2 Week Bulk, 1 Week Cut Repeat?

Training
61

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:

[quote]rocket363 wrote:
Lonnie, I appreciate your reply, but your entire reply is predicated on the fact that 2wk/1wk doesn’t work, but 4months/2months does. But that’s the question, why?

If I bulk for 4 months, say I gain 4lbs of muscle. Those aren’t linear gains, but given that gains slow as one progresses, it’s actually probably an underestimate to say that I therefore gained 1lb of muscle the first month, therefore 1/2lb the first two weeks.

During those 4 months, say I also gain 4 lbs of fat. Again, that would be 1/2 lb the first two weeks.

If I cut for two months then I only need to lose 1/2 lb per week on average to lose the fat, and presumably this is a slow enough pace that I won’t be losing my muscle.

If I bulk for 2 weeks, then stop, did I not gain 1/2 lb of muscle during those two weeks? If I cut for one week and then stop did I not lose 1/2 lb of fat (that’s only about a 250cal/day deficit)? If that rate of cutting is slow enough not to cost me muscle in the previous scenario isn’t it slow enough not to cost me muscle in this scenario?

I understand that lots of experienced people don’t believe in the 2wk/1wk method. I’m not saying it’s equal. I’m trying to understand why it isn’t equal. I can also readily understand why people might want to focus on one goal for a few months at a time rather than switching gears so quickly. What I don’t understand is why some people laugh at the idea but don’t (can’t?) really support it with anything other than “people just don’t do it that way.” [/quote]

I am not Lonnie, but here is my take:

I tried it (ABCDE) and it didn’t work for me. I don’t care why. I don’t have time to worry about why, because I only have so much time on this planet to make gains so I can be jacked and tan and awesome. I don’t want to waste it trying to do science when I should be lifting and eating in a manner that I KNOW will produce results.

This is the problem with bodybuilding (and life in general). Your time is limited, and if you’re young enough, you have a lot of it. So much so, that it seems infinite. So you think, sure, I’ll try this or that harebrained BS idea of mine. You follow through with this a few dozen times, and all of a sudden it’s 5-10 years later and you’re still back at square fucking one. Minimal progress, after all that time.

To some extent, I think just about everyone does this when they first start. I know I did, hence my ABCDE experiment, and countless other bullshit ideas I followed through on that didn’t do jack shit. Hell, lots of people do this (program and diet hopping) their entire training lives.

But, some people do eventually get wise, and then start doing the things that they KNEW would work from the start, because EVERYONE THAT EVER GOT BIG AND STRONG DID IT THAT WAY. The sooner you figure this out, the better off you will be.

This is true in bodybuilding AND in life. The answers are out there. Find out what the people who have accomplished what you want to accomplish did to get where they are, and do THAT EXACT THING.[/quote]

Great advice. I wish I had grasped this concept at a younger age.

62

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:

[quote]rocket363 wrote:
Lonnie, I appreciate your reply, but your entire reply is predicated on the fact that 2wk/1wk doesn’t work, but 4months/2months does. But that’s the question, why?

If I bulk for 4 months, say I gain 4lbs of muscle. Those aren’t linear gains, but given that gains slow as one progresses, it’s actually probably an underestimate to say that I therefore gained 1lb of muscle the first month, therefore 1/2lb the first two weeks.

During those 4 months, say I also gain 4 lbs of fat. Again, that would be 1/2 lb the first two weeks.

If I cut for two months then I only need to lose 1/2 lb per week on average to lose the fat, and presumably this is a slow enough pace that I won’t be losing my muscle.

If I bulk for 2 weeks, then stop, did I not gain 1/2 lb of muscle during those two weeks? If I cut for one week and then stop did I not lose 1/2 lb of fat (that’s only about a 250cal/day deficit)? If that rate of cutting is slow enough not to cost me muscle in the previous scenario isn’t it slow enough not to cost me muscle in this scenario?

I understand that lots of experienced people don’t believe in the 2wk/1wk method. I’m not saying it’s equal. I’m trying to understand why it isn’t equal. I can also readily understand why people might want to focus on one goal for a few months at a time rather than switching gears so quickly. What I don’t understand is why some people laugh at the idea but don’t (can’t?) really support it with anything other than “people just don’t do it that way.” [/quote]

I am not Lonnie, but here is my take:

I tried it (ABCDE) and it didn’t work for me. I don’t care why. I don’t have time to worry about why, because I only have so much time on this planet to make gains so I can be jacked and tan and awesome. I don’t want to waste it trying to do science when I should be lifting and eating in a manner that I KNOW will produce results.

