The Fatal Error Of Bulking Too Slowly
Summary
TLDRDr. Mike from Renaissance Periodization discusses the concept of bulking, focusing on the risks of bulking too slowly versus too quickly. He explains that while rapid bulking can lead to excessive fat gain, bulking too slowly may result in negligible muscle growth, making it difficult to assess progress due to statistical noise like water weight fluctuations. Dr. Mike advocates for a moderate approach, suggesting a daily caloric surplus of at least 250 calories to ensure muscle gain, with any resulting fat being easily manageable through a short mini-cut phase.
Takeaways
- 😀 Bulking too quickly can lead to disproportionate fat gain compared to muscle, which may not be worth it.
- 😅 Slow bulking can be problematic as it's hard to discern actual weight gain from water weight fluctuations.
- 😓 A caloric surplus of less than 250 calories may not be enough for effective muscle gain, often leading to slow or no progress.
- 😥 If bulking too slowly, the statistical noise from water weight can mask the actual tissue gain, making it difficult to measure progress.
- 🤔 A slow bulking rate can waste valuable training time, as the body might not be in a true surplus state for muscle growth.
- 🏋️♂️ Training fatigue is inevitable with prolonged hard training, suggesting the need for breaks or mini cuts to reset and reassess.
- 📉 A mini cut after a bulking phase can help in shedding excess fat and reinvigorating the body and mind for the next phase of training.
- 💡 A higher caloric surplus (at least 250 calories) is recommended for a clear signal of muscle gain and to avoid the noise of water weight.
- 🚫 Bulking too slowly can lead to a cycle of uncertainty and potential inactivity, as it's challenging to confirm if you're truly in a surplus state.
- 🤷♂️ Even with a higher fat gain during a more aggressive bulk, the excess fat can be easily lost post-bulk with a short diet, making it a worthwhile trade-off.
- 🔄 The script suggests a balance between bulking rates and the ease of shedding fat post-bulk, advocating for a moderate approach to maximize muscle gain with minimal fat accumulation.
Q & A
What is the main issue with bulking too quickly according to the script?
-Bulking too quickly generally results in gaining fat at a faster rate than muscle. This can lead to disproportionate fat gain, making the muscle gain not seem worth it, and can negatively impact health and training performance.
What are the potential problems of bulking too slowly as outlined in the script?
-Bulking too slowly can lead to difficulties in accurately measuring progress, with the risk of gaining mostly water weight instead of muscle. It can also result in wasted training time if the caloric surplus is too low to stimulate muscle growth effectively.
What is the recommended minimum rate of weight gain during a bulking phase as suggested in the script?
-The script suggests a minimum rate of half a pound per week as a decent gain rate for most people, with a caloric surplus of at least 250 calories above maintenance.
Why might someone struggle to determine if they are gaining weight during a slow bulking phase?
-The struggle arises from the statistical noise caused by factors like water weight fluctuations, which can mask the actual tissue gain, making it difficult to discern real progress from temporary changes.
What is the 'Mike's rule of muscle gainery number 378' as mentioned in the script?
-Mike's rule of muscle gainery number 378 states that if you have to use advanced statistical techniques to tell if you're putting on weight after two weeks of lifting and eating, you're probably gaining too slowly.
How does the script address the concern of gaining extra fat during a bulking phase?
-The script argues that while extra fat will be gained during a bulking phase, it is typically a small amount that can be easily lost after the bulking phase through a mini cut, making the overall process worthwhile.
What is the purpose of a mini cut after a massing phase as described in the script?
-A mini cut serves to lose the extra fat gained during the bulking phase, reinvigorate hunger drive, provide a break from the monotony of eating at a surplus, and ensure that the gains made were indeed tissue and not just water weight.
How does the script suggest dealing with the potential increase in metabolism during a long-term bulking phase?
-The script implies that adjustments to caloric intake may be necessary to account for any increases in metabolism, ensuring that the surplus remains effective for muscle gain.
What are some factors that can affect the accuracy of measuring weight gain during a bulking phase as mentioned in the script?
