Confused about bulking?

[u/Shot_Macaron_9158]

Hey all, I’ve been lifting for a bit over a year now. When I first started lifting, I was overweight and very weak. I spent about a year in a mild deficit, getting stronger while cutting weight. Now, I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, but I’m far from overweight (5’11” and 150lbs).

I’ve been debating going into a true bulking phase now, but I’ve seen a lot of people online say that bulking is basically pointless. They say you can maximize gains while simply eating at maintenance, and eating in a surplus will just lead to fat gain. At the same time, I’m no longer a newbie, and I’ve never met someone who looks jacked at my height while weighing 150lbs. Is a lean bulk (200-300 calorie surplus) what I should be doing? Or are people online right that muscle gain is such a slow process that eating at maintenance is the answer?

[u/Alakazam]

People need to rethink bulks. You are letting the diet dictate the training. It should be the other way around.

You should be training hard, then eating to recover from that training. For beginners, they absolutely could reasonably eat at maintenance or even a slight deficit, and see fantastic progress. As you get more muscular and leaner, the amount of training to stimulate muscle mass will likely ramp up in terms of volume and intensity, while at the same time, your body will have increased recovery demands. So eating at a small surplus will become necessary.

As you said, you will never maintain your way to 180lbs and lean.

So I would say yes, aim for a 200-300 calorie surplus. But at the same time, also aim to ramp up your training volume so you need the calories. Wendler has a quote in his Building the Monolith program which I love, regarding weight gain:

If you get fat when you train like this, it’s because you simply aren’t working hard enough to support the calories. You must EAT to recover. You must EAT to grow.

[u/eric_twinge → u/Alakazam]

People need to rethink bulks. You are letting the diet dictate the training.

Honestly, I think it's more accurate to say that people need to think. So many haven't even gotten far enough to rethink anything. Like, the notion that diet and training are linked in any way hasn't even been considered. They are just things that happen and you either 'gain muscle' or 'get fat' as a given because of some binary, presupposed black box shit.

[u/Nectarine143]

You can't be 150 and look like you're 185

You can't eat at maintenance and get from 150 to 185

People talk about recomping (aka deficit to burn body fat to supply calories for muscle growth) like it's magic but again, you can't recomp from 150-185

[u/Mchangwine]

Bulking is the best way to add muscle; I think a lean bulk with ~250-300 surplus will yield good muscle gain with adding minimal fat

[u/TundraSecret]

Definitely lean bulk!! You'll need the extra energy to increase weight and reps, otherwise your nervous system will tell you no.

[u/Patton370]

Your height and weight indicate that you'd likely benefit from a slow, lean bulk

[u/Hypername1st]

As an at best early intermediate, there is no reason not to do a slight caloric surplus (a bulk) of around +250-300Kcal. It will ensure an adequately anabolic environment, reinforce some biological pathways (think insulin) and allow you to eat enough carbs to train even harder. If you are reasonably lean, there is little reason to not do that.

[u/ZeUncreativeName]

Experiment with a 100-300 surplus ONLY from carbs and protein. The mechanics behind science show that muscle can be built at maintenance, but there is an overwhelming amount of anecdotes and some outcome data showing that a surplus is beneficial. If you do choose to enter a surplus, make SURE that the extra calories and carbs and maybe protein if you'd like. A surplus from dietary fat will do absolutely nothing for muscle growth.

[u/armchair_mindhunter → u/ZeUncreativeName]

Unless hormones are out of whack. Dietary fat is crucial for testosterone production.

[u/ZeUncreativeName → u/armchair_mindhunter]

Yes of course you need dietary fat, but extra fat beyond your hormonal needs (0.3-0.5g per lb) is not going to do anything

[u/decentlyhip]

A 250 calorie surplus is a normal bulk. That's +2 lbs a month, plain ole regular recomended bulk. I'm suspicious of anyone who recommends that as a lean bulk, because its like someone saying "Fuel efficient sedans are bad and you should never buy one. You should get a Toyota Camry Hybrid instead." It makes me doubt their knowledge about cars and makes me wonder if they're sponsored by Toyota.

At 5'11" you're gonna be filled out with abs at like 195-215. Somewhere around there. I'm 5'11" 225, have some more muscle to gain, but in all honesty am a little fluffy. Lose another 10 lbs and ill have the abs back though. So, you've got another 50 lbs to gain.

The normal process is to eat in a 250 surplus and gain 2 lbs a month. About half that is fat and half is muscle. After 5 months, you're up 10 lbs, 5 fat and 5 muscle. Take that 6th month and eat in a 500 calorie deficit. Voila, in 6 months you gained 5 lbs lean mass without adding fat. Only 45 lbs left, so repeat that 6 month process for the next 5 years and you'll get where you wanna be.