A lot of us get into this fitness world for one reason and one reason only: to build more muscle. That was the origin for many meatheads, that’s the wishful origin for countless weightlifters.
Looked in the mirror one day and said “my shoulders aren’t wide enough”. Or “I’m tired of being the skinny one in the crew”, could even be “I want to bench 225”.
Of course other fitness desires soon filed into the fray, but muscle tends to quick start the journey. Here’s where the best way to gain weight AKA lean bulking will come in.
I implore those in the “I want muscle” category to start with the same question —> Should I cut or bulk?
Based on the answer, commit to the process of shredding fat or ideally packing on muscle weight.
The problem is when the latter is chosen, the hypertrophy hunters often pack on a lot more than muscle. They end up with more body fat than they bargained for.. Undercutting their muscle building potential. That doesn’t have to be you.
In this article you’ll find: what a lean bulk is, reasons a traditional bulk isn't the best route, how to lean bulk, and much more!
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What Is A Lean Bulk
The reason the packing on muscle process historically results in more body fat accumulation than muscle accumulation is the method of choice.
They usually go on a traditional bulk, which is a fitness regimen where you focus on gaining as much weight as possible. It’s without a lot of consideration for what percentage of the weight is muscle versus body fat. Not unpopular in bodybuilding circles.
Other bulking terms are dirty, clean, and lean.
A dirty bulk still has the aim to pack on weight, but has no feelings about the quality of food consumed.. hence the word dirty.
A clean bulk is to add muscle of course, yet while sticking to mostly clean eating. Healthier option of course, however it’s not exempt from an abundance of fat acceptance.
Then there’s our focus, the granddaddy, the LEAN BULK.
It has the lean in front because it’s distinct from a traditional bulk.
Note: It’s possible to do a dirty or clean lean bulk, notwithstanding as I’m sure you’ve assumed.. a clean lean bulk is better for your health and energy quality.
Traditionally when bulking your mission is to add weight quickly, ASAP, by any means, pronto, & with no hesitation. This comes from resistance training coupled with a significant calorie surplus. A calorie surplus means to consume more calories than you burn.
Emphasis on the “by any means”, which can be an extra dirty bulk, half clean and half dirty, or mostly clean bulk. Oftentimes this is with mass gainers and fast food. Again.. little regard for health or added adipose tissue. Just an eye on punishing the scale.
To be clear a portion of this extra weight will be due to hypertrophy. When protein intake is adequate, resistance training sufficient, and recovery considered - you’ll build muscle. Yet inevitably a high degree of body fat will be along for the ride. And that’s not the most economical route, here’s why.
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6 Reasons Bulking Up Fast Is Inefficient
Just because the number on the scale is having a helium balloon-like rise doesn’t mean your amount of muscle tissue is following along at the same pace. The tortoise and the hare story comes to mind, but no. I just thought of an even better analogy for you as we get into these 6 reasons bulking up fast is inefficient {starts rubbing hands}:
6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Bulk Quickly
You Won’t Build Muscle Faster
Let’s say you’ve done what’s necessary from a training and recovery perspective, good work.
Nutrition??
Imagine your body receiving calories through a funnel.
What makes it through the nozzle leads to repair and muscle growth, great. Now think about how a funnel functions, if you fill it too quickly what happens? Spillage.
It’s a similar concept, your body can take a certain amount of calories and use it the way you’d like for daily functions, repair, and muscle growth.. however it doesn’t have endless uses. So if you pour into the funnel too quickly your body has to clean up the excess and by that I mean store it as body fat.
The longer you consume calories in great excess, the more cleanup your body has to do and your percentage of gained weight that’s muscle growth decreases.. the percent of weight gained that is body fat increases. Ultimately collecting more fat than muscle.
I’ve collected a lot in my life: basketball cards, baseball, football, and even Pokémon cards. Fat collection isn’t a hobby I ever gleefully signed up for.
It all comes down to the fact that no matter your body type, you can only build so much muscle at a time.
You lift to cause micro tears in muscle tissue. Your body doesn’t like not being able to handle things, so if it believes you may encounter such an uncomfortable environment consistently it’ll repair itself and add an improved readiness to handle similar stimuli in the future.
That’s growth, that’s hypertrophy. Part of making this process effective is providing enough nutrients in the form of calories.
