Truth About Bulking and Dave Tate

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
What is optimal?

Quantify ‘intelligently overdoin it?’
[/quote]

He said optimal, I’m saying intelligently overdo it by which I mean an obviously certain excess of calories that doesn’t rise to the level impending obesity.

I won’t even attempt to numerically quantify what that means. I use the word intelligent to mitigate the word overdo simply to make the point that if you’re belly is hanging over beltline you probably are eating more than is doing you any good.

This whole realm is necessarily subjective to a point. I don’t know exactly how fat is too fat during a bulk, but I know it when I see it to coin a phrase.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
sasquatch wrote:
What is optimal?

Quantify ‘intelligently overdoin it?’

He said optimal, I’m saying intelligently overdo it by which I mean an obviously certain excess of calories that doesn’t rise to the level impending obesity.

I won’t even attempt to numerically quantify what that means. I use the word intelligent to mitigate the word overdo simply to make the point that if you’re belly is hanging over beltline you probably are eating more than is doing you any good.

This whole realm is necessarily subjective to a point. I don’t know exactly how fat is too fat during a bulk, but I know it when I see it to coin a phrase.
[/quote]

too fat=back belly

I know what you’re saying though. A lot of this is subjective. I don’t even really care if someone wants to try and build muscle without fat gain. It can be done. I don’t have the time or discipline to attempt to do so. Plus for me I like the idea of cycling. Not ridiculous swings, but periods of growth and periods of cutting. Maybe it’s old fashioned. Maybe it’s unneccesary.

I can tell you this. At one point in my life I weighed 400. When I played college basketball I weighed 210. In the past 10 years or so I’ve added aprox 70 lbs to my frame and I’ve dropped from 20% or so bf to now 14-15%. All the while cycling my weights and intensity and my calories. All of this also in my mid 30’s to my mid 40’s.

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
too fat=back belly

I know what you’re saying though. A lot of this is subjective. I don’t even really care if someone wants to try and build muscle without fat gain. It can be done. I don’t have the time or discipline to attempt to do so. Plus for me I like the idea of cycling. Not ridiculous swings, but periods of growth and periods of cutting. Maybe it’s old fashioned. Maybe it’s unneccesary.

I can tell you this. At one point in my life I weighed 400. When I played college basketball I weighed 210. In the past 10 years or so I’ve added aprox 70 lbs to my frame and I’ve dropped from 20% or so bf to now 14-15%. All the while cycling my weights and intensity and my calories. All of this also in my mid 30’s to my mid 40’s.[/quote]

Sasquatch, while you were bulking in one of your cycles, did you notice that it was more or less productive to do so for any specific length of time? How did you know if you were eating more than what was benefiting you?

The reason I ask is that what you just said is exactly what I believe works, it is just that I measure things a bit (without worshiping the measuring) to help know how much is too little and how much is too much.

[quote]Roland Fisher wrote:
sasquatch wrote:
too fat=back belly

I know what you’re saying though. A lot of this is subjective. I don’t even really care if someone wants to try and build muscle without fat gain. It can be done. I don’t have the time or discipline to attempt to do so. Plus for me I like the idea of cycling. Not ridiculous swings, but periods of growth and periods of cutting. Maybe it’s old fashioned. Maybe it’s unneccesary.

I can tell you this. At one point in my life I weighed 400. When I played college basketball I weighed 210. In the past 10 years or so I’ve added aprox 70 lbs to my frame and I’ve dropped from 20% or so bf to now 14-15%. All the while cycling my weights and intensity and my calories. All of this also in my mid 30’s to my mid 40’s.

Sasquatch, while you were bulking in one of your cycles, did you notice that it was more or less productive to do so for any specific length of time? How did you know if you were eating more than what was benefiting you?

The reason I ask is that what you just said is exactly what I believe works, it is just that I measure things a bit (without worshiping the measuring) to help know how much is too little and how much is too much.[/quote]

Quantifying time is tough. It depends on your goal. Because I was already bigger, I didn’t like to bulk for extended periods. I may set a goal of 20lbs. At that point I would evaluate my fitness and then set another goal whether that be gaining another 10 or dropping 15. Other times I bulked for pure strength. And again sometimes I would try to cut just to see where I could go.

I’m sure I could have short changed myself by changing too soon. My response–who cares. I don’t do this to compete or earn a living. I do this because I love it. I love the gym and I love the mental aspect as much. Now I can’t Dr. like the professor, but I understand approaches and concepts and I understand my body. I don’t know sarcoplasm from intracellular, but I like tweaking and working towards a goal. It’s not always a goal of growth either.

