
“A newbie lifter can gain one to one and a half pounds of muscle per month. “You can only gain so much muscle tissue at a time,” he says. But, according to Duncan, that’s not possible without the help of steroids. The whole principle of the bulk is to stay in an anabolic state and therefore expedite muscle growth. “At the end of the day, whatever is left over is going to be stored as fat.” As estrogen levels increase, fat begets more fat, and you risk a vicious cycle of pure fat gain. “Estrogen is the last thing you want to increase if you’re trying to put on muscle tissue,” Duncan says. Increases in body fat are associated with increases in estrogen levels, according to the Endocrine Society. Plus, as Duncan notes, bodybuilders may be taking “extracurricular” substances that improve their ability to gain muscle and metabolize the extra calories, instead of storing them as fat. This isn’t often the case for the average bulking and cutting interloper. When a bodybuilder begins a bulk, he or she is starting from a point of high muscle mass and low body fat. “But, it kind of turned into people using bulking as an excuse to eat like crap and put on massive amounts of weight.” “A lot of it started because it was noted that in the off-season bodybuilders would tend to be a little heavier, and compete a lot leaner,” Duncan says. The diet was never meant for regular people. Here are his top reasons to steer clear of bulking and cutting. He prefers this to being 50 pounds heavier. The Case Against Bulking and Cuttingĭuncan, who got up to 255 pounds at the peak of his bulk, now weighs around 195-200 pounds. To find out whether bulking and cutting is realistic for non-bodybuilders, we enlisted the help of two people who have done it.įred Duncan, a personal trainer in Williamsville, New York, who tried bulking and cutting while he was on the bodybuilding circuit.Īnd Oskar Faarkrog, a Bangkok, Thailand-based personal trainer who found success with his own bulking and cutting program. If you put on muscle and fat simultaneously, the theory goes, that you can drop the fat to expose prodigious cuts and Instagram-worthy flexes (don’t act like you won’t). Check out the newest classes from our top trainers today. Then we attempt to shed the pounds by the time beach season arrives.Īaptiv has strength training and cardio workouts in the app. We eat big and train big to compensate throughout the wintertime. But it sounds like what many of us subconsciously do on a seasonal basis. Bulking and cutting is a dietary strategy originally devised by bodybuilders in preparation for competition.
