Articles
Does Bulking Make You Fat?
Bulking can make you fat if you gain weight too aggressively for too long. Eating in a calorie surplus is great for building muscle, but any calories that aren’t invested into muscle growth will spill over into fat gain.
If you’re eating so much food that you’re gaining fat, you might notice, but the changes happen so gradually that many people don’t. In our program, we solve this by having you weigh yourself every week and take new body measurements and progress photos every 5th week. We review those photos together, and we adjust your rate of weight gain.
Other guys like the extra size. They like filling out their clothes. They know they’re gaining fat, but they don’t care, so they keep eating in an aggressive surplus. I don’t have any issue with that. Most of these people never get fat enough to cause a health problem. It’s a purely cosmetic issue, and they prefer how they look when they’re bigger.
If you’re worried about gaining fat, you can do a lean bulk. If you’re already fat, the news is even better. You might be able to lose fat while building muscle.
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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:
- 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.
- 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
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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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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Are Carbs Good for Building Muscle? Yes, Here’s Why
Most people associate muscle growth with protein, but classic bodybuilding diets contain up to 60% carbohydrates. These diets 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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Should You Do Cardio While Bulking? Yes, Sort Of
Hypertrophy training is designed to stimulate muscle growth. You adapt by growing bigger, stronger muscles, but it won’t improve your cardiorespiratory health very much.
Cardio makes you fitter. You adapt to draw more blood into your heart, build more blood vessels, and produce more energy in your mitochondria. It’s great for you, but it won’t make you bigger or stronger.
Thus, a balanced workout routine includes both.
Here’s the problem: Doing both hypertrophy training and cardio at the same time causes us to adapt in two complementary but competing ways. You only have so much energy, only so many resources, so you can’t maximize every adaptation all at once. This is called the interference effect.
On the other hand, if cardio makes you fitter, you’ll be able to handle tougher hypertrophy training workouts. If it improves blood flow to your muscles, you’ll have improved performance and better recovery. There are muscle-building advantages to doing cardio, too.
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 food you’ll need to eat. If you’re already struggling to eat enough to gain weight, that can be a problem.
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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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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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The Best Workout Routine for Skinny Beginners
Most skinny guys are eager to build muscle fast. I don’t blame them. I was the same way. When I weighed 130 pounds, with a BMI under 17, I was sick of being skinny. I wanted to get out of that situation as quickly as possible.
The best way to build muscle is to lift weights. Most of us know that. But I had just graduated from university with a degree in graphic design, I’d never been active, and I didn’t know a single person who lifted weights. Well, I knew one person who shoplifted, but I didn’t want any part of that. And when you’re that far outside of a subculture, it can be hard to know where to start or what to do.
Since then, I’ve gained 70 pounds, going from a 65-pound bench press to a 315-pound bench press. My business partner, Marco, has helped college, professional, and Olympic athletes bulk up. Together, we’ve spent over a decade helping millions of readers and over 10,000 skinny clients build muscle (naturally).
Fortunately, once skinny guys start following a good workout plan and eating a proper bulking diet, we can gain muscle faster than any other body type. Our frames are empty and eager for muscle growth. Most of us are able to gain 25 pounds within our first 6 months of working out. Some of our clients have gained 40.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the process of training for muscle growth. By the end, you’ll know exactly what to do.
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How to Build a Thicker Neck (Even if It’s Skinny)
I always hated how skinny my neck was. When I was at my skinniest, my neck circumference was 14 inches. After bulking up and gaining 60 pounds, it grew to 14.25 inches. Clearly, the compound lifts I was doing weren’t developing my neck muscles.
That’s where neck training comes in. Neck training isn’t common with bodybuilders, strongmen, or powerlifters, but it has a long history in contact sports and martial arts, given that it reduces the risk of concussions, knockouts, and brain trauma. That’s Marco’s area of expertise. Before founding Bony to Beastly, he was training college, professional, and Olympic football and rugby players.
Still, I was skeptical about how effective a neck workout routine could be. That skepticism didn’t last. With just a few months of doing 5-minute neck workouts, my neck grew from 14.25 to 16 inches. We’ve reproduced those results with several dozen clients. We’ll show you exactly how to do it.
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