So I guess what I’m saying is, what has worked for me may not for you. What works for a 270 guy iis probably not the path a 175 guy needs to take. BUT, the idea that you have to feed your body for growth is universal. The fact that the body reacts in a way that is extremely difficult to assess while in the process, makes declarations of truth absurd.

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
too fat=back belly

I know what you’re saying though. A lot of this is subjective. I don’t even really care if someone wants to try and build muscle without fat gain. It can be done. I don’t have the time or discipline to attempt to do so. Plus for me I like the idea of cycling. Not ridiculous swings, but periods of growth and periods of cutting. Maybe it’s old fashioned. Maybe it’s unneccesary.

I can tell you this. At one point in my life I weighed 400. When I played college basketball I weighed 210. In the past 10 years or so I’ve added aprox 70 lbs to my frame and I’ve dropped from 20% or so bf to now 14-15%. All the while cycling my weights and intensity and my calories. All of this also in my mid 30’s to my mid 40’s.[/quote]

Agreed, seriously. I guess what keeps going through my mind is the fact that I wasted 13 years of my life drinking, eating like shit and sitting on my expanding fat ass and I let my prime years slip by. This after a previous very successful bout with extremely serious weight training.

Now I come here and am confronted by an army of kids who are sitting right on top of the best years of their life from a training perspective and all they can think of whether they’re going to see their abs or not. Especially the few who sound like they have the constitution to really excel.

I want to beat my head on my desk, grab em by the shirt and shake em. I’m making good gains. Much better than I would’ve thought possible, but I will never have those years back and here they are 17-25 years old 160-200 lbs. fretting over being fat for God,s sake.

I don’t lose sleep over whatever anybody wants to do, but it gets frustrating. I’m very glad to hear from guys like you who did not make the same mistakes I did. My only bright spot in all this is that I’m not THAT old and figure I can still do pretty well. It kills me to hear kids half my age bragging about gains that aren’t even as good as mine.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
sasquatch wrote:
too fat=back belly

I know what you’re saying though. A lot of this is subjective. I don’t even really care if someone wants to try and build muscle without fat gain. It can be done. I don’t have the time or discipline to attempt to do so. Plus for me I like the idea of cycling. Not ridiculous swings, but periods of growth and periods of cutting. Maybe it’s old fashioned. Maybe it’s unneccesary.

I can tell you this. At one point in my life I weighed 400. When I played college basketball I weighed 210. In the past 10 years or so I’ve added aprox 70 lbs to my frame and I’ve dropped from 20% or so bf to now 14-15%. All the while cycling my weights and intensity and my calories. All of this also in my mid 30’s to my mid 40’s.

Agreed, seriously. I guess what keeps going through my mind is the fact that I wasted 13 years of my life drinking, eating like shit and sitting on my expanding fat ass and I let my prime years slip by. This after a previous very successful bout with extremely serious weight training.

Now I come here and am confronted by an army of kids who are sitting right on top of the best years of their life from a training perspective and all they can think of whether they’re going to see their abs or not. Especially the few who sound like they have the constitution to really excel.

I want to beat my head on my desk, grab em by the shirt and shake em. I’m making good gains. Much better than I would’ve thought possible, but I will never have those years back and here they are 17-25 years old 160-200 lbs. fretting over being fat for God,s sake.

I don’t lose sleep over whatever anybody wants to do, but it gets frustrating. I’m very glad to hear from guys like you who did not make the same mistakes I did. My only bright spot in all this is that I’m not THAT old and figure I can still do pretty well. It kills me to hear kids half my age bragging about gains that aren’t even as good as mine.[/quote]

To Sasquatch:
Great post, I agree with you with the only exception I like to track data more… I guess actuarial sciences suits me!

To Tiribulus:
I choose to think that you’re not including me in the ‘kids half my age’ group, lol, I’m not old but 36 isn’t young either.

It is frustrating to see anyone waste their potential, in any endeavor. I definitely took a few bricks to the noggin to learn a few things, which brings me to my next point…

To all who intelligently responded to this thread:
In the end it sure looks like we all mostly agree. I don’t see the difference in any of the approaches discussed save for a few minute details that don’t matter much.

This is the first thread that I’ve “gotten into it” on, and may be my last, lol. I think in person, we’d all have a much better conversation, it is easy to not understand the others point of view in these forums.

