Articles

Illustration of a bodybuilder holding a heavy barbell and a light dumbbell.

Should You Lift More Weight or Do More Reps to Build Muscle?

The top search result for this question is wrong, and it’s bugging me. There’s this old myth that heavier weights are better for building muscle while lighter weights are better for gaining endurance. That’s not quite right.

Both low-rep and high-rep sets can be equally good for building muscle. Anywhere from 4–40 reps per set stimulates a similar amount of muscle growth. Doing 6–20 reps tends to be a little easier and more efficient. Most bodybuilders lift right in the middle, favouring 8–12 reps.

However, different rep ranges provoke slightly different adaptations. The best way to build muscle is to take advantage of both. A balanced muscle-building program will use a mix of heavier weights and higher reps. More on that in a moment.

This begs another question: when you progressively overload your exercises, should you focus on adding more weight or adding more reps? Both can be equally good for building muscle. It all depends on what exercise you’re doing and what you’re trying to accomplish.

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Illustration showing a skinny guy who gained too much fat while bulking.

How Much Fat Will You Gain While Bulking?

One of the most common bulking mistakes is to be so scared of gaining fat that you fail to gain weight. If you’re 130 pounds, the only way to get up to 180 pounds is to gain weight. There’s no other path there. You have to bulk.

But bulking is a dastardly process. You can just as easily mess it up by gaining too much weight, causing needless fat gain. You can burn that fat off, but it can still be a frustrating setback.

To make things even trickier, many factors affect the ratio of muscle and fat you gain, including your workout program, your bulking diet, your genetics, and even your sleep habits. It’s possible to bulk at a reasonable pace and still gain extra fat.

If you notice fat gain, does that mean you’re doing something wrong? How much fat should you expect to gain while bulking?

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Illustration of a skinny man with no abs doing ab workouts to build a bigger six-pack.

The Skinny Guy’s Guide to Building Bigger Abs

It’s common for skinny guys to be lean and still not have abs. That’s because there are two parts to having good muscle definition: body-fat percentage and muscle size. Our body fat percentage is fine, but our abs aren’t big enough.

If you try to search for information about how to get abs, you’ll probably come across one of two recommendations:

  1. Abs are built in the kitchen, not the gym: The idea is to focus less on building bigger abs and more on getting lean enough to reveal your abs. But many of us are already lean enough. You might not need to get any leaner. You might do better by gaining weight.
  2. Abs are built with ab circuits: The most popular ab workouts are high-rep, low-rest circuits. Those circuits will absolutely stimulate muscle growth, but they’re needlessly painful, and they aren’t as effective as hypertrophy training.

Neither of these recommendations is great for us. We need to build bigger ab muscles. We need a proper bulking routine for our abs.

Dive in
Illustration showing a skinny guy bulking up and gaining muscle.

Do You Need to Bulk to Build Muscle?

Bulking is when you eat in a calorie surplus to give your body the nutrients it needs to grow. Not everyone needs to start by bulking. If you’re a skinny-fat or overweight beginner, you can get the energy you need from your extra body fat.

  • If you’re thin or lean, then you don’t have any extra body fat to burn, so you’ll need to get it from your diet. You’ll need to eat in a calorie surplus. You’ll need to bulk to build muscle.
  • If your goal body weight is heavier than your current body weight, then you need to eat in a calorie surplus to get there. That means you need to bulk.
  • If you’re an experienced lifter, your body won’t grow as readily as it used to. You might need to get into a calorie surplus to continue making gains. Again, you need to bulk.

The problem with bulking is that it increases your risk of gaining fat. Any surplus calories that aren’t invested into muscle growth can spill over into body fat. That’s why so many people fear it. Those fears are largely unfounded, but I understand the hesitation.

In the rest of the article, we’ll go over the research, explain why a calorie surplus improves muscle growth, and then teach you how to bulk up leanly.

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Illustration of a bodybuilder bulking up during his "off-season" or "bulking season."

What is Bulking Season?

Bulking season is the time of year when you intentionally gain weight to support muscle growth. It’s part of a long tradition of setting aside certain parts of the year for performance and other parts of the year for improvement. There’s a surprising amount of wisdom in that tradition.