This is the problem with bodybuilding (and life in general). Your time is limited, and if you’re young enough, you have a lot of it. So much so, that it seems infinite. So you think, sure, I’ll try this or that harebrained BS idea of mine. You follow through with this a few dozen times, and all of a sudden it’s 5-10 years later and you’re still back at square fucking one. Minimal progress, after all that time.

To some extent, I think just about everyone does this when they first start. I know I did, hence my ABCDE experiment, and countless other bullshit ideas I followed through on that didn’t do jack shit. Hell, lots of people do this (program and diet hopping) their entire training lives.

But, some people do eventually get wise, and then start doing the things that they KNEW would work from the start, because EVERYONE THAT EVER GOT BIG AND STRONG DID IT THAT WAY. The sooner you figure this out, the better off you will be.

This is true in bodybuilding AND in life. The answers are out there. Find out what the people who have accomplished what you want to accomplish did to get where they are, and do THAT EXACT THING.[/quote]

I don’t post over here much, but this advice kicks ass on a few different levels.

My boss likes to say that “success leaves clues”. You just don’t have time to make all your own mistakes. Most of us will only have about 25,000 days on this earth. The first 5,000 or so are kind of a write off as far as getting shit done is concerned, and the last 5,000 are usually not so great either. That leaves you with just 15,000 days to play with. That is really not all that many days and almost all of us will go into the dirt wishing we’d done better with them.

When I think about how many of those days I’ve wasted so far attempting to reinvent the wheel through trial and error… well, I try not to think about it.

63

[quote]Steel Nation wrote:

I am not Lonnie, but here is my take:

I tried it (ABCDE) and it didn’t work for me. I don’t care why. I don’t have time to worry about why, because I only have so much time on this planet to make gains so I can be jacked and tan and awesome. I don’t want to waste it trying to do science when I should be lifting and eating in a manner that I KNOW will produce results.
[/quote]

That’s a very fair and respectable view.

64

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
I have explained why I think it wont work multiple times and in different ways in each post I have in this thread, at this point I think my avatar is about to go blue in the face.

Again, why not do 2 days bulking, 1 day cutting? Did you not gain 5 grams of muscle and then lose 12 grams of fat? [/quote]

Well it takes a few days of rest and recovery from any workout for the broken-down muscles to grow and rebuild, so therefore any pattern of bulking/cutting would have to be long enough for the actual bulk part to work, ie, at least a few days past the workout session. And given that people are on splits, sometimes 6 day splits, that means any bulk cycle would have to last at least long enough to cover that entire split + a few days for the growth from the last workout session.

My curiosity is simply, once a person allows for sufficient time to “bulk” past that bare minimum, why does one plan work better than another? I can certainly respect the opinion of “I don’t care, it just does so I do it” that another poster offered, but the why still seems up in the air, with answers mostly seeming to be speculation.

Again, just idle curiosity; not trying to ruffle any feathers, just interested in thoughts and ideas.

65

[quote]238 wrote:

[quote]rocket363 wrote:
If I bulk for 4 months, say I gain 4lbs of muscle. Those aren’t linear gains, but given that gains slow as one progresses, it’s actually probably an underestimate to say that I therefore gained 1lb of muscle the first month, therefore 1/2lb the first two weeks.
[/quote]

Here’s a question. You assume that because gains slow as they progress then they must be fastest at the beginning. Have you considered that perhaps gains start off slowly and take time to increase? Or if you’re a more visual person, a graph of gains vs time will look like a sigmoid curve.[/quote]

I’ve considered it. Not sure why it would be true, or, if so, after just how many training sessions the muscles would decide “ok, I’m gonna rebuild a little quicker, THEN slow down again,” or, once that phantom mechanism is tripped, what causes it to switch back to the off position again. But if it were true, and if a week of mild cutting were enough to toggle said phantom mechanism even for an experienced regular lifter, then that could be the explanation.

I know this post sounds very sarcastic (I am a bit skeptical I do admit) but it really isn’t…that could really be the explanation…but I am skeptical.

66

low carb high protein with cals 500-1000 above maintenance, this may help reduce fat gain but enough food to put muscle on. If u can get too the level of squating 150% of body weight or double body weight deadlifts, then u will gain muscle. If one feels they need carbs then maybe small amount pre and post workout.

this way your not yo yo ing. At 170lb i think u just need to work on getting stronger and putting weight on. pointless cutting when your a skeleton.

67

Rocket, I dont know if you missed my post at the top of this page (3), but Thats the post with the most likely reason (I believe) that the longer cycles work better.