-Factors such as changes in physical activity levels, seasonal humidity variations, and the body's adaptation to new dietary intakes can affect the accuracy of weight gain measurements during a bulking phase.
What is the script's stance on the trade-off between gaining extra fat and the benefits of a higher caloric surplus during a bulking phase?
-The script suggests that the benefits of a higher caloric surplus, which include a clearer signal of tissue gain and less time spent in uncertainty, outweigh the need to lose a small amount of extra fat after the bulking phase.
How does the script recommend incorporating training breaks during a long-term muscle gain phase?
-The script recommends incorporating training breaks, potentially in the form of mini cuts, to manage training fatigue and ensure that the muscle gain phase is productive and maintains a clear signal of progress.
Outlines
🏋️♂️ The Pitfalls of Slow Bulking
Dr. Mike discusses the common mistake of bulking too slowly during a massing phase. He explains that while bulking too quickly can lead to excessive fat gain, bulking too slowly can result in negligible muscle growth. He suggests that a caloric surplus of at least 250 calories above maintenance is necessary to ensure noticeable weight gain, otherwise the gains might be too slow to measure accurately. This can lead to frustration and the potential waste of valuable training time. Dr. Mike emphasizes the importance of a clear signal-to-noise ratio in tracking progress and the use of statistical techniques to discern true gains from water weight fluctuations.
🔍 Analyzing the Consequences of Inadequate Caloric Surplus
This paragraph delves into the consequences of not consuming enough calories during a bulking phase. Dr. Mike highlights how a small caloric surplus might not be enough to see tangible results, leading to potential confusion between water weight and tissue gain. He mentions the possibility of metabolic adaptation, increased activity levels, and seasonal changes affecting body water, which can all obscure the actual weight gain. The summary underscores the importance of a sufficient caloric surplus for clear progress and the challenges of maintaining a slow bulking pace over an extended period.
🚀 Balancing Bulking Speed with Fat Gain
Dr. Mike addresses the balance between bulking speed and fat gain, advocating for a moderate approach that ensures measurable progress without excessive fat accumulation. He argues that a slight increase in fat gain is acceptable if it guarantees consistent muscle growth, as the additional fat can be easily lost post-bulking. The summary points out the benefits of a mini-cut after a bulking phase for reassessing diet and training, as well as the importance of considering the overall time and effort required to achieve and maintain muscle mass.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Bulking
💡Caloric Surplus
💡Muscle Gain
💡Fat Gain
💡Measurement Error
💡Training Shape
💡Maintenance Calories
💡Statistical Noise
💡Mini Cut
💡Training Fatigue
Highlights
The downsides of bulking too quickly include gaining fat faster than muscle growth, which can lead to health issues and decreased training performance.
Bulking too slowly can result in not being able to discern actual weight gain from water weight fluctuations due to dietary changes.
A caloric surplus of less than 250-500 calories per day may lead to ineffective bulking, as it's challenging to measure tissue gain accurately.
Advanced statistical techniques can be employed to analyze weight gain data but may not be practical for everyday use.
The importance of a clear signal-to-noise ratio in weight gain measurement to ensure effective bulking is emphasized.
A minimum caloric surplus of 250 kcal is suggested to ensure noticeable weight gain within one to two weeks.
The potential for training fatigue to accumulate over long periods of intense training, necessitating breaks for recovery.
The benefits of a mini cut after a bulking phase to lose fat and reinvigorate hunger drive, as well as providing a break from surplus eating.
The argument that the extra fat gained during a faster bulking phase can be easily lost post-bulking and is worth the trade-off for guaranteed gains.
The comparison between the cost of extra fat gained and the time saved in achieving muscle gains, suggesting it may be a worthwhile investment.
The potential for metabolism to increase slightly during a bulking phase, affecting the efficiency of caloric surplus.
The impact of increased physical activity on the ability to maintain a caloric surplus and the challenges it presents for slow bulking.
The influence of seasonal changes and humidity on body water storage and its effect on accurate weight measurement.
The recommendation to reassess caloric intake and adjust as necessary to ensure continued weight gain during a bulking phase.
The distinction between bulking, preparatory hypertrophy, and body recomposition, and the importance of understanding the goals of each.
