Bulking/cutting

Rusty740 wrote: »

Bulking and cutting share much, but for both to work, you need to focus on four primary things. Those things in order of importance are:

Total calories
For a bulk, total calories should be anywhere up to around 25% above your TDEE, the higher the surplus, the more muscle, but also more fat. There is approximately a maximum value of 2 lbs per month muscle possible, this comes with about 2 lbs of fat, much more or much less depending on your surplus. If you want to make sure you get maximum muscle, it will also come with maximum fat. You decide. Most go for 10-25% surplus.

For a cut, total calories should be anywhere up to around 25% below your TDEE, the more the deficit, the more you risk losing muscle mass, but up to 25% is a pretty decent number to cut fast at fairly minimal muscle loss when you incorporate the other things below.

Weight Lifting Program
For a bulk, you want to be on a structured lifting program that incorporates all the body parts, relatively frequently and it absolutely must incorporate progressive overload. There are too many things to go into here so I'll keep it simple. Work the muscles you want to grow. Lift between 60% and 90% of your 1RM. Do 3-5 sets of each exercise. Do approximately 60-120 reps per week for big muscle groups and 30-60 reps per week for smaller ones. Take at least 3 days off per week to recover.

For a cut, you necessarily can't do the progressive overload part because you don't have enough calories to recover and build muscle to do more weights, so settle for no progressive overload, but you can keep your program the same (harder) or you can do 3/4 or 1/2 workouts and be ok. It does not take much to keep muscle that you already have. Most people say keep the weights heavy and reduce the number of reps and/or sets.

Protein and Carbs
For a bulk you need about 0.6 to 0.8 g/lb bodyweight. It's really based on lean mass, but I don't care it's close enough for me. The jist is the you need the minimum to maintain the muscle you have, and you need a touch more to build new muscle, but your body can only build so fast, so you don't need much more than the minimum. Protein is tasty, eat some.

For a cut, eat more protein. I like the number 1g/lb bodyweight because it's easy to remember and it's about at the top of the range you'd probably ever need. The extra protein is for two reasons, 1) satiety, protein keeps you full. 2) eating plenty of protein helps make sure that you've got plenty going around to maintain muscle.

Carbs don't really matter much on a cut, but they really matter on a bulk. I'm not going to get into meal timing or anything, but in general, eat about 2 g/lb bodyweight or more. You need this to recover the lost glycogen in your muscles and to stimulate muscle and fat storage via. insulin.

Fat, get at least the minimum.

In general bulk when you are less than 15% body fat and cut when you are more. The longer the cut, the more muscle mass is in danger, but a few months is fine.