Basically, why can’t someone just recomp at X weight until they hit their desired physique at X weight? Also, I fully admit my ignorance when it comes to this topic haha.
The usual advice given to beginners is to think of the process in terms of muscle gaining and fat loss phases. The common advice now is to have only a small calorie surplus since actual muscle growth is a very slow process. However, why are different phases needed at all? For example, I’m currently 220lbs, and my end goal is 220lbs or so shredded. If I stay at 220lbs, train hard to eventually double/triple my exercise poundages for reps, and do hard conditioning 2-3x a week, wouldn’t I end up a much leaner 220lbs after 5 or so years?
Anecdotally, people I’m familiar with have done this. However, their desired end goal was only about 170 - 185lbs with abs. And on top of lifting 3-5x a week, they did BJJ and other combat sports training 3x a week in addition to a very active lifestyle (surfing, mountain biking, etc). Only one person I’m familiar with is doing the “recomp for 5 or so years” path with an end goal of 220ish pounds, so I don’t have a good sample size haha. And he’s also extremely active outside of the gym.
@flipcollar Hopefully I’m not misquoting you, but I remember you posting here about recomp being a good long-term path.
@T3hPwnisher What do you think? Anecdotally, combat sports guys who train for fun and thus don’t have to stay in a weight class tend to choose this path. Then again, most don’t have an end goal as large as 220lbs shredded.
The blog post I wrote for this week will actually touch on this, interestingly enough.
Nothing is needed, but bulking and cutting tends to be the more effective way to go about being big, strong and lean compared to NOT doing that.
Nutrition goes in phases because training goes in phases, and nutrition supports training. A gaining phase is a VERY tough phase of training and eating, and when that phase is done, one relaxes with fat loss.
I think because people want to see changes and they want to see them on a short-time scale.
If I recall correctly, the theoretical maximum of muscle tissue a person could synthesize in a day is on average 25 grams. That’s pure muscle tissue though, not accounting for water weight, increased glycogen stores, etc. But, and while I don’t remember the exact quote I recall Justin Harris expressing that no one manages to do that and someone that actually succeeds in gaining muscle mass might gain 10 grams of muscle tissue per day. And that doesn’t exactly require a huge surplus. It’s 40 calories of protein, and some calories extra for the actual synthesis.
But that is going to take time. If you could gain 10 grams of muscle tissue per day, that’s 3.65 kilos in a year. And, maybe that is an additional 6-7 kilos of water. So, 10 kilos in a year. That’s less than 200 grams per week.
However, if you are trying to do that and you fuck up nutritionally maybe you don’t gain anything at all for a few weeks here and there. Maybe you regress. That’s why it is easier to eat to gain more aggressively to ensure that the growth happens.
Again, referring back to Justin Harris, it is easier to fill a 6 ounce glass by putting it outside in the rain (he’s referring to eating in a definitive surplus) as it requires no accuracy whatsoever compared to having exactly 6 ounces of water to transport into that container.
I mean sure, it’s just about possible… but the closer you get to your goal the more difficult and slower it will get and eventually you will likely end up just spinning your wheels. It’s generally accepted to bulk slowly and long-term so you don’t put on too much fat and not really have an urgent need to cut. This isn’t as easy as we think though as most of us will always put on a little bit of fat.
After battling with this myself and doing a ton of research on it the past couple of months. I think what will suit me is long-term bulks and 4-6 week cuts at the beginning of each year. (and dependant on how I get on, maybe a couple of shorter cuts throughout the year too, not just for fat loss but to give me a break from eating so much).
Though, I have to ask: Why does bulking and cutting tend to be a more effective path than the middle road?
For example, let’s say two 225lbs twins have an end goal of benching 315 x 20, squatting 405 x 20, and deadlifting 500 x 20 @ a lean 225lbs. Why would the twin who bulks and cuts reach there quicker than the one who recomps?
Note, the twin who recomps will still have the accumulation and intensification phases.
I love Justin Harris’ videos and have heard him make the point about muscle gain being absurdly slow a dozen times at least. Honesty, him making that point is a big reason why I’m asking this question.
I’ve heard him make the rain and glass analogy too. However, I don’t recall him stating that being inaccurate was necessarily a good thing. Unless I’m mistaken, he was just saying that it’s better to be wildly over the needed calories than wildly under the needed amount.
The recomp phase still ensures that you’re eating enough to recover. It just puts the focus on making sure your gym progress keeps increasing instead of ever caring about scale weight. The people I know who recomp will still have their weight go up and down a bit, but nothing more than 10lbs under or over. So they’re staying in the same range more than an exact weight.
I forgot who said it on here, but can’t the body use fat to provide the nutrients needed to build muscle until you’re very lean? Meaning if you don’t have a six pack, you have a bunch of energy in the form of fat to properly recover from your workouts?
Would you say that the twin that recomps couldn’t survive an accumulation phase and then drive his numbers up?
I’m legitimately asking, by the way. I guess I’m just curious how far one could keep driving up their exercise poundages for reps assuming they have a good amount of fat to lose. Obviously if they were lean to begin with, it’d be different.
Recomp is a slow, boring, and often fruitless effort when trying to lose fat and build muscle outside of the beginner adaptation phase.
Can it be done? Yes. Can it be done well? No. Bulk, cut, and maintenence phases are best practices for a reason. Bulking, however, does not mean eating fucking everything in sight - a smart bulk will be a small surplus in calories with increased training intensity to suit.