The potential for a slow bulking phase to lead to a prolonged period of ineffective training due to an inability to measure progress accurately.
The importance of a clear and measurable goal for weight gain during a bulking phase to avoid the pitfalls of slow bulking.
The suggestion to consider the overall benefits of a faster bulking phase, including the ease of losing extra fat post-bulking, against the drawbacks.
The advice for those aiming for slow and steady gains to reconsider their approach to ensure they are truly in a surplus and making progress.
Transcripts
when people say I don't want to gain
extra fat in a massing phase the
question has to be asked of how much fat
is going to be gained and how much time
and effort is it going to take us to get
rid of that
[Music]
fat hey folks Dr Mike here for
Renaissance priorization and are you
bulking too slowly uh-oh another mistake
you could be making time to get nervous
JK we got all the resolution right here
so we know about bulking too quickly
most of us know the downsides from that
but what the hell is wrong with bulking
to slowly what does that even mean can
we get some definitions all right fine
here you go so bulking too quickly
generally results in getting fatter a
lot faster your body can only build
muscle at some rate anything much above
that doesn't really drag up the muscle
growth much and it's just extra fat
Studies have shown that if you bulk at a
pretty quick rate faster than most would
recommend that you actually end up
gaining more muscle as well but but big
butt is that you gain a lot more fat
disproportionately more fat so the
muscle gain just might not seem to be
worth it if you're bulking way too
quickly you also get fat really fast
gain a ton of weight you get out of
training shape you're now gasping on
squats and leg presses your muscles
aren't the limiting factor as your lungs
are that's no good because you can't
push the muscles as hard it's bad for
your health to get fatter and heavier
than you need to be so bucking too
quickly definitely suffers from a lot of
problems but that doesn't mean that Bing
too slowly isn't also a problem in its
own right what is bulking too slowly I
would tell you it's categorized as one
of two things one leading to the other
in many cases the most proximate way to
categorize bulking to slowly is if
you've been bulking quote unquote for
two weeks and you can't tell if you're
gaining weight your bulk is too
slow I think this occurs in most cases
when the caloric Surplus a person is
trying to induce is under about 250 50
daily calories extra on top of normal
food which is about half a pound per
week in estimated tissue gain so if
you're trying to gain like a pound per
month quarter pound per week you might
get yourself into some
problems what kind of problems well
imagine you're shooting for a quar pound
of gain per week which is roughly a
125 calorie daily
Surplus after a month let's say you
gained a pound
okay is that a pound of tissue gain or
is that a pound of water weight because
you had Chinese food one or two more
times more often this past month than
you usually have the influx of salt got
you bloated above 5 pounds above
Baseline then it came down then it went
again four pounds above Baseline then it
came down and those raisings of the
Baseline uh multiple pounds introduce so
much statistical noise that it ends up
looking like you gained a pound of
tissue but really it's just all water
weight you could hypothetically in that
situation do some Advanced statistical
treatment of your data to try to piece
apart whether or not it's a slow
underlying gain rate there or if it's
just all body water and that's the only
thing that happened you could do that um
but inter Mike's rule of uh muscle gain
fuckery number
378 which is if you have to use Advanced
statistical techniques to tell if you're
putting on weight after 2 weeks of
lifting and eating you're probably
gaining too slowly and we're going to
see in a sec that you're probably
candidate for other kinds of problems
what are the advanced statistical
techniques you can do outlier removal
which isn't of itself a value judgment
process because what is an outlier and
what isn't an outlier has to be
objectively decided beforehand it's a
lot of work a lot of nuance there you
could try to fit a polinomial curve to
your data because a linear curve justes
just doesn't quite do the trick Jesus
like you're really trying to figure out
if something's going on then there's a
good chance you're kind of in the weeds
there you're in the place where the
signal of muscle gain or tissue gain
isn't high enough to overcome the noise
and that's a bad thing and let me
describe to you how so let's say
you in two weeks you figure out okay
I've run the stats or I've looked at my
curve of body weight gain I take my body
weight every day and I average it all
out and it looks like the real thing is
I didn't actually gain it was just body
water cuz remember surpluses are always
