Much Needed Bulking Advice

Training
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(struggling to gain more)

Normally don’t post on forums like these but am a big fan of T Nation and follow most of the articles up here (find them exponentially better than some of the shit you find elsewhere on the internet).

I’ve been bulking for the last 2 months or so (been training properly for about the last 2 years). I’m 5’9" and begain bulking at about 71 kg with approximately 8-9% body fat. I managed to gain the first 10 kg relatively comfortably and quickly (weigh about 81 kg now at around 12% bf), but I’ve really had trouble gaining any more and its starting to get extremely frustrating!

I gained the first 10 kg eating around 450-500 grams of carbs a day (all low GI carbs, bar dextrose post workout to spike my insulin before weight gainer) and around 150 grams of protein (normally in the form of lean beef or chicken). I was training around 6 times a week, which I didn’t realise was a bad idea as the body obviously needs time to recover and grow during bulking cycles.

I’m eating 6 meals a day (including 2 shakes) with a liquid breakfast of 100gs of oats, around 30-50gs of natural peanut butter, bananas and blueberries.

The major problem I’m having, however, is that my gains have rapidly slowed down and I just can’t seem to put on any more weight despite what I eat. I’ve upped my carb intake to around 600 now (all good carbs still) and my protein to around 200 (on about 80-100gs of fat). I train after breakfast (still the same) and for the past few weeks or so have been training every other day in the hope of gaining more obviously.

I’m on ON Serious Mass at the moment. My post workout shake (after dextrose) consists of about 110g carbs and 25g protein. I’m taking creatine mono-hydrate pre and post workout also. I’ve just started taking ZMA which im hoping will help (despite giving me the shits).

In terms of my training, for the first 10kg i gained i more or less didn’t change my rep range, although the loads I was taking obviously increased. Now that I seem to have hit a wall, I’ve tried going low reps, starting from a set of 8 reps then going down to heavy sets of 6, 4, 2. Whilst this improved my strength I still struggled to gain any actual weight, which was really fucking frustrating!

I then changed to lower weights, starting with around 16 reps going down to around 8 and have found that’s not helped either.

Any advice would be HUGELY appreciated! My original plan was to hit around the 85-87kg mark before i start cutting but am starting to worry that this just isn’t going to be possible.

Thanks in advance

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http://www.T-Nation.com/diet-fat-loss/bulking-diet-delusion

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That was hugely enlightening! MUCH appreciated. So ideally I need to cut my surplus down and hit up some more cardio? I’ve pretty much stopped cardio for the last few weeks in the hope that it would fix the problem, had no idea it would be messing up my insulin sensitivity

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Do you think it would be worth dropping a surplus for a week or so to drop the fat?

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How old are you?

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[quote]lenfield90 wrote:
Do you think it would be worth dropping a surplus for a week or so to drop the fat? [/quote]

How much fat do you expect to lose by simply “dropping the surplus” for a week??? You might be able to lower your bodyweight by 5lbs or so, but you will lose something like 2lbs of actual fat. From experience, there isn’t that much you can do in one week.

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Stop using the scale to judge progress. Focusing on seeing the number go up normally does bad things to one’s diet and training. You can’t forcefeed yourself to grow. When you are natural (no anabolic aids) your body has a limit amount of muscle it can build, and it’s not that much per week.

Furthermore muscle gains tend to be in spurts… you will get a quick boost in muscle… then it stabilizes for a few weeks or even months… then it bursts again… stabilizes… etc.

You should focus on the quality of your workouts and eating to perform. If your strength is steadily going up, muscle grow will follow even if you don’t see a rapid gain in weight.

Honestly, few non-beginners can gain over 10-12kg of MUSCLE in a year (they can gain more weight… at, stored glycogen or water) but 10-12kg of muscle is rare. The thing is that you often have big initial gains… like a quick 5kg of muscle and 10kg of weight in 6-8 weeks or so and you expect that this rate will be maintained… in your mind you already see yourself gaining 25kg of muscle and 40kg of weight at the end of the year. Sadly it doesn’t work like that. Past that rapid increase in size gains are much slower and if you focus on getting the scale to move at the same rate you’ll only add fat.

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Ok, I see what you are saying. (Im 23 by the way) What do you think the best way forward for me would be then? Am I better off going back to a more calculated surplus (not overeating) and just getting more cardio in on my rest days?

Visually, at the moment I don’t feel like I’ve been making any real gains for the past few weeks or so, but then again I dont think my body fat percentage has been this high in a long time. I’m not sure whether I should try and drop as much fat as I can in a short period of time (this sounds optimistic judging from your post) in order to increase my insulin sensitivity, or just attempt to fix the problem whilst running a surplus.

Really appreciate your response .

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[quote]lenfield90 wrote:
Ok, I see what you are saying. (Im 23 by the way) What do you think the best way forward for me would be then? Am I better off going back to a more calculated surplus (not overeating) and just getting more cardio in on my rest days?

Visually, at the moment I don’t feel like I’ve been making any real gains for the past few weeks or so, but then again I dont think my body fat percentage has been this high in a long time. I’m not sure whether I should try and drop as much fat as I can in a short period of time (this sounds optimistic judging from your post) in order to increase my insulin sensitivity, or just attempt to fix the problem whilst running a surplus.

Really appreciate your response .[/quote]

Personally I would take 3 or even 4 weeks to drop the fat to start on a new clean slate. Then focus on gaining strength, eating enough to be optimally fueled, but not letting your body fat go out of control

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Yeah from what I’ve read I think your spot on. When I started bulking I took the advise of competitor that I didn’t question at all. He told me to go on 450/150 carb protein split but being an endomorph I’m obviously taking in way too many carbs and my body’s just been turning it to fat. Haven’t felt this chubby in years! Think I’m going to cut the fat for the next few weeks and then hit up a new bulking diet with relatively low carbs.

Really appreciate the help buddy, been so frustrated with not knowing what I’ve been doing wrong. Most of the guys in my gym are avid steroid users, and while I love to train with a lot of them the dietary advice they can offer is somewhat limited.

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