In this case a calorie surplus.
Once the surplus of calories is distributed to assist repairing muscle tissue, the bulk of remaining calories that aren’t used for daily functions are stored for later use. In the form of adipose tissue AKA body fat.
This is why a small calorie surplus is all you need to build muscle, going higher doesn’t add muscle faster, it adds fat faster.
More Body Fat Means a Harder Time Building Muscle
You may be thinking, “So what, I don’t care about aesthetics on my bulk. I just want to pack on muscle and even if it doesn’t do so faster as long as it’s not slower I’ll take my chances.”
Well..
Sorry to break it to you.
Hypertrophy is in fact slower with higher body fat percentages than it is when you’re relatively lean.
It’s Forbes’ theory.
Forbes established that there is a relationship between how much lean body mass you can add when in a calorie surplus and how much fat mass vs. lean body mass you already possess.
“(When) overfeeding: in experiments of at least 3-weeks' duration, the weight gain of thin people comprises 60-70% lean tissues, whereas in the obese it is 30-40%.” [2]
You’re more efficient at building muscle if you remain lean or become lean first.
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Insulin Resistance Has Side Effects
Part of why achieving hypertrophy has an added degree of difficulty with an elevated body fat percentage is an increase in insulin resistance.
The more body fat you carry the higher your likelihood of not fully responding to the highly anabolic properties of insulin.
Insulin is released to transport nutrients in the bloodstream, mainly as a response to glucose (sugar) after consuming carbohydrates. This is to keep your blood sugar levels in check.
Insulin resistance is when your body doesn’t release enough and/or ignores the attempts of insulin trying to do its job. This can lead to a list of issues including type 2 diabetes, part of the quarrel with excess sugar consumption.
In context, not responding to insulin cripples muscle protein synthesis, the creation of new muscle cells.
Still think copious amounts of fat added during a bulk isn’t a problem?
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Your Impending Cut Will Take Longer
On top of this soiree of trouble, you’ll simply have more body fat to lose later.
Just as I suggest not to gain weight too quickly, you should avoid losing weight too quickly as well.
Puts your hard-earned muscle in jeopardy of degradation, plus raises the likelihood of regaining the adipose tissue you shredded. So more fat means a longer cut. An extended cut, means less time you spend growing.
Not bulking quickly means you can allocate more of your time to bulking/in a calorie surplus.
Less time in a calorie deficit, having all of those mood swings that come with cuts.. having you act like an emotional 9th grader.
New Fat Cells Never Die
When you gain body fat 2 things happen.
1. You expand the size of already existing fat cells.
2. You generate new fat cells (this happens with more frequency than cell expansion).
When you lose body fat, fat cells shrink in size.
{abrupt pause}
That’s it, they just shrink. They don’t disappear from your efforts, they only lose size.
Now in reality it is true that fat cells turnover, as do all cells over time, yet even while maintaining a consistent weight your total number of fat cells remain constant. [4]
It’s also notable that the more fat cells you have the easier it is to regain body fat. So an uncontrolled bulk has a lasting impact, no free lunches in nature baby.
Could Hurt Your Confidence
The decision to gain weight already has risks of fooling with your confidence a bit. When you bulk up quickly there’s some hypertrophy in that risk too.
Everyone isn't equipped to handle walking around with extra body fat they’re unaccustomed to having, while still exuding confidence. This goes double when you're putting hours of work in at the gym, and your body doesn’t appear as if that's the case.
The result is you at the beach in a T-shirt, and you won’t be alone either. It’s not uncommon to lose some of your bravado during a traditional bulk.
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Benefits Of Lean Bulking
We went over the downside of bulking up quickly, in contrast let's get positive. The sun's out. Time for some excitement. A few benefits of choosing the lean bulking route as opposed to traditional bulking are:
You'll stay relatively lean: Good if you're like most folks and have thoughts about your physical appearance. Or maybe you want your hard work to show a little more than it would with excess body fat. Post a lot on socials? You probably want your physique to remain picture ready.
Your cuts will be shorter: Do you compete or do photoshoots? If so it literally pays to be only a short cut away from peak condition. You can schedule more shoots or competitions, since you don’t take as long to prepare when you're lean all year long. Then you get to spend more time bulking throughout the year.
