Randman, glad to hear my more detailed post explained my methods more clearly. The athletes actually came from different training backgrounds: most were hockey players and football players, but a couple were rugby players and three were shot putters. The shot putters were actually women, which makes the gains even more impressive. Most of these athletes were in their early to mid-twenties and most had some weight-training experience under their belts.
CC, nothing fancy was used. No AASs and like I said, no supplements, although some did use creatine and protein powders, again university students don’t have much to spend on these and as competetive athletes, drug screening is a concern. Besides following the bulking/maintenance/cutting prescription I mentioned earlier in this thread, training was geared toward hypertrophy while keeping their relative sport in context, therefore not all the athletes were using the same program, in fact much of the training was not only sport related but also position based. Most of the training took part during the athletes’ off-seasons, so game fatigue and performance were not an issue, ie: you wouldn’t want to do this with an athlete in mid-season, can you say “burnout”! Most of the training was based on a quick turnover periodization not unlike the “Pendulum” system that Christian Thib. has written about here on T-Mag.
The diet was very basic, but I must say that I closely monitored their progress the whole way. This is where I feel most people who do it on their own mess up. Constant tweeking is necessary. I performed an initial composition test on every athlete using a 9-site skinfold measure. This test was re-administered every 3 weeks, by myself, so that the results were not skewed in any way. The program can then be tweeked using the results of these tests and the feedback of the athletes themselves(sometimes the person can give you better feedback than the tests can display on paper). The base for every athlete was to start kcal at 20xbodyweight/lbs during the bulking phase. The macronutrient breakdown differed per individual. Feedback from the athletes was used, bodyfat distribution analysis was part of the determinant as was an Oral Glucose Tolerance test which I performed on all but 3 of these people. During maintenance weeks, I started with a base of 15kcal/lbs, with necessary changes and cutting weeks were down to 10kcal/lbs. So for a 200lb example it would be 4000cals/bulking, 3000cals/maintenance and 2000cals/cutting. If after 2 weeks this person did not put on any weight, then I would increase cals by 400-600/day. If the person was putting on weight but after performing skinfolds realized it was too much fat, I would change the macronutrient profile before lowering cals. If fat gain was still too high after this change, then I would look to lower cals. I truly believe this close monitoring is what makes the difference between a half-ass program and a good one, therefore making the difference between half-ass gains and success.
Thank you for your reply. I look forward to putting a similar approach to use in my own training. Thanks again!
Loop,
Just wanted give say great post. The moderate long term bulking with maint and occasional cuts when needed is by far the way to go.
1 interesting point I have found with this method is that by throwing in a maint. diet week or two every month or even few weeks can help to maintain gains and while your metabolism is ramped from the higher k/cal intake can actually lead to shedding a lb or two of fat and allow you to keep bulking. Then rarely throw in a cutting week or two.
Another little twist to what you laid out that I have had great success with is, while doing the moderate cuts, I will go for the calorie deficite on non training days (500-1000) below maint., thenon training days eat either maint. or slightly above. (+250 or so) All my meals on the training days are the same as non training (hypocaloric days) with the exception to my PWO meal. I add all the extra k/cals to that one meal.
For example. Say the trainee has a maint. of 3000 k/cals, and they are cutting on a 2000 k/cal diet and eating 6 meals. Roughly 325k/cals per meal. They would have all meals at this level on traing days except PWO which would consist of a PWO shake and 1 meal 45-60 minutes later that together add up to roughly 1325k/cals, then back to the 325 per meal for the rest of the day. I have used this type of approach and have consistantly been able to shed 5+ lbs of fat in a two to three week period while maintaining LBM or even making slight gains. (just a little note if I am only going for a 500 k/cal deficte I then go maint. +250 k/cals on training days)
This seems to keep pure cutting phases at bay a little longer. More bulking time only cutting when the BF% rises beyond around 15%.
Just a little twist I figured I would throw out for consideration.
Phill
Randman, I’m not sure if you were referring to me with the ‘guy who put on a little fat and can’t see his abs anymore’ but I would like to say that I began training 2 years ago @ 130lbs at 10% bf. Since then I felt I have done a good job in putting on mass and staying relatively lean. Again, if you were not referring to me then just disregard it.
Yeah actually I was. But I have to commend you on your progress. Great job! If your goal is to continue to bulk however, imho it just seems you only want to cut so much before going on a bulk again. When you started bulking you were at 12.5% bf and then went to 15. Why not cut down some to 12% bf and then bulk again?
