Newbie To the Site/Looking to Bulk

allan3876 · September 11, 2006, 11:03pm

I searched many old articles and didn’t find anything that completely answered all my questions, so I fig I would just ask them.

First off, I have been cutting and maintaining ever since I started lifting a year and a half ago so this will be my first attempt at bulking. I pretty much have the general idea down, up the calories (my H.B calculations put me at about 3500 to gain) Lift heavy and often, and keep it relatively clean…eat eat eat. lol

I’m in my second year of college to be an athletic trainer/strength and conditioning coach, so i know how these things work, but I want the advice from the general mass of guys that have been doing this and truly know whats up.

So my first question comes with macronutrients while bulking. Right now I keep em about 25-30f/30-35c/40p obviously staying with the high protein diet. All most all fats come from natty pb, nuts, dairy, etc.

Now I realize that you should only take in 1.5-2g protein per lb in body weight, so obviosly by eating more I am not going to be able to massively up the protein because calculations of hypothetical diets with high protein put me in the range of 300-350g a day…I weigh 182lbs.

So first question is…do you eat more carbs to help add calories while bulking instead of focusing on protein protein protein?
So that takes care of the diet/macronutrient question.

Second…training. I know if I am going to do this I am going to go hard, balls to the walls, lift my ass off like a madman! So I decided I want to work out twice a day, once in the morning between classes at school, and then again when I come home at night.

So what is a good program to do for bulking that is a twice a day workout? I’m guessing maybe either a push/pull split or possibly even an upper/lower split or a combination of both, 4 days a week?

That sound good? Anyone have any 4 day, twice a day splits that really worked for them while bulking?

Third is Supplements. I have recently started taking Trac extreme-no, and usually I dont fall for that type of crap, but it really works. In just three weeks of using it my bench has gone up 10lbs, my squats and deads both 15 and my normal number of pullups in one session has almost doubled.

So I think I may stick with it a while, but I was curious as to other things that you guys have used that worked, maybe I could try after this stuff runs out, I am all about expirimenting to find what really works the best with my body. Other than that I take good ole creatine monohydrate a multi, and 2 protein shakes a day, 1 post wo, the other as a snack b4 bed.

So those are my three questions. I thank anyone in advance that takes the time to help me out!

Phill · September 12, 2006, 12:21am

Your making this to hard.

Eat the same just more

Lift the same no need to do two a days etc you still need to rest etc. you grow out of the gym not in it. Let the food etc allow greater energy and allow you to up the intensity. maybe upn the volume a bit as well. But Just a solid plan will work.

If you really want to do two a days you’ll have to still train smart it would be very brief sessions. something with CT’s HSS-100, maybe Growth Surge Project. Also some of CW’s stuff the High frequency training has very brief two a days.

Eat a lot eat smart, train hard and smart . The main difference between a bulk and cut is the amount of food and somewhat the types of foods usually more carbs.

Now go get em’
Phill

EnTransit · September 12, 2006, 12:58am

As far as your nutrient intake…

Taking is lots of protein isnt going to harm you. By now, you should know that. You need to determine your macro split by how you respond to CHO.

For me, when I add CHO to my diet I do it at the best times I can. Breakfast, and PWO. I also use nutrient partitioning. (P+F, P+C) and I think that works very well.

Like Phil said, you are thinking this out too much. People build great bodies by just eating lots of clean food and lifting sensibly. More is not always better when you are lifting, so train smart. (Smart meaning dont train more than you have the ability to recover from).

Josh

Konstantine · September 12, 2006, 3:47am

Balanc your increase of macros. Exces protein isn’t good and you well know the body can only absorb up to 40g of protein at a time.

Aragorn · September 12, 2006, 5:16am

Respectfully, I thoroughly disagree with Konstantine’s comment. There is not and never has been a FIRM upper boundary on what amount of protein one can absorb in one meal. That 40g comment has been around for a while but I have never, ever found someone who could show me the proof.

Your body can handle the excess protein just fine, unless you don’t drink water, have a pre-existing condition, or are eating 10lb of meat a day. CT has been known to take in 400g or so of protein. Lots of protein has its place, just not usually.

Best argument I know to keep protein intake at 1.5g/lb is that protein fills you up faster than any other macronutrient, and that’s not what you want when bulking. The easier it is to cram more calories into yourself, the less eating feels like a chore.