You're less likely to ruin insulin sensitivity: As mentioned, storing body fat in abundance can increase insulin resistance. Remaining lean makes that less likely. Can’t forget how it’s much more beneficial for your ghrelin and leptin responses too.
You'll more efficiently build muscle: The leaner you are, the higher amount of gained weight will be muscle rather than adipose tissue. The reverse is also true.. score another point for lean bulks. [2]
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How To Lean Bulk
This officially marks the conclusion of my “it’s time to bash bulking up fast” segment. Now to the nitty gritty, how to lean bulk. To successfully pull off the lean bulk, there are 8 keys:
8 Keys To A Successful Lean Bulk
Note: Before you jump into a bulk determine if you’re ready to bulk. The goal here is optimization and to do that you want yourself to check certain boxes before you start raising the calories.
Calorie surplus
Weight gain is a math game.
To gain weight you need to consume more calories than you burn over a period of time. That’s a calorie surplus.
For that to be mostly muscle weight you need a surplus of calories in the sweet spot. A lean bulk’s calorie surplus will place you in a surplus of approximately 300-1000 calories on average per day.
Note: Emphasis is on the average in case you happen to be a calorie/carb cycler as I am. On a bulk each week I’m in a calorie surplus, hence the average. Yet there are days I am in a calorie deficit. Another way to stay lean while bulking. More on that soon.
During the process you’ll ideally gain roughly 0.25-2 pounds weekly on average. If you’re a newbie lifter it’s safer to veer toward the 2 pound range, on the other hand the more seasoned you become, the better it is for you to accept less average weekly weight gain. Otherwise you’re more at risk of harming that fat gain to muscle gain ratio.
Another note: On average for weight is emphasized because weight does fluctuate. Tracking weight is a must to know if you’re moving in the right direction at an acceptable pace. To account for fluctuations I suggest weighing yourself daily in the same setting, IE first thing in the morning after your first tinkle, before any meals or beverages.. and use a weekly weight average as the number you pay attention to.
I recommend a Katch-McArdle or Mifflin St-Jeor calculator to estimate your starting calories. Counting isn’t as difficult as you may believe, here’s a simple way to keep track of your caloric intake: how to track calories.
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Stay up on protein
If you’ve had your ear to the ground you’re familiar with the phrase “protein is the building block of all muscle.”
No protein, no muscle. End of discussion.
Recommended protein intake will have you shoot for 0.8-1.8 grams of protein per pound per day. This has been shown to result in satisfactory muscle growth in natural bodybuilders.
You want to spread your intake across the day to maximize protein synthesis.
Another key is to ensure you incorporate complete protein as much as possible. Animal protein is amazing in this field, yet it’s possible to make it happen with plant protein too with some extra effort.
The reason being is most plant sources of protein lack certain essential amino acids, so you’ll have to mix and match or incorporate a supplement.
Don’t sleep on whey protein either, it’s great after a lift.
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Don’t neglect carbs
Carbs have mixed reviews in the populous, still they will be crucial for your surplus. They’ll be crucial for providing energy during lifts.
Carb consumption leads to you creating and storing glycogen, which is one of the most preferred methods of energy during resistance training.
Carb intake on a bulk is typically >40% of total calories on most days.. energy energy energy.
Dietary fat matters
I could rattle off the array of reasons you need to keep your intake of dietary fat up, but I'll cut to the muscle pertinent chase.
Dietary fat supports anabolic hormone production. Need I say more? If so there's a deep dive in this dietary fat article ---> Dietary Fat: The Forgotten Macronutrient
Consistency is key with dietary fat. Day after day consume about the same amount of grams of fat. 20-30 percent of your total calories will work. If carb/calorie cycling, however many grams you consume on high calorie days should be virtually matched on the low days.
Frequent resistance training
We covered no protein, no muscle. So how about here we go with no weights no weight? That a good one?
No weights no muscle weight anyhow. Unless you're in the middle of puberty, resistance training is the catalyst you are resigned to rely on for hypertrophy.
You have to break that tissue down my friend, and continue to overload over time.
Frequent means weight training volume should be 3-9 lifts per week. I strongly recommend retaining at least 1 rest day every 7 days, so if you go above 6 lifts per week there will be some two-a-days.
Be relentless in the gym, stay mindful of your rest periods, same with your rep speed, and keep it all in a fitness journal. Trust me it helps.