estimated maintenances are always
estimated you thought your maintenance
was 3,000 calories and you ate
3,125 calories to try to gain at a
quarter pound per week but in reality
your true maintenance was more like 3100
calories something you would with almost
no amount of data analysis in the real
world be able to tell apart anyway and
all of a sudden you've been at a 25
calorie per day Surplus which amounts to
almost no weight gained in any realistic
unit of time certainly the order of
weeks so the realistic situation you're
in now is you've kind of in a sense in a
sense pissed away two really good weeks
of hard training and meticulous eating
on not adding any net tissue that kind
of sucks now there's tons of stuff
happening under the hood there's
Preparatory hypertrophy for beginners
and people just starting another program
or Diet there's uh body recomposition in
which you do some muscle building while
you're doing some fat loss but what you
are doing is not bulking and you're not
getting the main benefits of the bulk
specifically the mass additions of raw
tissue which is the whole purpose of a
bulk so for two weeks you thought you
were bulking and you really
weren't and look there is an argument
that says it's okay no big deal it's
part of the process it's the long-term
view we can fix it by eating a little
bit more and then by reassessing just
add another 125 calories to that shit
reassess but other things can also Al
happen in an Ideal World you didn't gain
for two weeks you add them in calories
and then you start gaining everything's
fixed in the real world there's still a
couple of stumbling blocks that could
occur right away or later down in this
let's say year-long attempt at gaining
12 pounds over over a whole year or six
pounds over a whole year which I've seen
people try to
do potentially your metabolism speeds up
a little bit just by a small fraction
let's say you're recovering from being
in a lowfat hyper dieted State your
metab ISM doesn't boost by much but sure
shit enough to get a big chunk of that
125 calories turn it into maintenance
versus Surplus calories now or you get
more active at work or at school with
play and you're not exactly tracking
your steps to the step and that means
you're just a bit more active now and
all of a sudden you're burning away that
tiny Surplus with extra physical
activity or the humidity changes with
the seasons and where you live how much
body water your store changes for a few
weeks as your body gets used to the new
humidity and that screws up the scale
weight that you stand on not by much but
by fractions of a pound fractions of a
pound is what you're dealing with here
gaining so slow and that means all of
the statistical noise is in tall enough
in magnitude as your actual changes
under the hood and as a matter of fact
taller so then you're back to not
knowing if you're gaining or not
potentially for two four or even six
weeks at a time you don't really know if
you're at a surplus because the of the
Surplus is insurmountable to the
statistical noise you want the
statistical noise fence to be short
enough that you can Peak over it and see
if your actual gains are
occurring now let's say you took the
advice here and said okay 250 K Cal
minimum is what we're saying at RP is a
minimum decent gain rate in most
circumstances not all half a pound per
week shot is the minimum of where we say
okay we're not doing any less than this
G gain rate wise I'm going to try to do
this if first you win because it's much
easier to tell if you're gaining or not
within one or two weeks you can set your
Surplus and Coast for another 12 or 16
no problem guaranteed gains because it's
clear on the scale it's definitely not
noise but what's the big downside of
that and the downside is you'll put on
more fat and that's absolutely true if
you try to gain a bit more rapidly
you'll put on a bit more fat so if you
try to gain at a quarter pound per week
versus half you will put on more fat
each week if you try gain with
half but let's put that into perspective
how much fat are you really looking to
gain let's say that you do a 16 we
straight muscle gain phase half a pound
per week means you gain 8 pounds total
over the course of those 16 weeks or
four months 8 pounds gained and let's
say you gain six pounds of fat and 2
pounds of muscle depressing but very
realistic even for intermediate to
Advanced folks beginners will gain much
faster than this they'll gain very
little fat they'll gain maybe uh geez
six pound of muscle and 2 pounds of fat
but let's say it's even as bad and I
wanted to purposefully use a bad example
here to illustrate how how big of a
birth the half pound thing actually
covers you put on two pounds of muscle
and six pounds of fat so at the end of
that you have to burn off six pounds of
fat how big of a deal is six pounds of
fat well it's something that will
disappear off of your body in at most
four weeks of something like a mini cut
that is done after a massing phase
anyway