Thanks guys.
Roland.

[quote]Roland Fisher wrote:
To Tiribulus:
I choose to think that you’re not including me in the ‘kids half my age’ group, lol, I’m not old but 36 isn’t young either.

It is frustrating to see anyone waste their potential, in any endeavor. I definitely took a few bricks to the noggin to learn a few things, which brings me to my next point…

To all who intelligently responded to this thread:
In the end it sure looks like we all mostly agree. I don’t see the difference in any of the approaches discussed save for a few minute details that don’t matter much.

This is the first thread that I’ve “gotten into it” on, and may be my last, lol. I think in person, we’d all have a much better conversation, it is easy to not understand the others point of view in these forums.

Thanks guys.
Roland.[/quote]

I’m thinking of threads I’ve seen where the person is busting their ass in the gym with a routine that would probably kill me, but they won’t eat. No egg yolks, very little if any meat, these little piddling hamster snacks that would deprive my 11 year old daughter.

All in the name of worshiping at the altar of the golden abs. One day some of these guys are going to wake up and really regret not having taken advantage while they had the chance.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
One day some of these guys are going to wake up and really regret not having taken advantage while they had the chance.

[/quote]

That’s doubtful. They will no doubt simply accuse everyone who did grow of being on drugs or having “better genetics” rather than admit that they held back their own progress during the best growing years of their life because they were afraid of ever being over 10% body fat.

The last thing people like that will do is blame themselves. They will simply be 35 year olds who still have the builds of high school boys only without the emo boyband factor.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
One day some of these guys are going to wake up and really regret not having taken advantage while they had the chance.

That’s doubtful. They will no doubt simply accuse everyone who did grow of being on drugs or having “better genetics” rather than admit that they held back their own progress during the best growing years of their life because they were afraid of ever being over 10% body fat.

The last thing people like that will do is blame themselves. They will simply be 35 year olds who still have the builds of high school boys only without the emo boyband factor.[/quote]

What is this “emo” thing? I’m probably really showing my age now. I saw that in another thread too.

Back to the topic at hand for a minute. There’s more important things in life than training all things considered, but when I look in the mirror and see that my body still responds to hard work and lots of good food it absolutely haunts me what might have been if I’d been training all this time.

Emo and boyband culture are two separate, yet equally flaming entities. Emo guys wear black-framed glasses, are notoriously nihilistic, look like little boys, listen to AWFUL whiny pseudo-punk, and write bad poetry.

Boy bands and their ilk like to sing like women, synchronize their dance moves, gel their hair and worship their abs and 11" arms.

Both groups deserve slow, painful deaths.

I hope that cleared some things up for you guys.

[quote]alownage wrote:
Emo and boyband culture are two separate, yet equally flaming entities. Emo guys wear black-framed glasses, are notoriously nihilistic, look like little boys, listen to AWFUL whiny pseudo-punk, and write bad poetry.

Boy bands and their ilk like to sing like women, synchronize their dance moves, gel their hair and worship their abs and 11" arms.

Both groups deserve slow, painful deaths.

I hope that cleared some things up for you guys.[/quote]

Indeed!LOL!

[quote]Mykayl wrote:
personally, i just eat as much as hunger tells me to. the stronger and bigger i get, the more my hunger tells me to eat. if i overeat, i get fat; if i undereat, i lose fat and impede hypertrophy/strength. that’s all know. bodybuilding is 10% science, and 90% intuition.
[/quote]

and what part statistics?

[quote]Contach wrote:
Mykayl wrote:
personally, i just eat as much as hunger tells me to. the stronger and bigger i get, the more my hunger tells me to eat. if i overeat, i get fat; if i undereat, i lose fat and impede hypertrophy/strength. that’s all know. bodybuilding is 10% science, and 90% intuition.

and what part statistics?[/quote]

I,m not sure how you meant this, but for it to be a meaningful question we would first need relevant statistics.

Prof X:

Just bulked from 165-190. I am definitely at a higher BF than I like to carry.

I’ve got nothing to cut. Need some advice about where to go from here. I noticed in the past you adovcate leaning out period at certain times of the year. Can you give me your advice on when you use this?

I’m thinking about continuing the bulk but adding some cardio in (which I haven’t done to this point) to control fat gain. Do you use this strategy?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[quote]Genghis wrote:
Prof X:

Just bulked from 165-190. I am definitely at a higher BF than I like to carry.