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Solid recovery
Recovery isn’t the most appealing part of training to build muscle, even though it quickly becomes that once you start flirting with overtraining syndrome or if you can’t seem to make any reliable strength gains in the gym.
Resistance training tears muscle tissue, growth occurs when the tissue is repaired. This means muscle grows when you’re NOT lifting weights. So for this to happen in a friendly manner, give your muscles the nutrients and time they need to come back stronger than before.
One way to do this is by keeping the "iron rule" of don't target the same muscle group on consecutive days, at the forefront of your mind.
Another is by including at least 1 rest day weekly to help keep your central nervous system from forcing you to do so. You won’t like its methods.
So for weight lifting recovery you need:
6-8 hours of sleep
To not target the same muscle group on consecutive days
At least 1 weekly rest day
Adequate macronutrient intake
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Don’t skip cardio
Many athletes nix cardio while bulking, for 1 of 2 reasons.. they're afraid of harming their gains or they believe it's a waste of time being that they're on the weight gaining route.
Spolier alert: I suggest against this practice.
For one, cardio won’t hurt your gains, unless you conduct sessions horribly wrong. By that I mean doing so with your heart rate too high for too long.
And you'll quickly realize cardio is no time waster when you're sucking wind between sets of barbell squats.
Better stamina.
You'll more quickly catch your wind between sets, which means you can accomplish more work in less time.
Better pumps.
Need I continue?
Hydrate
Living requires water intake, lifting requires water intake, a high protein intake requires extra water intake, even pre workout and creatine ups your water needs.. requires requires requires. —> The Best Type Of Drinking Water
Consume the appropriate amount of H2O for your particular case to stay fully functional, lean longer, have fuller muscles, and make your lifts as good as they can be. Each may vary, but intake will be greater than 64 oz daily I can pretty much guarantee.
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Carb cycle (optional)
On the cycling note.. if you’re as dedicated as me to staying lean I find calorie/carb cycling assists greatly. You only need to average a calorie surplus.
That doesn’t mean every day you consume in excess, just average a surplus weekly. Cycling is a good method for keeping your body in a mode of consistently utilizing fat for fuel, AKA being fat adapted.
To be fat adapted means your body is adept at converting fat to energy. Having low carb days helps increase that efficiency. [5]
When cycling, for the record, on low calorie days you may consume only a maintenance level of calories or dip into a calorie deficit.
As a bonus point for carb cycling, you also make it likely you’ll keep your muscles fuller and lower the opportunities for “spillage”.
Spillage, AKA extra subcutaneous water, occurs partly in response to your carb intake surpassing what you need to fill glycogen stores. Glycogen binds with water molecules wherever it goes, whether that's inside the muscle cell or outside!
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What To Do When You Hit A Weight Gain Plateau
You excitedly started your lean bulk, things were strumming along quite rhythmically until *screech*.
“Does my scale have a glitch?”
“Why am I no longer gaining weight?”
The pounds seem to have frozen in time. You changed nothing, but the pounds froze.
What do you do when this happens? How do you respond when you hit a bulking plateau?
First don’t panic, weight gain plateaus are supposed to happen. The longer you bulk the more likely you’ll reach a point where what was previously a calorie surplus is no longer a calorie surplus.
You built more muscle, muscle requires extra calories to maintain, so your maintenance level of calories will rise. Also fair to mention gaining that muscle made you stronger. Great power great responsibility. Your lifts burn more calories than before, when you’re moving more weight in the same rep range.
So if you listened to the above advice and are keeping your weekly weight average, you can compare week to week.
If you hit a sticking point where your weight doesn’t move up, despite following the same protocol for 2 or more weeks?!
Raise your calories again by 100-500 on average per day (refer to our on average talk earlier).
This is a process you’ll repeat at each plateau during your muscle weight gaining spree.
Note: This little dance applies if you started a bulk and it’s not working too. If your weight never changed in the first place. Apply these same principles.
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How To Know When It’s Time To Stop Bulking
You can glean when to stop bulking based on your body fat percentage.
OR
Your tolerance level being breached.
Whichever comes first.
Personal note: Back in the day I wasn’t aware of lean bulking. I went heavy into the weight gain with a blindfold. As a result I put on some muscle yes, but.. in coordination with the downsides of traditional bulking I put on maaaad unneeded fat, my body fat percentage went up 6+ points in the matter of months. I say that as a cautionary tale. You can learn from my struggles.
