Bulk or Cut?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Hello all. I finished a bulking cycle about 4 weeks ago that I was quite happy with. I started cutting and was making good progress for about two weeks when finals and spring break reared their ugly heads. Suffice to say, I haven’t lifted in two weeks and a few days, and i have been eating like crap. I feel as if the entire bulking cycle was for naught, as my arms look smaller and i look flabbier. Here is my dilemma. I want to both lose body fat and get bigger. If I had mantained the muscle mass I had and simply lost fat I would be very happy.

So, here are my questions

  1. Could I really have lost that much muscle mass in two weeks? I was getting about 200 grams of protien a day for most of it, nowhere near the reccomended amounts.

  2. Should I bulk or cut next? I’m too blubbery, but also want to add muscle. Should i lose the fat first?

  3. Im going to be using a 1-ad/4-ad stack. Therefore, should I cut while using this or bulk?

Thanks for all the help

2

if you’ve gotten ‘soft’ from the last few weeks, its probably because you’ve just been too busy with everything to stimulate the muscles, so there’s no point in having a little extra blood flow going in there, so they get softer and smaller. Hit the gym for a week (or two), then decide wether you want to cut or bulk. who knows, sometimes after some downtime, it really helps with recovery, so you could actually come back stronger than ever.

Gym first, decision later.

3

If you really did lose muscle in two weeks, guess how long it’ll take to come back? Probably not too long.

4

What about cutting while on the ad? Could there be anything beneficial in that? Or is it better used bulking?

5

Cutting or bulking is always a tough decision, but one of the authors (cannot remember who) in here layed it out in a way that made sense to me. Basically, when you gain weight, you gain a higher percentage of muscle when you are leaner. So you want to be gaining when you are less then say 12% or 15% body fat, any more and you will be putting on relatively more fat. Also, when you lose weight, you lose relatively more fat then muscle when you are fatter. So once you hit 12% to 15%, cut down to single digits again.

If you don’t want to measure your BF%, then cut until you see your abs, then bulk until you gain maybe an inch or two on the waist.

Plus, after a layoff, just train for a couple of weeks before deciding, it is too hard to tell where you are at.

Rolo.

6

I am certainly not in single digit body fat percentages. Im not really a bodybuilder per se, im a football player who doesnt want to look like a lard ass. Does the same then still apply?

7

I guess the main point I got out of the article (man I wish I could remember which one, or at least the author) is that the higher your body fat percentage you already carry, the higher the percentage of weight gain will be from fat. The leaner you are, the more your weight gain will come from muscle. So I guess it is up to you how high you are comfortable getting on the BF%, but lower is better for gaining lean muscle mass.

Rolo

8

Thanks for the help. I went to the gym today and got a great lift in, my lifts havent gone down at all, in fact I feel stronger. My arms look about like they used to, I’m not sure on the Bi’s cause it was a back chest day. This leads me to my next question. Would it be more beneficial to cut while on the AD or to cut naturally then bulk this summer on it? Thanks.

9

[quote]KingFelix wrote:
Would it be more beneficial to cut while on the AD or to cut naturally then bulk this summer on it? Thanks.[/quote]

as i read from an article, prohormones should be used for bulking.

i’ve used MAG-10 and 1-AD before, i gain more than 10 lbs with MAG-10, but i didn’t record when i used 1-AD. may be you should search more in T-Nation.