fat guys all the time with huge arms but you can't see one bit of definition. Its not all muscle. It's half muscle and half fat.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    Additionally, by this reasoning, Stallone must have been more muscular in Rocky than he was in Rocky 3, since he was much smaller in Rocky 3 and despite the fact that he didn't train back when he made Rocky.
  • jjplato
    jjplato Posts: 155 Member
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    That has been my point all along. We were never talking about body builders adding slabs of muscle while cutting. We are talking about untrained overweight people or at least with significant body fat to lose.

    Exactly. You can always point to the corner case and say, "Well, it doesn't apply to the guy with 2% body fat." Of course it doesn't. Almost nothing that would apply to everyday people would apply to bodybuilders when it comes to body composition.
  • jjplato
    jjplato Posts: 155 Member
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    I know a lot of bodybuilders who use this site. They are typically not on the forums.

    My point exactly. Bodybuilders generally aren't the ones looking for body composition advice on the MFP forums. So for the guy who has 15-20% BF and wants to know if he can lose BF while gaining LBM, the answer isn't necessarily, "No, you have to bulk then cut. It's impossible to gain LBM while in a caloric deficit."
  • UseKnowledge
    UseKnowledge Posts: 13
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    Huh? You can't gain muscle while eating at a deficit? I have, unless there's some hard mass growing on my body.
  • LifterDave
    LifterDave Posts: 112 Member
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    OP, This is a very interesting thread but after reading this in your profile:

    About Me:
    Investor and certified personal trainer with an admittedly old school diet and training philosophy

    I am pretty sure you know the answer to your question already, but I do appreciate the dialogue this has created. I have a question for you though. In your profile picture you appear pretty ripped and those traps are freakishly huge. Have you been the king of shrugs and pulling movements or are they enhanced by Synthol? I am not trying to pass judgment one way or the other, I was just curious. Those traps look huge compared to the rest of you. Maybe it is just the camera angle. I mean no offense with my question.
  • jmangini
    jmangini Posts: 166 Member
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    OP, This is a very interesting thread but after reading this in your profile:

    About Me:
    Investor and certified personal trainer with an admittedly old school diet and training philosophy

    I am pretty sure you know the answer to your question already, but I do appreciate the dialogue this has created. I have a question for you though. In your profile picture you appear pretty ripped and those traps are freakishly huge. Have you been the king of shrugs and pulling movements or are they enhanced by Synthol? I am not trying to pass judgment one way or the other, I was just curious. Those traps look huge compared to the rest of you. Maybe it is just the camera angle. I mean no offense with my question.

    Honestly, it's the flexing i did in that pic. If you look at my other pics, you'll see I'm pretty symmetrical. That pic is fully flexed. Believe me, I don't look like that standing still. My traps are pretty developed and I do work them hard with shrugs. I mix it up sometimes barbell shrugs, sometimes dumbbells, sometimes roll the shoulders with lighter weight, sometimes heavy weight with less movement. Some times front shrugs and sometimes side shrugs. And every so often I add rope pull-ups. I do a lot of standing military presses, lateral raises and Jesus' which I think help too.

    And no I'm not injecting anything. All natural here other than a lot of amino acids and supplements.
  • LifterDave
    LifterDave Posts: 112 Member
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    OP, This is a very interesting thread but after reading this in your profile:

    About Me:
    Investor and certified personal trainer with an admittedly old school diet and training philosophy

    I am pretty sure you know the answer to your question already, but I do appreciate the dialogue this has created. I have a question for you though. In your profile picture you appear pretty ripped and those traps are freakishly huge. Have you been the king of shrugs and pulling movements or are they enhanced by Synthol? I am not trying to pass judgment one way or the other, I was just curious. Those traps look huge compared to the rest of you. Maybe it is just the camera angle. I mean no offense with my question.
    I apologize, I should have looked at the other pictures first before commenting as you are more normal looking in them. But those flexed traps are huge.

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