Bulking phase how long

Those who are significantly overweight should use their goal body weight rather than their current body weight when doing this calculation.

You see, the primary training stimulus for building muscle is progressive tension overload source , which essentially means gradually getting stronger over time.

For example, if you lift the same weights for the same number of reps for the next 20 years, your body will have no reason to build additional muscle. However, if you gradually lift more weight, or lift the same weight for more reps, your body would then have a reason to build more muscle.

And this same concept applies for maintaining muscle while cutting as well source. Your goal is to give your body a reason to keep the muscle mass it currently has. As for what workout routine to use for this purpose, any well-designed program aimed at building muscle while bulking will usually also be fine for maintaining muscle while cutting, potentially with a few small adjustments made.

Cardio is additional exercise… and additional exercise requires additional recovery. Which means, the more exercise you do while in a deficit, the more risk you pose to your ability to adequately recover , both in terms of the body parts being used the most typically the legs with most forms of cardio , as well as the central nervous system CNS … which affects everything.

And if recovery begins to suffer, strength and performance will suffer as well. And when strength and performance suffer, so will your ability to maintain muscle. Nope, some cardio is perfectly fine. Do the least amount of cardio needed e. Remember everything we talked about earlier regarding the effects of sleep and stress on bulking? As it turns out, one of the best ways to help minimize the presence or significance of these issues is to not be in a deficit.

Just like earlier with bulking, these are the factors that will account for the majority of your cutting results. Of course, yet again, there are a handful of smaller factors playing smaller yet-still-meaningful roles in how things go. When that happens, you end up gaining muscle, getting lean, and always looking at least good throughout the entire process, and looking great at the end of it.

That will result in too much body fat and not enough muscle be gained while bulking, too much muscle being lost while cutting, and looking like crap both during and after. To avoid this second scenario and ensure the first one occurs for you, simply follow all of the recommendations covered in this article, and the rest will take care of itself. The problem, however, is that most people do it all wrong. Cutting Cutting is a term used to describe a fat loss phase. Lean Bulking A term used to describe a period of time when a person strategically adjusts their diet and workout for the purpose of maximizing lean muscle gains WHILE minimizing body fat gains as much as realistically possible.

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Some lifters want to be as huge and muscular as they can possibly get… others prefer to have a leaner and more athletic build… while others aim to be somewhere in the middle. The length of your bulking phase really depends on your own personal goals, and no one can decide that but you.

Your individual rate of muscle growth will depend on your genetics, how well your program is structured, and how closely you adhere to it. Around half a pound of lean body weight per week is a reasonable guideline for most average beginners, but this is just a rough estimate. This is just the nature of remaining in a calorie surplus over time, and your goal during a bulking phase is to simply keep those fat gains to an absolute minimum.

Just make sure that you stay in your bulking phase long enough to truly make some solid, measurable progress first before shifting gears. This is one of the many places where using a calorie tracker in combination with a workout tracker like Bolt can help you precisely achieve your goals. Yes and no. Some lifters and bodybuilders claim that you can both build muscle mass and cut down on fat by eating clean, utilizing either lean bulking or clean bulking this is referred to as Body Recomposition.

However, there is debate amount weightlifters and bodybuilders as far as how effective this can be in practice. But to lose fat, you generally need to burn more calories than you consume.

These competing goals can make body recomposition difficult to achieve. In general, bulking strategies can run on a continuum. The science is pretty straightforward on this: focus on lean, clean proteins, whole grain carbohydrates, and good fats, as well as plenty of vitamins and minerals necessary for muscle development.