I don’t know anything about recomping to be able to speak to it. I just know that accumulation is hard training and attempting to minimize fat gain during such time tends to mean not being able to push hard enough in training.
Yes, this can happen and is often actually recommended for complete beginners that are carrying a bit too much extra timber. This slows down rapidly though (way before you’re actually lean) and everyone will experience the same thing. It’s heavily advisable to eat in a surplus to gain strength and muscle.
The answer to people stalling is often “eat more” (it’s not always, but definitely the most common). Whenever I haven’t been able to put more weight on the bar as I expected, the cause has almost always been not eating enough. As already mentioned, it’s not just about that but energy too, food is fuel and it can be difficult enough to get through intense workouts let alone have the necessary energy to actually recover from them.
In my opinion and experience these phases are needed.
We can look at this in 2 parts :
1)Recomping basically means losing fat and gaining muscle at the SAME time. This does not happen unless a person is a beginner. It is biologically super difficult or even impossible to lose fat(starve) and build muscle(have abundance of nutrients) at the same time.
2)What most people mean by recomping are still different phases just kept short close to base weight. This is doable however - ineficient.
Technically what you want to do is - either gain muscle and minimize fat gain OR lose fat and minimize muscle loss.
In my opinion, building muscle is hard and slow. So what you want to do is eat enough so you can gain 100% of your capabilities. When you start doing this “clean bulk” thing with like 300kcal surplus, its too close to maintenance than if you will have 1 extra sex a day, or just one a bit rougher one, or just need to walk a bit more than usual or you drink a bit more coffee and your basic metabolism speeds up a bit, you lost the gaining potential of that day.
Technically it is possible to gain muscle and no fat, but you would need to be a robot that can calculate his caloric expenditure every hour.
Also, with 200-300kcal surplus we come to next problem. Not only we cant guarantee our expenditure so close, we also cant guarantee that we ate as much as we think. On average apple has 50kcal per 100g but there are dryer apples, a bit more raw ones, there are sweeter ones and tastless ones. So not all apples are 50kcal. Its just an approximate.
In reality, we cant measure all food that good. I believe we are at least 10% here and there, so your 3000kcal maintenance one day is 2700 and the next it can be 3300… Same with your expenditure.
Now imagine you having an normal miscalculation with food and you eat 2700 instead of 3000, but you also jerked off and walked a bit more and spent some 200 extra. So your total is a 500 deficit even tho you tought you have 300 surplus.
At the end of the day its just easier to see that you are constantly gaining weight because weekly weight gain also says you are gaining all the muscle you can gain. Losing fat is so much faster and easier than gaining muscle, you just dont want to spin your wheels for a year.
Doucette advocates maingaining but he hasnt gained shit in years. Last time he gained something was on a steroid blast and a bulk.
Clean bulk or recomp might be ok for people who have achieved what they want already and just doing their thing without stressing too much is ok. But those people rarely make BIG changes in a year.
You can definetly make much much bigger changes just by bulking 9 months and cutting for 3.
I should’ve mentioned I’m 6’2" and seem to have a naturally heavy bone structure. I’ve been called aneroxic at 180 lbs haha. Considering my goal physique is something like Jo Lindner’s, who’s a shredded 220lbs at about 5’11, I’ll unfortunantly have to be well above 220lbs in the end most likely.
I say unfortunantly because I know how unhealthy being large, whether it’s fat or muscle, can be.
Fair enough since you don’t have experience with recomp. FWIW, the people I’ve seen who did the long-term recomp path do not train as hard as you do. They also don’t approach this with accumulation and intensifciation cycles. They just have a few lifts per body part and rotate them out once they stall. They also all have non-lifting goals too, such as one of them aiming for a 600lbs deadlift and 6 min mile in the same hour. Now that I think about it, could a true accumulation phase even be done when aiming for concurrent goals like these?
@everyone else
I’ll respond to the other posts later.
I had to Google him, but all I can say is “good luck”. I don’t see him as a viable end point for anyone. Even if I did see that as a viable end point, no-one on this site is in a position to guide you because no-one offering advice regularly is close to that level.
Considering my actual goal physique was UFC HW champ Francis Ngannou, I’d say Jo Lindner is a massive downgrade (Ngannou is 6’5", ripped 265lbs, and can do one arm push ups as part of a conditioning circuit at 280+ lbs lol).
And at one point, doing even a single push up wasn’t considered a viable end point for me by my orthopedic docs (due to my Elhers Danlos). So why not shoot for something big? The worst that can happen is I fail, right?
I get this philosophy, but I’ve seen it go two ways. Some people set a sky-high target, work their butt off and may miss, but achieve great things along the way. Some crash and burn.
One of my old deps used to say “shoot for the moon and you might hit the stars”, which is true. You might also come crashing back down to earth in a CGI-worthy fireball. Be aware of this as a possibility.
No lie, the idea of crashing down to earth as a fireball sounds epic lol.
In all seriousness, though, I’m a big fan of “unreasonable goals.” T3hpwnisher’s blog post on MythicalStrength about them was a big inspiration for me regarding goal setting (as was Brian Alsruhe/Alpha, who shares a similar mindset).
(Ngannou is 6’5", ripped 265lbs, and can do one arm push ups as part of a conditioning circuit at 280+ lbs lol).