I’ve got nothing to cut. Need some advice about where to go from here. I noticed in the past you adovcate leaning out period at certain times of the year. Can you give me your advice on when you use this?

I’m thinking about continuing the bulk but adding some cardio in (which I haven’t done to this point) to control fat gain. Do you use this strategy?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[/quote]

At 195 I don’t see the need for a cut, but I don’t know a lot of factors that may have an impact on my advice. How tall are you? What are your current goals and future goals? Age?..

My advice would be to worry about composition as opposed to weight. That would be an adjustment in your diet and workout. Some cardio may be of help. Clean up the diet some. Rework your routine.

ps.
I’m no professor, but I do have an MBA.
Besides, someone had to teach the teachers!

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
Genghis wrote:
Prof X:

Just bulked from 165-190. I am definitely at a higher BF than I like to carry.

I’ve got nothing to cut. Need some advice about where to go from here. I noticed in the past you adovcate leaning out period at certain times of the year. Can you give me your advice on when you use this?

I’m thinking about continuing the bulk but adding some cardio in (which I haven’t done to this point) to control fat gain. Do you use this strategy?

Any advice would be appreciated.

At 195 I don’t see the need for a cut, but I don’t know a lot of factors that may have an impact on my advice. How tall are you? What are your current goals and future goals? Age?..

My advice would be to worry about composition as opposed to weight. That would be an adjustment in your diet and workout. Some cardio may be of help. Clean up the diet some. Rework your routine.

ps.
I’m no professor, but I do have an MBA.
Besides, someone had to teach the teachers![/quote]

Thanks for the reply. 6’0. age 28. Training age 13yrs (as you may have quessed I only recenlty picked figured out which side is correct on the “bulking debate).” Goals approx 200 lean (don’t care if ripped). Increase arm size to 17-17.5. Currenlty about 16. I realize that will coincide with all over all body size gains.

Emphasis mine:

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
At 195 I don’t see the need for a cut, but I don’t know a lot of factors that may have an impact on my advice. How tall are you? What are your current goals and future goals? Age?..

My advice would be to worry about composition as opposed to weight. That would be an adjustment in your diet and workout. Some cardio may be of help. Clean up the diet some. Rework your routine.

ps.
I’m no professor, but I do have an MBA.
Besides, someone had to teach the teachers![/quote]

Yessir, this is great advice. Weight is not irrelevant but composition is oh so much more useful overall. There have been some threads lately from FFB"S who say things like "I wanna get down to XXX bodyweight while I’m training for more muscle. That emphasis is the death knell for growth in my opinion.

About the quantification thing we were bantering about earlier. I’ll use myself as the only real life example I have available at the moment. Right now I can make out my abs if I tighten em up and the light is right. Including obliques, but they are blurry and I can pinch about a a soft inch next to my belly button, relaxed standing straight up.

I am not getting fatter or leaner, but I am making consistent measurable gains week to week. I look really good in a tight T-shirt and some shorts, but would probably be considered outright fat by members of the church of the rectus abdominis with my shirt off.

This still subjective measure is at least for me what I consider “intelligently overdoing it”. Bulking for the older crowd should probably be approached with a bit less abandon than for younger guys too. Actually I believe I read Professor X also saying something like that somewhere.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Bulking for the older crowd should probably be approached with a bit less abandon than for younger guys too. Actually I believe I read Professor X also saying something like that somewhere.

[/quote]

I agree with sasquatch and the above. I have no intention of actually “bulking up” too much into my 30’s. The goal all along was to reach that solid base of mass by that age. At 6 feet tall and only 190lbs, there is no way I would work on any sort of serious dieting routine if I were you. There is nothing wrong at all with adding in some cardio during the week and decreasing carbohydrate intake.

In other words, clean up your diet, increase the protein and add 2-3 cardio sessions a week. Re-evaluate your strategy based on the results you are getting. If your goal is a near 2 inch increase in the size of your arms and overall increase in mass, you have a way to go. I think those who approach this as if they have forever to make very small amounts of progress are approaching this wrong. No one accidentally gets huge after being much smaller.

[quote]Genghis wrote:
sasquatch wrote:
Genghis wrote:
Prof X:

Just bulked from 165-190. I am definitely at a higher BF than I like to carry.

I’ve got nothing to cut. Need some advice about where to go from here. I noticed in the past you adovcate leaning out period at certain times of the year. Can you give me your advice on when you use this?

I’m thinking about continuing the bulk but adding some cardio in (which I haven’t done to this point) to control fat gain. Do you use this strategy?

