I’ve been bulking slowly for the past 7-8 months and have gained about 10-15 lbs. My goal is to look lean most of the year, as I’m not trying to compete. I’ve noticed I’ve gained a little fat over the bulk and I was wondering what the best way to minimize this was?
The ideas I had were fasted cardio, or circuit training 2-3 times a week. My diet is pretty clean with a 40/30/30 split, I currently lift 5 days a week.
Thanks
The only way I know of to minimize fat gain is to create a smaller surplus of calories. Either eat less or do more with the same amount of food.
I throw in carb cycling in and stick with my cardio. My two centavos.
[quote]RFYL wrote:
I’ve been bulking slowly for the past 7-8 months and have gained about 10-15 lbs. My goal is to look lean most of the year, as I’m not trying to compete.
I’ve noticed I’ve gained a little fat over the bulk and I was wondering what the best way to minimize this was? The ideas I had were fasted cardio, or circuit training 2-3 times a week. My diet is pretty clean with a 40/30/30 split, I currently lift 5 days a week.
Thanks[/quote]
First off, that is about the slowest bulk I have ever seen. Secondly, you can’t really avoid fat gain and get optimal muscle growth. You don’t have to eat like a fatass but you do need a solid surplus. If anything you should be eating more, because in 8 months you could have gained more like 30 solid lbs.
Don’t do any fasted cardio. Fasted cardio is a great way to go catabolic.
Just make sure your surplus is reasonable, get your cardio in about 2 days a week, try not to gain more than about a pound a week, and then stop stressing about a little fat gain. Just diet it off later for the summer.
Well my last bulk I did I gained about 30lbs in 6-7 months and then my cut I lost 25lbs, although I was a little leaner than when I started. I don’t really want to be fat half the year either.
I’m kinda basing my strategy off this article http://www.T-Nation.com/article/bodybuilding/the_truth_about_bulking&cr=
Cliff notes: Gain 1.5-2 lbs a month to minimize fat gain and reduce the need for cutting bulking cycles.
I don’t do any cardio now and thought maybe some crossfit or Steady state cardio might help mitigate fat gains.
Also I know in general its calories in vs out but I was wondering if anyone has had any success minimizing fat gains while slowly bulking.
[quote]yakbutter wrote:
RFYL wrote:
I’ve been bulking slowly for the past 7-8 months and have gained about 10-15 lbs. My goal is to look lean most of the year, as I’m not trying to compete.
I’ve noticed I’ve gained a little fat over the bulk and I was wondering what the best way to minimize this was? The ideas I had were fasted cardio, or circuit training 2-3 times a week. My diet is pretty clean with a 40/30/30 split, I currently lift 5 days a week.
Thanks
First off, that is about the slowest bulk I have ever seen. Secondly, you can’t really avoid fat gain and get optimal muscle growth. You don’t have to eat like a fatass but you do need a solid surplus. If anything you should be eating more, because in 8 months you could have gained more like 30 solid lbs.
Don’t do any fasted cardio. Fasted cardio is a great way to go catabolic. Just make sure your surplus is reasonable, get your cardio in about 2 days a week, try not to gain more than about a pound a week, and then stop stressing about a little fat gain. Just diet it off later for the summer.
[/quote]
Hasn’t it pretty much been proven that unless you are making beginner gains or gaining muscle that you have at one point had, that the maximum amount of lean tissue that can be added in a week, averaged over time, is 1/2 lb?
[quote]RMorrison wrote:
Hasn’t it pretty much been proven that unless you are making beginner gains or gaining muscle that you have at one point had, that the maximum amount of lean tissue that can be added in a week, averaged over time, is 1/2 lb?
[/quote]
I hope you’re being sarcastic.
[quote]RMorrison wrote:
Hasn’t it pretty much been proven that unless you are making beginner gains or gaining muscle that you have at one point had, that the maximum amount of lean tissue that can be added in a week, averaged over time, is 1/2 lb?
[/quote]
Yeah, that’s about right. A person’s p-ratio will determine how much of the weight gained will be lean tissue, and on average it’s about 50%.
That 1/2 lb figure doesn’t mean that if you gain 1/2 lb every week that it will all be muscle, as the OP basically proved. His rate is even slower than that and yet he’s gained fat.
I think if you want to keep lean all year, you’re going to need to do short cutting cycles from time to time. I like to throw in 2-3 weeks of dieting every few months. It’s nice because you don’t have to do a marathon cut.
I always get the best results in the first couple of weeks before the hormones start reacting. And it’s easier psychologically knowing that you get to eat normally again in a couple of weeks rather than in 3 months.
I know there are body recompostion strategies such as overeating by a certain amount on training days and cutting on non-training days, but for me it requires too much attention to detail to do that and it’s difficult to manage in real life.
There was an article written by THibs a while back about “control days” where you basically PSMF’d one day a week to keep bf in check. I think that is feasible.
[quote]mr popular wrote:
RMorrison wrote:
Hasn’t it pretty much been proven that unless you are making beginner gains or gaining muscle that you have at one point had, that the maximum amount of lean tissue that can be added in a week, averaged over time, is 1/2 lb?