It’s similar to the “off-season” athletes have. It’s the period of the year when they aren’t competing, allowing them to focus on getting bigger, stronger, and fitter. The most relevant example is bodybuilders. They need to get lean for their bodybuilding competitions, meaning they need to spend several months cutting. During that period, they have so little body fat and eat so little food that they have no hope of building any muscle. Their “off-season” is a chance to get into a calorie surplus, regain a healthy amount of body fat, and start building muscle again.

“Bulking season” is far more casual, but it offers even greater advantages.

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Illustration of a skinny beginner bodybuilder eating a bowl of carbs to build muscle.

Are Carbs Good for Building Muscle?

Most people associate muscle growth with protein, but classic bodybuilding diets are up to 60% carbohydrates. They get far more of their calories from starchy carbs like oats, rice, beans, potatoes, and pasta. Is that the correct approach? Are carbs actually good for building muscle?

Interestingly, that’s the same proportion of carbs the healthiest cultures in the world eat. Is there a benefit to eating so many carbs?

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Illustration of a skinny "ectomorph" doing cardio while bulking up.

Should You Do Cardio While Bulking? Yes, Sort Of

Cardio causes a different type of adaptation from hypertrophy training. Cardio causes us to build more blood vessels, gain additional mitochondria in our cells, carry more oxygen in our blood, and strengthen our hearts. Hypertrophy training stimulates muscle growth, makes us stronger, and makes our bones and tendons tougher.

Here’s the issue. Doing both hypertrophy training and cardio at the same time causes us to adapt in two complementary but competing ways. This is called the interference effect. That’s what people say, anyway. Is it true?

On the other hand, if cardio makes you fitter, maybe you’ll be able to handle tougher hypertrophy training workouts. If it improves blood flow to your muscles, maybe you’ll have improved performance and better recovery. There could be muscle-building advantages to doing cardio.

Things get even more confusing if you’re a naturally thin “ectomorph” or “hardgainer.” The more cardio you do, the more calories you’ll burn and the more calories you’ll need to eat. If you’re already struggling to eat enough calories to gain weight, that can be a problem.

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Illustration of a mass gainer supplement for skinny guys.

Should Skinny Guys Use Mass Gainers?

Mass gainers, also known as weight gainers, are popular with skinny guys trying to bulk up. They’re especially popular with “hardgainers” whose metabolisms make it difficult to gain weight. I’m a naturally skinny guy myself, and I’ve always found it nearly impossible to get into a sustainable calorie surplus.

I’ve experimented with my fair share of mass gainers. I’ve tried all the popular brands, I’ve made my own homemade shakes from whey protein and maltodextrin, and I’ve tried all sorts of thousand-calorie bulking shakes. That’s how I gained my first 50 pounds.

So, do mass gainers work? Are they healthy? Do they cause excess fat gain? And, if you’re a skinny guy struggling to gain weight, should you use them?

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Illustration of a skinny guy holding a tub of protein powder while bulking.

The Best Protein Powder for Bulking (2024)

I’ll tell you the best protein powder for bulking, but you might be asking the wrong question. Protein is an important part of a balanced bulking diet, and protein powder is an easy way to get that protein, but you might be thinking of a weight gainer.

Weight gainers are high-calorie bulking supplements that contain both protein and carbs. You mix it into water just like protein powder, but you can get around 10x as many calories per serving. That can make it easier to gain weight. That might be what you’re thinking of. We’ll cover the best weight gainers, too.

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Illustration of a skinny bodybuilder eating a bulking diet.

Bulking Diet Plan: How to Eat for Muscle Growth

This bulking diet plan covers everything you need to know about eating for muscle growth. This is how bodybuilders have traditionally bulked up, how athletes gain lean mass, and what modern science shows is the most effective way to fuel muscle growth.

I’ve personally used this diet to gain 65 pounds at 11% body fat. Marco has used them to gain over 70 pounds at an even lower body fat percentage. This is the diet plan Marco used with the college, professional, and Olympic athletes he trained. And since creating Bony to Beastly, it’s the advice we’ve given to our millions of readers and the 10,000 naturally skinny members who’ve done our bulking program.

There are three parts to this guide:

  • How much you need to eat.
  • How much protein, carb, and fat you should eat.
  • The best bulking foods to eat.

Don’t expect to be shocked or thrilled. There’s nothing edgy or controversial here. This isn’t the one and only True way to eat for muscle growth. These are well-known and well-studied principles with decades of tradition behind them. The best results come from applying them properly.

The goal of this guide is to give you the best default bulking diet, the best foundation to build upon. From there, you can adjust it as you see fit.

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