I’m not talking about a slight caloric surplus. I’m interested in doing an extreme bulking to gain ~4 lb of weight per week for around 2-3 months. I don’t mind if I get very fat, as long as I’m getting stronger faster and have a ton of energy for lifting. Has anyone tried this before? How was your experience?
Just dont eat like shit lol or youll fuck your body up trust me. I went on a mcdonalds bulk haha 6000 cals plus a day. I gained 20lbs in like a month. I got strong as shit got some bodyfat to go with it but i started to feel sluggish as hell so eat some healthy shit too.
I once did a really dirty massive bulk(junk food ala mcdonalds) and gained about 10lbs in a month. My strength stayed almost the same and I felt like crap and bloated inside. The only lift where i got really stronger was the squat and it wasnt much. i only did this for a single month though.
One thing it taught me is how to eat. I always had problems getting all my calories in especially from clean food(which is why i relied so much on junk food in that bulking phase)
Like the robotic Cowboys coach Jason Garrett always says: its a process. Trust the process…unless you’re a Cowboy fan.
Seems like your just gonna be bloated and on the shitter a lot but good luck.
[quote]MightyMouse17 wrote:
How you’re going to gain 4 pounds a week for 2-3 months and get faster is beyond me.
Like the robotic Cowboys coach Jason Garrett always says: its a process. Trust the process…unless you’re a Cowboy fan.[/quote]
I think he meant he wants to get stronger faster, not stronger and faster.
Anyway OP, gaining weight has to be a slow process and I’ll explain why. Those really fat guys lifting obscene amounts of weight did it slowly over years, not a couple of months.
The reason why is because with a caloric excess you can train harder and continue to get stronger, week in week out. When performance is the only thing that matters, why not do that? The caloric surplus inevibtably leads to fat gain and over years since they don’t care about their physique so much, they become very fat.
They didn’t intend to become that fat to become strong, they intended to become strong and they became that fat. You’re going about it horribly backwards, intending to become fat won’t make you strong. Training for years and supplying your body with enough (or perhaps more than enough) nutrients is what will make you strong. You’re just looking for a quick fix and it makes you no different than those retards in the gym that start using powerful supplements straight away.
Also, it is indeed muscle that lifts weights but the fat will indeed help you to lift more weight due to a shorter ROM and perhaps better leverages (on the squat for example). So in a way it’s not ‘true’ strength so what happens when you want to lose the excess fat? Your numbers drop way down and you just became horrifically fat for no reason.
You’re not going to diet the excess weight off? Well then that means you’ll always carry around 40lbs more fat then if you had done a more moderate approach. If your weight gain then continues on at a more moderate pace after your extreme bulk and you don’t diet, there are two scenarios:
1: You eventually become grotesquely fat and can’t get off the couch to even go to the gym.
2: You find equilibrium and your bodyweight stays the same. This is the more realistic option. But then in such a scenario how do you improve your training from there? You find you can’t realistically supply your body with a surplus (otherwise you’d be in scenario 1) so your strength progression week to week becomes the same as anybody else at that level of training who is maintaining their bodyweight. So you just hit the ‘wall’ quicker.
In scenario 2, you may argue that the strength you gained in the initial phase of gaining 40lbs excess fat completely warrants for hitting the wall quicker earlier on. I’m telling you that is not the case. The strength gains you get from putting on 4lbs a month instead of 2lbs a month will be marginal at most. The strength gains you gain from putting on 16lbs a month compared to 4lbs a month will be nill or possibly even less (your health will deteriorate rapidly and sorry but your general health contributes to your strength). The only difference in strength from putting on more weight per month at those levels is the change in leverages due to the fat. If you do it slowly you’ll eventually achieve those same beneficial leverages and you’ll be able to continue your progression at a faster rate in the gym for longer.