You’re studying to be an athletic trainer, so you need to think this one through-- a trainer must be half scientist, half artist, and all intensity. You need rest more on a bulk than on a cut, for the simple reason that you have to be able to grow, and if you work yourself into the ground (or your athletes into the ground) you’ll be prone to injury and stagnating.

Same thing goes for overusing the same rep/exercise choices, etc. If you can handle 8 workouts a week, go for it. But I think not. You have to lay the work capacity as foundation, and gradually get used to the workload. Check out Chad Waterbury’s stuff for high freq. if you’re into that.

If not, I suggest a 4x a week upper/lower split. 2 upper, 2 lower. Just personal taste I guess. It’s worked well for many people.

On carbs/fat–approach this same as training, half scientist, half artist. Figure out if you respond well to carbs or not. If you’re not too carb sensitive, they are the most convenient source of calories (they’re EVERYWHERE).

If you put on too much fat, then maybe you should limit your huge carb meals to breakfast, PWO, and go with healthy fats as your excess.

Don’t worry about supps except for protein and creatine and fish oil. At least until you’ve figured out how you’re responding to your diet. Then start adding stuff in. I love my supps, just get the habits of your new diet (timing/amount) in place before you start adding a bunch of pills and powders to take on top of that. Once you’ve gotten used to eating/training, and have the money, go crazy.

My 2 cents.

PS–the problem with people studying to be something is that they make their field to complicated, in order to sound smart, or in order to try and shotgun all the details. Happens to chemists (me) too.

Strip down everything to the basic principles, hypothesize, and test. Learn systematic manipulation and analysis, it helps (and record keeping, need that). You’ll be doing your future clients/athletes a favor too. I’m sure Eric Cressey can vouch for that.

Aragorn · September 12, 2006, 5:46am

This is particularly difficult to try to explain in text over the internet, but here goes. I say these things because I’m tired of so called experts not knowing what how to think about their field and ruining athletes (not an attack on you personally)…

You’ve got a lot of good thoughts, but the fundamental difficulty is you’re still thinking (roughly speaking) in black and white. The answers are: You up whatever nutrient lets you bulk most effectively w/o massive fat gain, every split and no split is an effective training regimen, and in my personal opinion NO is crap (10lb gain in 3 weeks = 3.3lb a week, easily doable on your own due to adaptation or placebo effect).

Speaking as a scientist, what effective scientists do is to break things down to their essentials, much like philosophers. In a sense we ARE physical philosophers, because we deal in the realm of physical phenomenon. YOU are a scientist, whether you know it or not. What will you do in your career? Observe, hypothesize, test. Only you do it with athletes and not organic chemicals. Everyone involved in fitness is a physical philosopher in a sense, because hard biomedical science always lags behind the top athletes and champions. They MAKE the initial experiments that set training science and nutrition science on a new course. By definition, to stay on top means to stay ahead of the game. This entails experimentation and analysis, which is precisely what scientists do. Be a groundbreaker. This is why it’s so important to read everything and to be able to anaylze and test effectively in real life and not on an exam question.

Much like high level mathematics, there are often 50 different ways to solve a problem in biochemistry, and in training/nutrition. The goal is to pick out the most effective course, whether your concern is time, money, safety, or all three. It is effectively an open-ended question that depends purely on your analysis and experimentation, sometimes creativity (the artistic part–old school bodybuilders had no end to creativity. They had to, as science wasn’t even close to explaining everything we know today). Often times there are several equally effective ways, and what you choose comes down to personal taste and style. Artist. You simply use different tools to paint. As does a chemist, in a very nerdy way :). Equally creative in different senses.

See the recurring theme? HOW you approach something is more important that WHAT you end up doing. Learn how to think, how to learn. The inability to experiment and analyze is precisely one of the reasons people seek the easy way out, infomercials selling stupid gadgets sell, supplements that have no business being on shelves are put there, and athletes are ruined by closeminded “experts”. Well, I hope I’ve made an effective point rather than just rambling. It’s late, and I shut my brain of hours ago.

Good luck.

Phill · September 12, 2006, 6:00am

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Respectfully, I thoroughly disagree with Konstantine’s comment. There is not and never has been a FIRM upper boundary on what amount of protein one can absorb in one meal. That 40g comment has been around for a while but I have never, ever found someone who could show me the proof.