If you're like 99% of the bodybuilding population out there, your ultimate goal is simple: an impressively muscular physique with razor-sharp definition to match.
You want to be huge, and you want to be shredded as well. Because of the strong desire for this "ideal body", most people eagerly dive into their programs headfirst. Everyone is motivated to bulk up, but at the same time are afraid of putting on excess body fat.
If you're going for a significant muscle gain as quickly as possible, you're always going to end up gaining body fat to go along with it.
This is just one of the realities of the bodybuilding process. If you're truly committed to bulking up, there's no other way around it: It's a fact you'll have to accept.
The reason for this is because in order to gain muscle mass, you have to consume a surplus of calories to support the necessary protein synthesis. The difficulty is that there's no way to ensure that 100% of all these extra calories go towards muscle growth. Some of it will inevitably end up as stored body fat.
As all bodybuilders know, in order to make dramatically change your appearance in the quickest amount of time, the most effective way to do so is to focus on gaining size. For a set period of time, gaining size will be your goal. Only then can your priority shift to focus on losing body fat.
Considering this information, it's clear that the goal of the bulking phase is to gain muscle size, to build up as much as possible while doing what you can to minimize gaining extra body fat. However, it's important to remember that during the bulking phase, your goal is not to lose body fat, merely to gain as little as possible.
This can be accomplished in 3 main ways:
1) Use a precise caloric surplus. A caloric surplus is required to fuel muscle growth, but haphazardly cramming more food down your throat beyond what is necessary to build muscle tissue will simply cause you to gain more fat.
The general rule of thumb for muscle gain is to take 15-20% more calories than you need to keep your weight. If you are already within this range, there's no need for you to add more.
2) Make good food choices. Most of your food intake should be in the form of high quality lean proteins, healthy/unsaturated fats and natural, high fiber carbohydrates.
Rather than aimlessly chowing down on every food item in sight, make sure that you're sticking to lean protein sources, keeping blood sugar levels stable through proper carbohydrate choices, and avoiding high amounts of saturated fats.
3) Implement cardio sessions. There's no need to go overboard here, but implementing 2-3 cardio sessions throughout the week is another way to cut down on fat gains during a bulking cycle.
Keep these sessions no more than 10-20 minutes long, sticking to high intensity/low duration forms, as these kinds of session have the advantage of not causing the same amount of muscle loss as longer duration forms.
Once you've achieved the amount of muscle size that you want, a goal which is completely up to you as an individual, it's time to move into a fat loss cycle. In this way, you can focus on stripping off the excess body fat gained during the bulking cycle, while still maintaining muscle size.
The trick is to minimize it rather than try to totally avoid it, and you can do this with a reasonable diet and sensible exercise.
You want to be huge, and you want to be shredded as well. Because of the strong desire for this "ideal body", most people eagerly dive into their programs headfirst. Everyone is motivated to bulk up, but at the same time are afraid of putting on excess body fat.
If you're going for a significant muscle gain as quickly as possible, you're always going to end up gaining body fat to go along with it.
This is just one of the realities of the bodybuilding process. If you're truly committed to bulking up, there's no other way around it: It's a fact you'll have to accept.
The reason for this is because in order to gain muscle mass, you have to consume a surplus of calories to support the necessary protein synthesis. The difficulty is that there's no way to ensure that 100% of all these extra calories go towards muscle growth. Some of it will inevitably end up as stored body fat.
As all bodybuilders know, in order to make dramatically change your appearance in the quickest amount of time, the most effective way to do so is to focus on gaining size. For a set period of time, gaining size will be your goal. Only then can your priority shift to focus on losing body fat.
Considering this information, it's clear that the goal of the bulking phase is to gain muscle size, to build up as much as possible while doing what you can to minimize gaining extra body fat. However, it's important to remember that during the bulking phase, your goal is not to lose body fat, merely to gain as little as possible.
This can be accomplished in 3 main ways:
1) Use a precise caloric surplus. A caloric surplus is required to fuel muscle growth, but haphazardly cramming more food down your throat beyond what is necessary to build muscle tissue will simply cause you to gain more fat.
The general rule of thumb for muscle gain is to take 15-20% more calories than you need to keep your weight. If you are already within this range, there's no need for you to add more.
2) Make good food choices. Most of your food intake should be in the form of high quality lean proteins, healthy/unsaturated fats and natural, high fiber carbohydrates.
Rather than aimlessly chowing down on every food item in sight, make sure that you're sticking to lean protein sources, keeping blood sugar levels stable through proper carbohydrate choices, and avoiding high amounts of saturated fats.
3) Implement cardio sessions. There's no need to go overboard here, but implementing 2-3 cardio sessions throughout the week is another way to cut down on fat gains during a bulking cycle.
Keep these sessions no more than 10-20 minutes long, sticking to high intensity/low duration forms, as these kinds of session have the advantage of not causing the same amount of muscle loss as longer duration forms.
Once you've achieved the amount of muscle size that you want, a goal which is completely up to you as an individual, it's time to move into a fat loss cycle. In this way, you can focus on stripping off the excess body fat gained during the bulking cycle, while still maintaining muscle size.
The trick is to minimize it rather than try to totally avoid it, and you can do this with a reasonable diet and sensible exercise.
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