If you want to be extremely detailed during a lean bulk, one way is to know how much of the weight you’re gaining is muscle versus how much is adipose tissue. This is done by tracking your lean body mass. Lean body mass (LBM) is the amount of your bodyweight that isn’t fat.
To figure your number: weigh yourself first thing in the morning, check your body fat percentage thereafter, multiply your body fat percentage by the amount you weigh.. Then subtract that number from your total bodyweight.
Do this at the beginning of your lean bulk and again every 1-4 weeks to keep track of your progress and ensure you’re doing mostly good.
A less intense way is to track your body fat percentage every 1-4 weeks. Just like with weighing yourself, you want to only do so under the same setting, IE morning before a meal or beverage, yet after that initial bathroom trip.
Without fault you’d want to end a bulk when your body fat percentage is at or above 15-18 percent as a male, 24-27% as a lady.
If you know what’s happening you can make proper adjustments, don’t shoot in the dark.
And then there’s the all important personal preference. If you’re not comfortable with, or lose confidence with your body fat percentage somewhere during the bulk.. it may be time to cut if you’ve gained some solid muscle already.
Otherwise I suggest you tough it out or you’ll end up on the treadmill of “I never really cut or bulk” that many gym rats find themselves on.
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What About Hardgainers
It’s funny how we sometimes want what the other person has and vice versa.
Some seem to gain weight by merely looking at a bag of Frito Lays.
Others seem to struggle gaining weight even if they ate the whole chip aisle, which brings us the the point of contention: hardgainers.
A hardgainer is defined as one that has a challenging time packing on muscle/weight despite their “best” efforts.
Usually correlates with being dominantly an ectomorph somatotype (natural slim build; high metabolism).
Frankly, labeling yourself a hardgainer just means you don’t chow like you should chow.
You simply may believe you eat enough, but you don’t.
Maybe you have a high metabolism, maybe not. Regardless the fact remains there’s a solution - raise those calories.
It’s good news, since you can pretty much go out on a limb and say hardgainer is a cute title, but holds no real relevance. Basically doesn’t even exist.
I admit I’m being a bit technical here, for good reason. Psychological components in different aspects of life play key roles. Branding yourself as a hardgainer could be a subconscious excuse to not put the effort in.
I once took myself as a hardgainer. I assumed I was eating enough.. why? Because I drunk a mass gainer shake after each workout (laughs heartily).
But no, so eat more.
Bulking for hardgainers is the same as any other individual. Figure your calorie needs and hit those with an appropriate amount of quality foods as outlined in this article.
Watch and see how your lifts respond. Watch and see how the scale responds. Watch and see how your body fat percentage responds – then adjust accordingly.
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My Thoughts
Quick or dirty bulking has the downsides mentioned, furthermore don't sleep on plainly feeling better. When you eat clean and within reason you physically feel better; that matters. Even with cheat meals, as a binger, I always feel like doo doo the next couple of days. The unclean energy flowing through my body in combination with what is likely induced inflammation, sheesh! A traditional bulk could lead to you feeling this way for a longer period.
We know the tangible benefits of lean bulking, whereas a more professional benefit is "looking the part". If you're a trainer in some capacity, looking the part does have a role. It suggests you know what you're doing to a degree at worst. Yes it’s true you can be wildly out of shape and "know it all". It's also true you can be in peak condition and know little about how you got there. But at first glance which person would be the assumed expert before they opened their mouths? Your pockets will benefit from being an assumed expert AND an actual expert.
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So, lean bulk It’s About That Time
Well.. there you have it.
A lean bulk is when you gain weight at a steady pace to maximize muscle growth and limit adipose tissue accumulation. Traditional bulks don't provide that benefit. So traditional bulks are a thumbs down and lean bulks are a thumbs up. Traditional bulks hinder muscle building efficiency, lean bulks optimize it. Being lean all year round is a feat we can all accomplish whether it's time to bulk, cut, or maintain. Don’t shortchange yourself. Now go off to put those muscles to use, and Be Great.
Sources:
[2] Pubmed.Ncbi.Nlm.Nih.Gov/10865771/
[3] Pubmed.Ncbi.Nlm.Nih.Gov/19822547/