Phill, I agree with you on your points. It’s the total weekly calories that will make the difference, not necessarily a day-by-day deficit or surplus. It takes roughly 3500kcal/week to gain or lose 1 lb. of fat.
After the wealth of replies I have recieved, I have decided the next four weeks will go towards ABBH, don’t diet (w/ maintainence or slightly hypocaloric), HIIT, & Hot-Rox. Hell, may not even need 4 weeks.
Keep us posted with your results
Loopfit, thanks for the fantastic info! 
You mention that ‘The macronutrient breakdown differed per individual’ and ‘bodyfat distribution analysis was part of the determinant as was an Oral Glucose Tolerance test’
I have been reading John Berardi’s use of glucose testing to determine macronutrient intake too, so if you have some time spare could you expand on this area a little please?
Also how do you tweak macronutrient profile eg. if someone was gaining too much fat or if someone wasn’t gaining enough muscle?
Your baseline kcal/lbs depending on what phase you are doing is very usefull as a baseline starting point, and is inline with most of what I’ve been reading so that gives more confidence in my planning.
Keep up the brilliant posts!
Cheers
Chris
Thanks Chris(Planbeta) for the compliments. I’m glad to see this post has got people thinking. I truly feel it is one of the best ways of massing up. I haven’t even gotten into some of the other, more controversial things such as Controlled Catabolic phases. I prefer using the term “mass” as opposed to “bulk” because bulk just brings up connotations of fat, which is not any athlete’s or bodybuilder’s goal. I say ONE of the best reasons, because as anyone who’s been in this game long enough realizes, there is no best way of doing things, only best options. As far as expanding on JB’s “Glucose Tolerance” article, I don’t see what else I could add. Mr. Berardi did a fantastic job in that article and all the info. you need to perform your own OGT test is right there. Obviously there is a bit of hassle involved with the fasting, early morning testing and re-testing until the 120min. mark, so only those who are serious are going to try it. There is also the extraction of blood which turns many off. This test is one of many to find the person’s ability to synthesize carbs via insulin sensitivity. Those with poor numbers(shown by either going too high or too low or not returning to baseline soon enough) are going to be better off with lower carb intake. Keep in mind that these people can also use exogenous forms of improving their sensitivity such as r-ALA and Biotin. So as I’ve already mentioned, there is more than one way of doing this but for puritan reasons, simply reducing carb intake is the way to go. Finding a baseline carb intake is another game of chance. There simply are no baselines established for such things thus you have to experiment via trail and error. I like to start at the low end and see how the person responds and keep adding carbs until the person starts to show negative feedback. Remember that insulin is anabolic to muscle, so getting as much of it before it becomes anabolic to fat, is optimal. One thing I keep constant is the inclusion of quick-responding carbs post-workout and these carbs are included in the total carb count.
As far as tweaking the macronutrients, if someone is putting on too much fat then I lower carbs but keep calories the same by increasing fat. If someone is not putting on weight, then calories are increased keeping the same macronurient profile, therefore the calories are increased throughout(carbs,fats and protein). Hope that further helps expand on my points.
“Hope that further helps expand on my points.”…
It certainly does! Thanks again, I’m justing starting a ‘Mass gaining’ phase so all this info is really usefull.
Cheers
Chris
Loopfitt,
Great posts, not sure if i missed it, but did you give protein and fat calculations for your approach? Did the protein content stay the same during mass/main./cut cycles (say 1.5g/lb. of BW)? How long did you let the mass phase go, was it until they reached a certain BF% or was it a planned number of weeks?
Boss14, I’ve already mentioned that the macronutrient profile is different for everyone therefore those that have a higher carb amount will have a lower fat and the opposite is true for the carb intolerant types. As an example, a very carb intolerant person might be on a 50p/15c/35f while someone on the opposite end of the spectrum who is very carb tolerant might try 40p/40c/20f. I find most people do well with a 50p/20-25c/25-30f. As you can see the protein is high in all examples. Many people feel this is overboard but I like the high protein amounts, I feel they work best. When cutting, I will use the same macros but obviously with lower calories. Your tolerance to macros doesn’t change whether you are putting on mass or cutting, so why change these ratios. I also feel it is harder to go on a low carb cutting phase, when you are used to a high carb growing phase. As far as length of phases, the phases usually last about 4-6 weeks mass and 3-4 weeks maint./cutting, repeated. If the planning was correct, the person should not put on too much fat% in the phases so this is not an issue.