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How to Cut After Bulking
There’s a long tradition of bulking up and then cutting away the fat. It’s popular with all types of lifters, from bodybuilders to powerlifters, because it’s the most reliable way to build muscle and then get lean. Body recomposition and maingaining can also work well, for a time, but bulking and cutting are more powerful.
I’ve bulked and cut a few times, gaining 70 pounds at the same body fat percentage I started at. I’ve also helped a few thousand clients do it over the past decade. I’ll show you the before-and-after photos below.
Before we start, you probably have some questions. So, let’s blast through the most common ones:
- Maintenance periods after bulking to “lock in” your muscle mass. The idea is that it takes a few weeks or months for your new muscle to cement into place. So, by delaying your cut, you’d keep more of your hard-earned muscle. There’s no evidence for this, and it probably isn’t necessary.
- High-rep sets to focus on muscle definition. The idea is to switch from 6–12 reps per set to 15–30 reps. This was thought to give greater muscle definition. Both rep ranges are great for stimulating muscle growth, but high-rep sets can be absolutely miserable, especially when you aren’t eating as much food to fuel your workouts.
- Short rest periods. The idea is to use shorter rest periods to boost growth hormone, improving muscle growth and retention. The “hormone hypothesis” of muscle growth was mostly debunked, but short rest times can be effective if you program them properly.
- More ab training. Bodybuilders used to think you could train your abs to burn more ab fat (spot reduction). That myth died a decade ago. You could still train your abs to build bigger abs, but cutting makes it harder to build muscle, so you’d get even better results by training your abs while bulking.
- Shorter workouts to match your lower energy levels. When you’re cutting, you’re eating less food, so you have less energy. That can make it harder to survive long workouts. Thus, cutting workouts are often shorter and easier. That makes sense, but it’s tricky, so we’ll talk about the pros and cons below.
- Long walks to burn fat faster. Cardio burns far more calories than lifting weights, making it easier to lose weight. Plus, most cardio adaptations are enhanced by losing weight. You can finish your cut with a higher VO2 max, a lower resting heart rate, and better performance.
- Cutting carbs (and ketogenic diets). The idea is that carbs are good for building muscle (true) but make it harder to lose fat (not true). Carbs are just as powerful while cutting. However, when you cut calories, you need to cut back on something. It’s usually best to cut back on both carbs and fat, but some people find it easier to lose weight on low-carb diets.
- Carb cycling. Some bodybuilders try to get the best of both worlds, eating low-carb diets on rest days, but eating more carbs in the meals before and after their workouts. That way, they show up to the gym with full muscles and higher energy levels. There’s some evidence to support this. Even the taste of carbs improves workout performance (study, study). It’s a good option to consider.
- Intermittent fasting. About a decade ago, bodybuilders started eating fewer meals instead of smaller meals because they thought it would improve their growth hormone production. That didn’t pan out, but intermittent fasting might help you control your appetite. It’s an option.
- Refeeds to revive your metabolism. Refeeds can give you a psychological break, and they might boost your metabolism a little bit during the refeed, but your metabolism will wither away again when you go back to cutting (meta-analysis). The best way to keep your metabolism high is to keep your activity levels high. More on that below.
We can keep the best methods, get rid of the worst ones, and build them into a balanced cutting routine.
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Maingaining: How to Build Muscle Without Gaining Fat
Maingaining is when you slowly build muscle without gaining fat. It’s usually set in opposition to bulking, where you eat in a calorie surplus to support muscle growth. Bulking is a more powerful, reliable way to build muscle, but it often comes at the cost of gaining body fat. Maingaining is supposed to solve that problem.
Up until a few years ago, “maingaining” was called “gaintaining.” I think it was Greg Doucette who flipped it around, and he caused enough controversy that it became the more popular term. The controversy had less to do with maingaining and more to do with the false claims he made to sell his fake turkesterone supplements.
Still, much of the internet’s ire landed on maingaining. Some argued it didn’t work. Most argued that it was a confusing way of combining body recomposition (where you build muscle while losing fat) with lean bulking (where you bulk slowly and leanly).
However, both body recomposition and lean bulking can work quite well. Combining them both together can be quite effective, especially under some circumstances.
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How to Count Macros: Beginner Guide
Counting macros is when you count how many grams of protein, carbs, and fat you eat. You can do that by looking at nutrition labels, weighing your food, or following recipes with pre-calculated macros. Most people plug those macros into a calorie-tracking app.
Tracking macros used to be a bodybuilding thing, but it’s become more popular over the past few years. The idea is that you need certain amounts of calories, protein, carbs, and fat to build muscle, lose fat, and be healthy. That’s true, kind of.
Macros are important, but it isn’t hard to get them right. Most cultures have found ways to eat balanced diets. Your appetite is pretty good at asking for the nutrients you need. And most macro targets are pretty forgiving.
Here’s what you need to know.
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Can You Be Skinny and Strong? Yes, Kind Of
Some skinny guys with good strength genetics are stronger than they look. However, they would be even stronger if they built more muscle.
