Before I continue with my “Basics of Muscle Growth” series, I wanted to give my readers an update on how my current program is going. As you may or may not know, I am currently “bulking.” Bulking is bodybuilder lingo for trying to put on some new muscle mass!
So I have been at it since the middle of September, or roughly one month. I have been effectively progressing in almost all of my lifts and hitting PRs (personal records), which is great. Progressively increasing the weight on the bar and/or the number of reps you do on a given exercise is necessary to build new muscle. My only exception to progressing on my lifts has been on my squat. I was increasing the weight I was squatting but noticed my form was degrading. I was beginning to use too much lower back and not properly driving through my legs. It is always important to use proper form, but especially on big lifts like squats and deadlifts, where are you use a lot of weight and poor form can lead to serious injury. So I have backed off on the weight to focus on my form, which in the end will hopefully increase the amount of tension I am placing on my legs while performing the exercise, which is my intended goal while squatting.
Now, my nutritional strategy over the past month has been to slowly increase my calories by about 100 calories per week since I started (at 3,400 calories) until I got to the point where my weekly average weigh-ins were increasing by approximately half a pound per week. Anything over 0.5 pounds per week and I know I am sure to be adding on more body-fat than I want to. If you have been following my blog, you know that to optimally build muscle mass, you need to be in a calories surplus. I have currently gotten up to 3,700 calories per day. My weekly weigh-ins have fluctuated a little more than I would like, with one week even being up almost a pound and one week being down about half of a pound, but last week I hit the sweet spot and was up on average 0.4 pounds. I am holding my calories at 3,700 for this week and will monitor my weekly average on Sunday to see if I need to add some more calories in (if my weight increase slows or my weight actually decreases) or pull some out (if my weight increases too fast). What I am trying to do is find the daily calorie total that will allow me to optimize my growth while limiting the amount of body fat I gain.
Overall, in my approximately 4 weeks of bulking I am, on average, up 1.9 pounds on the scale. This is perfect, since my goal is to limit my weight gain to no more than 2 pounds per month. Some people go into a bulk cycle and follow a principle known as “dirty bulking.” Basically, dirty bulking consists of overeating to an extreme degree to ensure that you are getting enough calories to induce muscle growth (of course coupled with proper training). I believe this is a flawed strategy, because muscle growth is a slow process, and you simply cannot eat your way to increased muscle growth. Being in a calorie surplus does play a role as I have described, but how much muscle you add to your frame is based more on proper stimulus to your muscles in the gym and hormone levels. An advanced lifter like my self (advanced meaning I have several years of weight training under my belt) is not likely going to grow muscle at a pace much faster than 0.5 – 1 pound per month. And that is if everything is optimal. Lifters who are even closer to their genetic potentials (and I think I have not bumped up against my genetic potential yet) will gain muscle even slower. Dirty bulking then, where I would gain 3, 4, or even 5 pounds in a month to try to force muscle growth really would only result in putting on lots of body fat. Lots of extra body fat just I would have to cut (diet) for longer to get all those extra pounds off when it came time to shed the body fat and showcase some muscles. Long cuts are both not fun and a waste of time in terms of optimal muscle growth, because the time you spend cutting is time you are not spending increasing your muscle mass. Additionally, during a cut it is almost inevitable to lose a little bit of muscle. So the longer you have to cut, the more likely it is that you will lose a greater amount of your hard-earned muscle.
So overall my bulk has been successful to date. I have been monitoring my body fat by measuring my waist and I have held steady all month at 30.5 inches. Now, I am pretty sure I did not add 1.9 pounds of muscle over the past four months. I believe some of my weight gain was due to increased glycogen storage (and associated water) in my muscle cells, since I was coming out of a calorie deficit. However, increased glycogen storage is beneficial from both a training aspect (increased glycogen stores allow you train harder) and a size standpoint (increased glycogen storage leads to increased water storage in the muscle cells and thus increases the size of the muscle cells (each gram of stored glycogen brings in 2 grams of stored water to a muscle cell, hence the term carbohydrate)). I can see some of the gains I have made when I look in the mirror and it provides me more motivation to keep hitting the gym and working hard.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment or hit me up on Facebook or my email. Thanks for reading!