The other case is that you do eventually decide to diet it off and since the difference in strength you gained from gaining 16lbs a month to 4lbs a month was marginal at best, and only caused by increased leverages (which you’d lose anyway when you dieted), it would result in net strength gain being slower. The reason why is because the person who took a more moderate approach to fat gain can continue to gain strength while you have to spend ages dieting off 40lbs of fat you accrued for no reason, all the time while you’re losing strength.
TL;DR: Take a more moderate approach. Eat plenty to fuel your workouts and your strength will rise. Disregard putting on a certain weight per week, just eat enough to be continually improving. Your bodyweight will inevitably go up, but keep it in check because it’s pointless gaining fat for fats sake. The difference in strength gains from gaining more fat per month has diminishing returns, so gaining 16lbs a month compared to say 4 is negligible apart from improved mechanics, which you would either get eventually anyway if you did it slowly or you would have to diet it off and then just waste time dieting and lose the favourable mechanics.
P.S. I have gained 4lbs a month in the past (hence my fixation with the number) and I put on strength incredibly quickly. It does make you feel like shit, but that may be a small price to pay for getting awesome strength gains. However I know now that I could have achieved the same strength gains if I had put on say 2lbs a month on instead. I put on excess fat for no reason, which I now regret. I don’t really intend to be heavier than 120kg/264lbs, but I know I still have lots of muscle to gain. It means I inevitably have to lose fat to make way for more muscle gain, so I can stay in my weightclass.
[quote]JordanWebster wrote:
I think he meant he wants to get stronger faster, not stronger and faster.
[/quote]
Meh…its too early for my brain…lol The process part still applies though!
I say go for it … Please post before and after pics
Watching people in my gym eat themselves into oblivion, while thinking they are getting “jacked” and strong, is kind of a hobby of mine
I did it once and the last time ill ever due it. I wanted to get heavy enough to compete as a heavy weight in Strongman and was talked into eating every fucking not not nailed down taking in close to 8000 calories. Mcdonalds and Hardees were a staple on top of 1lbs Beef, gallon of milk, and metric fuck ton of fried rice. For a few days I loved it then after about a week I felt like death. Honestly the biggest gains I got were in my stomach but I did climb to 250lbs but honestly I looked like shit, felt like shit, and any thing over 5 reps looked like shit. I Honestly wanna get to about 240lbs before it over but if I can’t accomplish this with under 4000 calories a day ill be glad to stay a leanish 220. How ever if it works for you go for but I hate it.
[quote]mrshah wrote:
I’m not talking about a slight caloric surplus. I’m interested in doing an extreme bulking to gain ~4 lb of weight per week for around 2-3 months. I don’t mind if I get very fat, as long as I’m getting stronger faster and have a ton of energy for lifting. Has anyone tried this before? How was your experience?[/quote]
Depends on how old you are too. I agree w/ the others - it is a process. Check out this article. It was inspiring to me.
http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_big_5_of_getting_big&cr=
Pretty much a no nonsense way of getting big. There are alternative methods to gaining that extra weight too, but that’s the choice of the individual.
Once adipose fat cells are created they cannot be eliminated, except through surgery-- they just shrink. Therefore making it easier to get “fat” for the rest of your life because the cells are already there.
If you’re serious about doing this, I would suggest reading about adipose tissue and the effects it has on your hormones and body. You might change your mind.
if you want clean food and a lot of calories, eat the highest fat meat you can find. i can easily get 5+K cals a day and have as much as as 50% of my calories from fat, from mainly meat sources. eat lots of peanut butter sandwiches too.
its funny to me how people avoid fat like the plague when trying to cut calories as its too high in calories. well, duh! if you want to eat more calories then eat more fat! fry everything. add olive oil, coconut oil, MCT oil, whatever oil.
eat lots of pasta and cake. hell its better than mcdonalds and tastes better too. it should not be an issue at all getting in that many calories especially around the holidays.