I hope you’re being sarcastic.[/quote]
I hope so, too…
[quote]RFYL wrote:
Well my last bulk I did I gained about 30lbs in 6-7 months and then my cut I lost 25lbs[/quote] That just means that your training and eating wasn’t what it should have been… Seriously.
[quote]RMorrison wrote:
Hasn’t it pretty much been proven that unless you are making beginner gains or gaining muscle that you have at one point had, that the maximum amount of lean tissue that can be added in a week, averaged over time, is 1/2 lb?
[/quote]
When the fuck did someone prove that all humans are capable of only gaining .5lbs of muscle in a week?
Read LESS from personal training authors and MORE real fucking science.
The human body is not that limited and your genetics above all else determine rate of growth with your food intake and training running equally second behind it.
People like you allow yourselves to be led by a leash.
Have fun living life that way.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
RFYL wrote:
Well my last bulk I did I gained about 30lbs in 6-7 months and then my cut I lost 25lbs That just means that your training and eating wasn’t what it should have been… Seriously.
[/quote]
Further, why the hell would someone gain 30lbs and then turn right around and try to lose all of it and not expect to lose the muscle they supposedly gained?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
RMorrison wrote:
Hasn’t it pretty much been proven that unless you are making beginner gains or gaining muscle that you have at one point had, that the maximum amount of lean tissue that can be added in a week, averaged over time, is 1/2 lb?
When the fuck did someone prove that all humans are capable of only gaining .5lbs of muscle in a week?
Read LESS from personal training authors and MORE real fucking science.
The human body is not that limited and your genetics above all else determine rate of growth with your food intake and training running equally second behind it.
People like you allow yourselves to be led by a leash.
Have fun living life that way.[/quote]
Ever since that one article by thibs (was it him?) got posted and people constantly keep misunderstanding or misquoting it, we’ve had this discussion every month anew lol
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Professor X wrote:
RMorrison wrote:
Hasn’t it pretty much been proven that unless you are making beginner gains or gaining muscle that you have at one point had, that the maximum amount of lean tissue that can be added in a week, averaged over time, is 1/2 lb?
When the fuck did someone prove that all humans are capable of only gaining .5lbs of muscle in a week?
Read LESS from personal training authors and MORE real fucking science.
The human body is not that limited and your genetics above all else determine rate of growth with your food intake and training running equally second behind it.
People like you allow yourselves to be led by a leash.
Have fun living life that way.
Ever since that one article by thibs (was it him?) got posted and people constantly keep misunderstanding or misquoting it, we’ve had this discussion every month anew lol
[/quote]
I guess if people are that clueless, they deserve what they get.
The only thing sadder is that some of them seem to really think they are better educated because they are reading a fucking article without the ability to tell true fact from opinion and hyperbole.
The internet has become a crutch for some of these people and they will never learn to walk because of it.
I don’t believe in that .5lb a week either. I went from 220 to 240 in around 3 months. And no it, wasn’t 6lbs of lean muscle and 14lbs of fat. I was constantly being asked if I was juicing.
According to the .5 theory it would take much longer to gain that much muscle. Obviously there was some fat gain that came with it but not a lot. They weren’t newbe gains either.
[quote]SdotCarter wrote:
I don’t believe in that .5lb a week either. I went from 220 to 240 in around 3 months. And no it, wasn’t 6lbs of lean muscle and 14lbs of fat. I was constantly being asked if I was juicing. According to the .5 theory it would take much longer to gain that much muscle. Obviously there was some fat gain that came with it but not a lot. They weren’t newbe gains either.[/quote]
Weight gain is not limited to muscle and fat. Your muscle is mostly water and when you gain more tissue you naturally hold more. Plus there is connective tissue being formed, and bones get thicker. A lot of stuff is happening.
.5 lbs is not the max, it’s about the average for the average trainee. If you have good genetics I’m sure you can do better.
Anyway, I think we are all in agreement that the OP shouldn’t be scurred of a little eatin’. His bulk is mostly spinning his wheels IMO.
Why can’t C_C and Prof X be able to teleport around the globe and hit stupid people and then give them steak to grow.
I agree I could be a little less averse to losing my abs but its not like I haven’t made progress on this bulk (also I really haven’t put on much fat). All my lifts have gone up at about the same rate as when I was dirty bulking. I was eating clean just a shitload.
I’m sure some people can gain lean mass faster than others, I know that if I eat 600-800 calories over maintenance I put maybe 1.5lbs of muscle a month and 4 lbs of fat. So now I eat a couple hundred over maintenance, my progress might be a little slower but I don’t have to be fat shit half the year.
I was just looking for a way to curb fat gains, I’ll probably just do a one month cut once a year.
Also I haven’t been overly restrictive with my calories this bulk, I eat ~4000 calories at 190lbs.
If you’ve only gained 10-15 lbs over 6-7 months, then not much at all should be from fat, especially any amount that would be noticeable.
How about listing what you eat?
or just post pics