I remember a while back that Joel Marion said that he used a 2 week bulk, 2 week cut, 2 bulk, and so on for his body for life victory. I hope I am correct on this. I was wondering if you can give me some more info on this as far as calorie intake and so forth during your phases. Also what type of training did you do? I have a cruise that I am going on in a couple of months and I want to put on some more size, but stay as lean as possible. Thanks for any info that you or anyone else can provide.
Unless you are using steroids, this is not an optimal way to diet. Two weeks is sufficient to add lean body mass but following it with 2 weeks of dieting is counterproductive. You will lose all the muscle you just gained. My advice is to keep your calories at maintenance for at least 4-6 weeks after you end a bulk phase. Possibly try something like 2 weeks or 4 weeks cutting followed by a bulking phase. This way your body is primed to grow and if using androgens and you have a low bodyfat % you will add nearly all lean mass. I know I’m not Joel, but this is my 2 cents.
I’ve found that two weeks of bulking followed by two weeks of dieting works very well. You never seem to hit the “wall” when dieting. Also, since I’m very paranoid about losing gains it allows me to retain more muscle. I’m planning on trying one week at above maintenance followed by two weeks of calorie restriction to decrease the time it takes to get lean. For even dhorter cycles you amy want to look at Fred Hatfield’s Zig Zag Diet which is in his Hardcore Bodybuilding book.
It really depends on if you are using any assistance for cal and workout recommendations.
2 weeks bulk - GVT or EDT type workout, cals akin to Massive Eating guidelines
2 weeks maintenance/cut - 5x5 routine outlined in Joel's article, some HIIT work 2-4 times a week, cals at slightly below maintenance
This would be a general start, but should give you the guidelines to format your own program. If you are on MAG-10, then the workouts stay pretty much the same, but the cal recommendations change.
i believe joel was talking about the ABCDE diet that first appeared in MM2k from a swedish scientist/bodybuilder. it consisted of overeating and undereating in two week periods. T-mag redid this diet, as there were some poblems with it and called it “The Delta 1250” program. Go and do a search for it…it’s really interesting…
Please, please help me too, Joel!
Joel is really busy right now and I know that he can’t check into the forum as often as he has in the past. Email him directly at maximizeyourefforts@hotmail.com for specific questions.
If you want to know what he did, he did the ABCDE program outlined in old muscle medias by Torbjorn Akerfeldt.
Right now, he would say the same thing that I did to you. We've talked extensively about this. Use a high volume program with minimal to no cardio during the high cal weeks and the 5x5 routine with some HIIT during the low cal weeks.