[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
miniarnold wrote:
Hey Coach,
when wanting to gain quality mass with as little fat gain as possible,
would you reccomend a straight bulking cycle or alternating with bulking and cutting cycles to keep the fat gain to a minimum, if so what duration would you suggest for each?
Cheers.
- I do not like ‘‘bulking’’… in truth, bulking means eating as much as possible to gain as much total weight as you can. This results in too much fat gain in most individuals. I do recommend ‘‘mass gaining’’ which is a more appropriate term; you are eating a lot of food in order to grow a your goal IS to gain as much muscle as possible, but you want to avoid excessive fat gain.
*IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL THOSE WITH BAD READING COMPREHENSION: When talking about ‘‘bulking’’ on forums, most people REALLY mean ‘‘mass gaining’’. They just use the term ‘‘bulking’’ either because of tradition or because it sounds cool.
- While alternating periods of ‘‘mass gaining’’ and ‘‘fat loss’’ is a decent approach, especially if you already have a good amount of muscle, most people don’t do it right; they use phases that are too short (e.g. muscle gaining for 4 weeks, fat loss for 4 weeks). To make an appreciable gain in muscle you need to focus on that goal for at least 10-12 weeks (preferably more), so doing a 4-6 weeks ‘‘mass gaining’’ phase is often not ideal for maximum progress.
Fat loss phases on the other hand can be shorter because fat loss is more rapid than muscle growth if things are done properly. A 2-3lbs fat loss per week is pretty easy to achieve with an halfway decent diet, but gaining that amount of muscle could take you 4 weeks and as much as 6 or even 8 in some people.
So you could focus on gaining muscle for 10 weeks then 2-4 weeks of fat loss, then back on 10 weeks of mass gaining, etc.
OR, this is a strategy that I like to use during mass gaining phases, include 1 or 2 days per week of ‘‘damage control’’: you eat for maximum growth 5-6 days a week and include 1-2 days per week where you limit your energy and carbs intake. In other words you eat below maintenance; less than 50g of carbs during the day, keep fat relatively low too but keep protein high. On that day do not strength train, but do cardio and/or metabolic training (see my Monday with Thib article on the subject).
This(these) control day(s) will allow you to eat more on the other days of the week without fear of gaining too much fat because the control days are there to limit the damage.
Depending on how you are progressing, add or remove control days. For example, start at one control day per week. If you find yourself gaining fat too much, add a second one (control days should not be on consecutive days), if you are still pilling on fat too much add a third one (do NOT include more than 3 control days per week).
If you find that your gains are slowing down, remove one control day or make it less severe, etc.[/quote]
Thank you, very informative.