[quote]mrshah wrote:
I’m not talking about a slight caloric surplus. I’m interested in doing an extreme bulking to gain ~4 lb of weight per week for around 2-3 months. I don’t mind if I get very fat, as long as I’m getting stronger faster and have a ton of energy for lifting. Has anyone tried this before? How was your experience?[/quote]
How old are you? What is your height/weight?
http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_big_5_of_getting_big&cr=
There are “additional alternatives” you can add to this to help w/ weight gain, but that is all up to the individual. This article was a bit inspirational to me. Made a lot of sense. I’ve applied this in segments. Can’t eat that way all the time. You’re body will push back.
Some highlights from the article:
“Strong guys are often big guys.” “Eat some damn food!” “Big strong guys have a unique ability to sit. They lounge at a high level.” “just use 45s and 25s.”
Dave Tate has also said that a lot of PR’s came out of a McDonalds “to go” bag. It really just depends on how your body reacts to what you put in your stomach. Just pay attention. When I was trying to gain weight, I just ate whenever and whatever I felt like. It’ll come. Lots of people swear by eggs, whole milk and beef; throw pasta and potatoes in there for carbs.
I gained a relatively large amount of weight in a relatively short time, and I don’t regret it. There were times when I was eating 6000-8000+ calories a day, and i definitely gained more fat than I wanted. But as time goes by, I seem to go through natural periods where I notice I’m getting a little too fat, I cut back for a bit, lean out, then start eating a ton again.
And overall, I’m happy with the fat/muscle ratio, for now. I’m nowhere near lean, and definitely want to be significantly leaner in the long run, but I think that will be a lot easier to achieve now that I have packed on a significant amount of muscle - once I got big and muscular, i found it was a LOT way easier to lose fat, because my metabolism is so much higher.
For me, it is way easier to gain a bunch of weight (both good and bad) then trim the bad weight, rather than trying to gain muscle without gaining fat.
I just felt like I needed to say that because MOST people in the thread seem to be saying they wouldn’t recommend eating those kind of calories, but I definitely did that for a while and I don’t regret it. HOWEVER, I will agree with almost everyone on this point; focusing on gaining weight (especially 4+ lbs a week) is kind of stupid. Rather, you should be focusing on training your ASS off, and then eating as much food with protein in it as possible. If you train your ass off, and then eat a ton of protein (and all the stuff that goes along with protein) you WILL gain strength, fast, you WILL gain weight, and that weight WILL be better weight than if you are just focusing on eating, instead of eating SO that you can train your ass off. And personally, I would stay away from foods that are just carbs - the cookies and cakes and stuff - and stick with foods like pizza, chocolate milk, burgers, etc. Those foods are super calorically dense, have a ton of carbs and fat, but also protein and they are gonna help your recovery a lot more than just crushing cakes and cookies which are less likely to make you feel strong and more likely to make you feel fat and insulin resistant haha.
Might look up Frank Yang’s bulking thread on here, entertaining as always. And he gained quite a bit of weight too.
For a great article on the subject, check out “Eating Through Sticking Points” by Matt Reynolds, posted over at starting strength’s website.
I think there is validity toward using the approach purely for the sake of gaining maximal strength. People have brought up valid concerns in regards to negative impacts on health, appearance, and athletic ability, but if these are not concerns for you, then they aren’t really negatives.
wow, awesome…I’m quite pleased with each these responses. I was expecting a bunch of super snarky ones 
thanks for taking your time to write
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
People have brought up valid concerns in regards to negative impacts on health, appearance, and athletic ability, but if these are not concerns for you, then they aren’t really negatives.[/quote]
But he SHOULD be concerned with them.
It is just a retarded idea no matter how you look at it. Common-sense bulking is great for strength but stuffing-your-face bulking WILL NOT work better but comes with a whole lot of problems.
ps: The whole glorification of getting BW up no matter what for “strength” as proposed by Dave Tate&co in the past is downright irresponsible imo.