I’m a naturally skinny guy who was underweight into his twenties and then gradually gained 70 pounds. I’ve struggled to bench press an empty barbell. I’ve also benched 315 pounds. Gaining weight and building muscle is what made the biggest difference.
This is surprisingly controversial, and I see why, so let’s go deeper.
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How Fast Should You Gain Weight While Bulking?
Bulking faster almost always causes faster muscle growth, but if you bulk too fast, you’ll gain more fat. Bulking slower gives you a better chance of making lean gains, but you’ll also build muscle more slowly, and you might go through periods of not building any muscle at all.
Most people split the difference, bulking at a moderate pace. I didn’t. I was desperate not to be skinny anymore, so I gained weight as quickly as I could, gaining 20 pounds in 3 months (1.5 pounds per week). That’s 3 times faster than most experts recommend, but I finished leaner than when I started.
Since then, I’ve helped over 10,000 other people bulk up at varying paces and tracked their results. Most guys who want to bulk up are thin, but I’ve also coached hundreds of skinny-fat and overweight people. It’s easy to see the patterns.
There are some interesting studies we can look at, too. In particular, the famous Ribeiro study.
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How Fast Can Skinny People Build Muscle?
I want to talk about how quickly skinny people can expect to build muscle. It’s a contentious topic. I’ve gained 70 pounds and spent the past decade helping over ten thousand skinny people bulk up, and I’ve noticed that most experts either get this wrong or forget to even mention us.
Most experts warn that gaining weight too quickly will make you fat, but they’re almost never talking about skinny people. When I ask them specifically about skinny people, their answer usually changes, sometimes quite dramatically.
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Can Chewing Gum Help Your Jawline?
I don’t have a jawline. My jaw just blends straight into my neck. I’ll show you in a second. But I wasn’t particularly bothered by it. George Lucas created wonderful things without a chin, so I didn’t see why I needed a jaw. Still, whenever I saw an ad about chewing on rubber Jawzrcise balls, I was tempted.
The problem with those Jawsrcise balls is they don’t replicate regular chewing patterns, so they don’t do a very good job of bulking up your bigger jaw muscles. They might also create imbalances in your chewing muscles, changing how you bite. I confirmed this with an orthodontist. More on that in a moment.
Chewing gum is much more promising. You chew it just like you chew regular food, and it does a great job of working your muscles of mastication (including your masseters). Chewing gum could help your jawline, but it depends on what type of gum you chew and how you chew it.
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What Does Bulking Do?
Bulking is when you gain weight to support muscle growth. Not everyone needs to gain weight to build muscle, but some people do. That’s because you need to do two things to build muscle:
- Stimulate muscle growth, usually with weight training.
- Give your muscles enough protein, calories, and time to recover and grow.
Any good muscle-building program combines those two things. What sets bulking apart is that the diet puts you into a calorie surplus—it causes weight gain.
There are many different ways to bulk, each with a slightly different purpose. If you want to build muscle as fast as possible, you can bulk aggressively. If you’re worried about gaining fat, you can bulk leanly. If you want to bulk in a healthy way, you could do a clean bulk. If you don’t care about any of that, you can do a dirty bulk.
Bulking has a controversial reputation, but I think that reputation is almost wholly undeserved. The criticism usually comes from people arguing against a specific style of bulking, then falsely applying that criticism to bulking in general. For example, someone might say that bulking will make you fat, forgetting that lean bulking exists. Or that bulking means overeating junk food, forgetting that clean bulking exists.
Let’s delve into some of that nuance.
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Do Skinny People Have Bad Muscle-Building Genetics?
I think it’s important to talk honestly about muscle-building genetics. I don’t mean that in a pessimistic “blackpill” way. Every skinny person can build muscle. I’m naturally skinny. So is Marco. We’ve each gained around 70 pounds. And over the past decade, we’ve worked with over ten thousand skinny clients, both male and female, ranging from desk workers to Olympic athletes.
But our genetics do indeed influence those results. Even among naturally skinny people, we all have different bone structures, different muscles that lag behind, and different muscles that pull ahead, causing us to build bodies that look rather different from one another.
So, I don’t think we should take the overly optimistic “whitepill” approach, either. If we don’t understand and account for our genetic weaknesses, we won’t ever succeed at building muscle.
Finally, for every genetic downside you have, there’s probably a genetic strength you can leverage. For the most obvious example, if you have a hard time gaining weight, you’ll have an easy time staying lean. That genetic leanness will be a powerful ally as you bulk up.
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Bulking Diet Plan: How to Eat for Muscle Growth
This bulking diet guide 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.
Cassandra used this diet to gain over twenty pounds, I’ve used it to gain over sixty pounds, and Marco used it to gain over seventy. We also use it to help our clients bulk up, both in person and online. Those clients range from desk workers to college, professional, and Olympic athletes.
There are five parts to this guide:
- How much do you need to eat?
- What if you stop gaining weight?
- How much protein, carbs, and fat you should eat?
- What does a healthy bulking diet look like?
- What foods and meals should you eat?
Don’t expect to be shocked or thrilled. There’s nothing controversial here. These are well-known and well-studied principles with decades of tradition behind them. That’s by far the best way to get reliable results.
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