So I have been at it since the middle of September, or roughly one month. I have been effectively progressing in almost all of my lifts and hitting PRs (personal records), which is great. Progressively increasing the weight on the bar and/or the number of reps you do on a given exercise is necessary to build new muscle. My only exception to progressing on my lifts has been on my squat. I was increasing the weight I was squatting but noticed my form was degrading. I was beginning to use too much lower back and not properly driving through my legs. It is always important to use proper form, but especially on big lifts like squats and deadlifts, where are you use a lot of weight and poor form can lead to serious injury. So I have backed off on the weight to focus on my form, which in the end will hopefully increase the amount of tension I am placing on my legs while performing the exercise, which is my intended goal while squatting.
Now, my nutritional strategy over the past month has been to slowly increase my calories by about 100 calories per week since I started (at 3,400 calories) until I got to the point where my weekly average weigh-ins were increasing by approximately half a pound per week. Anything over 0.5 pounds per week and I know I am sure to be adding on more body-fat than I want to. If you have been following my blog, you know that to optimally build muscle mass, you need to be in a calories surplus. I have currently gotten up to 3,700 calories per day. My weekly weigh-ins have fluctuated a little more than I would like, with one week even being up almost a pound and one week being down about half of a pound, but last week I hit the sweet spot and was up on average 0.4 pounds. I am holding my calories at 3,700 for this week and will monitor my weekly average on Sunday to see if I need to add some more calories in (if my weight increase slows or my weight actually decreases) or pull some out (if my weight increases too fast). What I am trying to do is find the daily calorie total that will allow me to optimize my growth while limiting the amount of body fat I gain.
Overall, in my approximately 4 weeks of bulking I am, on average, up 1.9 pounds on the scale. This is perfect, since my goal is to limit my weight gain to no more than 2 pounds per month. Some people go into a bulk cycle and follow a principle known as “dirty bulking.” Basically, dirty bulking consists of overeating to an extreme degree to ensure that you are getting enough calories to induce muscle growth (of course coupled with proper training). I believe this is a flawed strategy, because muscle growth is a slow process, and you simply cannot eat your way to increased muscle growth. Being in a calorie surplus does play a role as I have described, but how much muscle you add to your frame is based more on proper stimulus to your muscles in the gym and hormone levels. An advanced lifter like my self (advanced meaning I have several years of weight training under my belt) is not likely going to grow muscle at a pace much faster than 0.5 – 1 pound per month. And that is if everything is optimal. Lifters who are even closer to their genetic potentials (and I think I have not bumped up against my genetic potential yet) will gain muscle even slower. Dirty bulking then, where I would gain 3, 4, or even 5 pounds in a month to try to force muscle growth really would only result in putting on lots of body fat. Lots of extra body fat just I would have to cut (diet) for longer to get all those extra pounds off when it came time to shed the body fat and showcase some muscles. Long cuts are both not fun and a waste of time in terms of optimal muscle growth, because the time you spend cutting is time you are not spending increasing your muscle mass. Additionally, during a cut it is almost inevitable to lose a little bit of muscle. So the longer you have to cut, the more likely it is that you will lose a greater amount of your hard-earned muscle.
So overall my bulk has been successful to date. I have been monitoring my body fat by measuring my waist and I have held steady all month at 30.5 inches. Now, I am pretty sure I did not add 1.9 pounds of muscle over the past four months. I believe some of my weight gain was due to increased glycogen storage (and associated water) in my muscle cells, since I was coming out of a calorie deficit. However, increased glycogen storage is beneficial from both a training aspect (increased glycogen stores allow you train harder) and a size standpoint (increased glycogen storage leads to increased water storage in the muscle cells and thus increases the size of the muscle cells (each gram of stored glycogen brings in 2 grams of stored water to a muscle cell, hence the term carbohydrate)). I can see some of the gains I have made when I look in the mirror and it provides me more motivation to keep hitting the gym and working hard.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment or hit me up on Facebook or my email. Thanks for reading!