In short, there are metabolic and hormonal advantages to having your calorie intake chronically elevated, in addition to having your LBM higher when you start dieting (which gives you more calories to work with). In addition to those reasons, both processes are typically ramping in nature… Meaning you eventually bump up calories on a bulk, or cut calories /add cardio on a cut, so when do you do that on these 2 on 1 off cycles?

To me this is a great combination of both inconvenient, unpractical, and ineffective.

But more important than that is to be able to establish good habits so you do not need to be doing these cutting cycles so often. It is invaluable to learn how to be able to eat and train “right” for LONG periods of time without having to worry about cutting because you let yourself (or worse, forced yourself) to get fat.

68

You know I just researched this a bit more on the interwebs and it SEEMS that there might be some science out there that SUGGESTS that after 14 days the anabolic benefits of over eating are maximized, at which point you MAY benefit from cutting. The studies were, as always, done on untrained people (I actually dont even think they trained) so its tough to extrapolate them to our population, but there you have it.

It also seems like by doing the quick cycles, you take advantage of the elevated hormones from the bulking phase and then after 2 weeks when they start to decline you resume bulking to boost them back up again.

So while I still standby my original claim, I no longer this its incredibly stupid to do it this way.

As so many of the answers end up being… TRY IT YOURSELF AND SEE.

69

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Rocket, I dont know if you missed my post at the top of this page (3), but Thats the post with the most likely reason (I believe) that the longer cycles work better.

In short, there are metabolic and hormonal advantages to having your calorie intake chronically elevated, in addition to having your LBM higher when you start dieting (which gives you more calories to work with). In addition to those reasons, both processes are typically ramping in nature… Meaning you eventually bump up calories on a bulk, or cut calories /add cardio on a cut, so when do you do that on these 2 on 1 off cycles?

To me this is a great combination of both inconvenient, unpractical, and ineffective.

But more important than that is to be able to establish good habits so you do not need to be doing these cutting cycles so often. It is invaluable to learn how to be able to eat and train “right” for LONG periods of time without having to worry about cutting because you let yourself (or worse, forced yourself) to get fat.[/quote]

well my idea when making this thread was based on the hormonal effects, which i have heard and read around(lyle talks about this, icecreamfitness) takes 5-7 days to significantly responds to this kind of difference in calories atleast when coming off of a diet. basically in theory you build up an anabolic environment when you bulk for more than 7 days, and then you dont cut for longer than 7 days so you stay in that anabolic environment with hormones, pathways and whatever still triggered for growth as a result of the bulk.

then i started thinking about my own experience, which last time when i tried to cut fat, the first month i made progress and got stronger comparable to my rate when bulking but this slowed and eventually reversed. so i putt two and two together and tough maybe this could work, but it seems the major consensus with the bigger guys seem to be that you have to keep going for longer periods for the body to kind of " shift gear " into fat burn or muscle building modes. there is most likely some truth in that, who knows. maybe its wiser to listen to experience rather than theory.

70

I don’t always ask for peoples opinions, but when I do I disregard them anyways.

71

I suppose we are all different in this world regards what will work for us even if it goes against the grain somewhat. OP I feel I am with the majority here in thinking a two week bulk and a week cut isnt the best approach but I would suggest you give it a go for a year and see what happens. If it works for you then hey its great news as far as you are concerned but in all reality I think this approach is flawed.

There are plenty of experienced lifters on this site to listen to and many have tried this approach so why not save a boat load of time and listen to the wisdom of what their achievements were using this approach was and cut your cloth relative to what you learn. Plus The Lions won on Saturday so I am hyper at the moment so take my advice as what it is worth

72

Simply put, if this worked in any from then every one would use it.

73

Do you know why “fitness gurus” are talking about this “style” of bulk/cut cycle nowadays?

Because the tried and true basics don’t sell to young impressionable kids who don’t know any better.
Everything in the fitness industry has to be the newest shiniest most revolutionary thing out there so that people spend money on it.

74

[quote]Smashingweights wrote:
Do you know why “fitness gurus” are talking about this “style” of bulk/cut cycle nowadays?