Any advice would be appreciated.

At 195 I don’t see the need for a cut, but I don’t know a lot of factors that may have an impact on my advice. How tall are you? What are your current goals and future goals? Age?..

My advice would be to worry about composition as opposed to weight. That would be an adjustment in your diet and workout. Some cardio may be of help. Clean up the diet some. Rework your routine.

ps.
I’m no professor, but I do have an MBA.
Besides, someone had to teach the teachers!

Thanks for the reply. 6’0. age 28. Training age 13yrs (as you may have quessed I only recenlty picked figured out which side is correct on the “bulking debate).” Goals approx 200 lean (don’t care if ripped). Increase arm size to 17-17.5. Currenlty about 16. I realize that will coincide with all over all body size gains.
[/quote]

Keeping in mind the medium by which we are communicating my advice would be to continue to train hard and eat enough calories so that you are gaining weight.
A lean 200 for a goal is fine. I would say get to a not so lean 210-220 and then drop some weight/fat. Realistically, you could be at or near your goal physique by next late spring/early summer.

Look to gain a pound or so a week. 3lbs a month. Seeing as you consider yourself not to thin right now, this will allow for continued muscle development and limit some of your fat gain. Realistically, this puts you at 205-215 by then end of April. At that point you could decide what your goal will be. You may surprise yourself and decide that you still want to get bigger. You may be uncomfortable and want to drop 15-20lbs.

[quote]Roland Fisher wrote:
Ramo, that is so hurting my feelings. lol. I will respond to say that if you read my profile, you’d know that I don’t list my weight. I listed 185 as a final goal after coming back from serious injuries. Read more on that profile link, I’m a veteran that has been much larger at times (depends on how active I was in the ring and what weight class I was fighting in), and trained many others.

If you wish to focus on someones weight and not their experience, I respect that, it will pay dividends in the long run for sure. I believe it is more productive to focus on someone who has proven results. Again, it is a matter of focus, focusing on what matters more and you cannot go wrong. I assume that is why you mentioned it wise to read the coaches here, they have proven results, I do not, either do you.

The trouble with this beautiful technological advancement called the Internet is there is no accountability. Anything you write, or I, cannot be verified, I wish it could. What does that leave us? Only with critical thinking skills and reason.

Do you have that ability? Can you read Thib’s article and his post article clarifications and really still say his is way off? Can you evaluate the posts I made and give a logical response? It seems you can only divert the discussion to a personal attack… not really, I don’t think it was.

Let’s just say then that instead of rebutting what I said, you chose to bring up my weight. That shows me either you didn’t read my posts or you didn’t understand them, or you don’t care about intelligent discussion.

As for the fact that you can read the articles here and you don’t need anyone reiterating them, then why do you post? Everyone else can read the articles here just as you. Why have a forum?

Ramo, you are someone who has misses the point of any forum. They are to discuss, with ideas and thoughts that stand on their own merits. Attack an argument’s premises or conclusions, anything else reveals your lack of intelligence.

Roland[/quote]

Roland:

You’ve questioned my intelligence, reading skills, reasoning ability, and some other stuff. You say that I’ve missed your point, or that I’ve failed to address it. I must admit that you are right. I happen not to care in the least what your point was.

The thing is, with regard to building muscle, a person in your position has no business making points. You should be learning from people who actually HAVE SOME MUSCLE!

As for my point, it was this: When I first discovered this forum, there were a number of serious lifters posting here. Jay Floyd, Ross Bowsher, Patricia Smith, Landon Evans, Erica from Diablo, even Whit Baskin posted once in awhile(former WSM competitor). These people have all actually accomplished something as lifters. They got sick of the forum and left precisely BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU.

You are a mental masturbator. You are not a lifter. You don’t sound anything like a lifter, and I’ll bet you don’t look anything like one.

If it were up to me you wouldn’t frequent these (or any other) strength/lifting forums any more. Of course, it’s not up to me. So I posted because I feel, and I think there’s some sentiment here among REAL LIFTERS, that there are too many mental masturbators here. You don’t contribute anything worthwhile; you just have an opinion that you think is fit to share with serious lifters. Guess what? None of us want to hear it, if that means anything to you.

If you really wanted to get better at whatever your pursuit (bodybuilding/powerlifting/underwear modeling, whatever), you would talk less, listen more, and pour a little of the effort you expend being a jackass on the internet into lifting some heavy shit.

All the best.

You fucking clown.