so another good thing about the mini cut
is four weeks away from eating a ton can
reinvigorate your hunger drive and it
can give you a break from the monotony
of having to eat at Surplus all the time
those are good check marks anyway it's
good to switch to a hypocaloric diet to
get leaner and healthier anyway and if
we're talking about having to burn off 6
lbs in 4 weeks because there's so many
anyway good reasons to do that little
fat loss thing that takes four weeks
long there's no reason to be like oh man
but that's four weeks in which I'm not
gaining true but juxtaposed to 16 weeks
beforehand in which you're for sure
gaining it seems like it's really really
worth it because when we say well it's
just going to cost us extra fat that's
true but it's good to ask how much fat
and the answer is just not that much if
we go slow something that you can diet
off real quick no problem it's like is
paying money for something worth extra
money depends on what you're paying for
and what you're getting out of it if
someone says hey look don't take the
toll road just take the regular Road
your question should be twofold one how
much does the toll road cost and two how
much time does it take off of our
journey if the toll road is 25 cents and
it saves us three hours in traffic are
you fucking kidding me of course I'm
paying the money to get on that toll
road if it's $10 and it saves us five
minutes fuck that I'm not made of money
well people say I don't want to gain
extra fat in a massing phase the
question has to be asked of how much fat
is going to be gained and how much time
and effort is it going to take us to get
rid of that fat when the answer to the
second two questions is very short time
that we need for other things anyway we
can't just continually muscle gain and
two it's actually just not that much
time and uh it's very easy to do then
all of a sudden they gaining extra fat
to ensure that we're at a caloric
Surplus to know that pretty much every
week of our proceeding muscle gain phase
was spent doing the right thing instead
of being like I sure hope I'm at a
surplus that is probably worth it it's
like buying a $200 phone to have GPS in
it to tell you you're for sure going in
the right direction now you could be
$200 richer you just threw that phone
away sold the phone to $200 got $200 of
money started going your car again and
be like I think I'm going the right way
it sure looks like I'm headed into the
city of New York but this could be like
I'm headed into like part of New Jersey
and I just don't know I threw away that
guarantee of going in the right
direction so I could be $200 richer got
to give it some thought and another
thing is this the there's another
compelling reason why you should take a
break from training super hard and do a
little mini diet potentially after 16 or
20 weeks of muscle gain phase and the
compelling reason is this training
fatigue adds up anyway I don't know
anyone who can train really really hard
that's not a purely new beginner for 16
to 20 weeks straight you need a training
break whether it be two weeks long or
four weeks long or even 6 weeks long
some kind of break needs to happen you
can have a 4-week long break from hard
training during which you train just at
maintenance lose some fat that's what a
mini cut is and then get back to a
muscle gain so to the people that say
well you know I want to gain six pounds
over the course of the year I want to
bulk the whole year you're going to
train hard the whole year no you're not
you can't and if you think you can
you're not training hard enough so
you're going to need some training
breaks in there anyway why not just take
those training breaks add two weeks to
them drop the calories down a bit lose a
little bit of body fat for the guarantee
that your actual surpluses are real
surpluses every week month and half year
at a time as opposed to being in a quote
unquote pretend Surplus hopefully
Surplus and then figuring out a month or
six weeks in that you're like actually
seemingly haven't gained any real
measurable sizable tissue and it turns
out the last six weeks of training
although we're good we're just not
nearly as productive as I needed them to
be
so in order to get a clear signal to
noise ratio to see if you're really on
the right path to guaranteed gains with
tissue accretion a bit of extra fat that
comes off real easy in the end in my
view is in most cases worth it and it
becomes worth it at that 250 C kilo
calorie Surplus half a pound per week
and more to gain but half pound to a
pound is a really great goal for most
people under half a pound per week
something like a quarter pound per week
as a gaining goal suffers from a problem
of measurement error where we can't
discriminate as to what is really
Surplus and what isn't and we have this
really decent chance of just treading
water for a while so don't bulk too
slowly give this some thought if you
have more advanced stuff you'd like to
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