Because the tried and true basics don’t sell to young impressionable kids who don’t know any better.
Everything in the fitness industry has to be the newest shiniest most revolutionary thing out there so that people spend money on it.
[/quote]
Much truth here I think

I remember when aerobics was cool 20+ years ago and suddenly research supported it, then later pointed out flaws, now it’s all hiit but that used to be called circuit training back then

Imagine if every edition of a BB mag was basically a reprint of a 1950s strength and health for instance, by focussing on basics

Nothing wrong with the new ideas and testing stuff out but look at what has been working too, as steel nation said

75

Layne norton apparently bulks for 4-6 weeks and cut for two

76

[quote]buildsomemuscle wrote:
Layne norton apparently bulks for 4-6 weeks and cut for two[/quote]

That’s old he does not advocate that any more

77

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]buildsomemuscle wrote:
Layne norton apparently bulks for 4-6 weeks and cut for two[/quote]

That’s old he does not advocate that any more[/quote]

Interesting that someone uses said plan on the way to be a Natty pro and since they now use something else we no longer validate its past success.

OP, if you wanna do it, then do it. Dotn waste your breath convincing people otherwise. You asked for their opinion, and they gave it, pretty simple.

If you still want to do this plan inspite of the small sample of opinions here just educate yourself further. I know lyle McDonald was advocating something like this in the past. Using his rapid fat loss plans for short periods to get back to comfortable leanness levels.

Kelly Bagget mentions something like a 2 day forward, 1 day back approach, which is just a high to low calorie cycle to limit fat gains.

Tons of stuff out there. Spend less time convincing those who disagree with you otherwise and more time researching the topic that interests you.

Hope that helps.

78

[quote]Waittz wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]buildsomemuscle wrote:
Layne norton apparently bulks for 4-6 weeks and cut for two[/quote]

That’s old he does not advocate that any more[/quote]

Interesting that someone uses said plan on the way to be a Natty pro and since they now use something else we no longer validate its past success.

OP, if you wanna do it, then do it. Dotn waste your breath convincing people otherwise. You asked for their opinion, and they gave it, pretty simple.

If you still want to do this plan inspite of the small sample of opinions here just educate yourself further. I know lyle McDonald was advocating something like this in the past. Using his rapid fat loss plans for short periods to get back to comfortable leanness levels.

Kelly Bagget mentions something like a 2 day forward, 1 day back approach, which is just a high to low calorie cycle to limit fat gains.

Tons of stuff out there. Spend less time convincing those who disagree with you otherwise and more time researching the topic that interests you.

Hope that helps.
[/quote]

He doesnt advocate it because he feels it doesnt work

79

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]Waittz wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]buildsomemuscle wrote:
Layne norton apparently bulks for 4-6 weeks and cut for two[/quote]

That’s old he does not advocate that any more[/quote]

Interesting that someone uses said plan on the way to be a Natty pro and since they now use something else we no longer validate its past success.

OP, if you wanna do it, then do it. Dotn waste your breath convincing people otherwise. You asked for their opinion, and they gave it, pretty simple.

If you still want to do this plan inspite of the small sample of opinions here just educate yourself further. I know lyle McDonald was advocating something like this in the past. Using his rapid fat loss plans for short periods to get back to comfortable leanness levels.

Kelly Bagget mentions something like a 2 day forward, 1 day back approach, which is just a high to low calorie cycle to limit fat gains.

Tons of stuff out there. Spend less time convincing those who disagree with you otherwise and more time researching the topic that interests you.

Hope that helps.
[/quote]

He doesnt advocate it because he feels it doesnt work
[/quote]

But he did advocate it. For some time. Dont you get tired of always having to have the last word?

80

[quote]Waittz wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]Waittz wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]buildsomemuscle wrote:
Layne norton apparently bulks for 4-6 weeks and cut for two[/quote]

That’s old he does not advocate that any more[/quote]

Interesting that someone uses said plan on the way to be a Natty pro and since they now use something else we no longer validate its past success.

OP, if you wanna do it, then do it. Dotn waste your breath convincing people otherwise. You asked for their opinion, and they gave it, pretty simple.

If you still want to do this plan inspite of the small sample of opinions here just educate yourself further. I know lyle McDonald was advocating something like this in the past. Using his rapid fat loss plans for short periods to get back to comfortable leanness levels.

Kelly Bagget mentions something like a 2 day forward, 1 day back approach, which is just a high to low calorie cycle to limit fat gains.

Tons of stuff out there. Spend less time convincing those who disagree with you otherwise and more time researching the topic that interests you.

Hope that helps.
[/quote]

He doesnt advocate it because he feels it doesnt work
[/quote]

But he did advocate it. For some time. Dont you get tired of always having to have the last word? [/quote]

Just correcting your wrong assumption. he thought it worked then saw it didnt. Its not he gained massive amounts and found something better. You made it sound like that method should be credited him him turning pro. It plain didnt work even though he thought it would. Most likely he wanted the new shiny thing to name his own and found shit this doesnt work.