Now I'm not talking about going on a holiday and eating junk food left right and center to pick up some fat and calling that bulking . Im talking about people “bulking” and adding weight too fast, the whole point of bulking is to basically put on as much muscle as possible. But how much of the weight added is actually muscle?
People seem to think there is a difference between a “clean bulk” and a “dirty bulk” but really the only difference in bulking is how much of a calorie surplus you are in during your bulk. The so called “Clean bulk” is usually done by taking in excess calories from large amount of clean foods such as sweet potato and steak, where on the other hand “Dirty bulking” is done by taking an excess amount of calories in through food sources like junk food. Everyone adds muscle at different rates due to there genetic make up and body type, so there is no real magic number to calculate just how many calories you would need in order to gain muscle mass. But is there really a healthy limit on how much bulk you should be adding.
The idea of doing a bulking phase is to eat more than our body uses a day, whether thats burnt off through training or just normal daily activities the point is to be adding excess nutrients to your body so that your muscles can repair easier and faster after a training session. The excess calories also gives our bodies extra energy in order to train our hardest which allows us to build as much muscle as possible. However if we eat too much and our body cant use it as energy the nutrients will be stored as fat.
Some people seem to be under the impression that excess fat gain during bulking is OK because there are rumours going around that humans can magically turn fat into muscle. Unfortunately for us this is not the case. Which means that any excess fat we gain during a bulk will just make the shredding/cutting phase a whole lot longer and very unnecessary. And really lets face it who wants to diet for a longer period of time than they have to ?
So what is the BEST approach to gain the most amount of muscle with minimal fat in my opinion?
I always find I get the best results by figuring out my maintenance calorie intake, This is either done by trial and error or by getting a full body composition scan. Once this is done you can start increasing you're calorie intake to slightly over maintenance, I usually aim for about 300 calories. By doing this I am allowing my body the extra energy that it needs to build muscle, but not to the extent that I will store copious amounts of fat in the long run either.
After reading this blog I hope that you wont fall victim of the bulking bad.
If you need help with meal/training plans or advice about personalized diets, nutrition plans, ab workouts, flexible dieting advice, visit the link https://ryanspiteri.com/meal-training-plans/ or email me at [email protected]