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GENERAL BULKING RECOMMENDATIONS When I’m bulking, I try to be within 100 calories of my daily target, and I err on the high side (it’s better to be over your target than under).
I recommend eating plenty of meat while bulking because it’s particularly effective for building muscle. Generally speaking, I eat two servings of meat per day (lunch and dinner) and alternate between various types such as ground turkey, chicken, lean beef, and fish.
So, if, after seven to ten days, your weight hasn’t gone up despite pushing yourself hard in your workouts, you’re just not eating enough. Increase your daily intake by 100 calories (by adding more carbs, preferably) and reassess over the next seven to ten days. If this doesn’t result in weight gain, increase again and repeat the process until you’re gaining weight at a rate of about 0.5 to 1 pound per week.
If you’re like most guys, here’s how it’s going to go: you’re going to start with the above formula and gain weight for the first month or two, and then you’re going to stall. You then will increase your daily intake once or twice and start gaining again. At some point, you’ll probably stall again, increase again, and start gaining again. After a bit more progress, your body fat percentage will eventually reach the 15 percent range, and you’ll have a month or so left to bulk before you cut to strip away the fat and repeat the process. You can reduce your calories to a maintenance level on your
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Maintenance refers to eating more or less how much energy you burn on a daily or weekly basis and is recommended for when you want to maintain a certain level of body fat while still being able to make slow gains in the gym. Generally speaking, guys switch to maintenance if they want to stay lean through a certain time period like summer or if they’ve achieved the overall body composition they want and are looking to simply maintain that look (me, for example).
CALCULATING YOUR MAINTENANCE DIET Here’s your starting point for maintenance: • 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, • 1.6 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day, and • 0.35 grams of fat per pound of body weight per day. For a 180-pound male, it would look like this: • 180 grams of protein per day, • 290 grams of carbs per day, and • 63 grams of fat per day. That’s about 2,450 calories per day, which should work for making slow, steady muscle and strength gains with little to no body fat added along the way.
On the other hand, if your weight is going down and you’re getting leaner, you’re in a calorie deficit and need to eat more to come out of it. Remember that while getting leaner is always gratifying, your body’s ability to build muscle is dramatically reduced when in a calorie deficit.
As you know, I recommend that you stick to nutritious foods, but beyond that, there are no rules besides hit your numbers every day. Do you like starchy carbs? Great, eat them every day. How about whole grains? Awesome, me too. Dairy products? They’re a staple in my diet. Red meat every day? Why not. A little bit of dessert after dinner? I recommend it. Now, some people abuse this dietary freedom and try to eat as much junk food as possible while staying within their numbers. While this technically “works” for the sole purpose of building muscle and losing fat, the inevitable micronutrient
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Get at least 80 percent of your daily calories from healthy (micronutrient-dense) foods that you like.
For instance, if you would rather have a steak than chicken, work it into your meal plan (adjust for the additional fat). If you would like some whole-wheat pasta (low-GI, great source of fiber), adjust your meals for the day to allow for it. If some whole-fat Greek yogurt would hit the spot, cut out the olive oil or cheese on your lunch salad to fit it in.
Be within 50 to 100 calories of your target number depending on what you’re doing with your diet (cutting or bulking). • Get the majority of your calories from nutrient-dense foods listed earlier in the book: ○ avocados; ○ greens (chard, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, and spinach); ○ bell peppers; ○ Brussels sprouts; ○ mushrooms; ○ baked potatoes; ○ sweet potatoes; ○ berries; ○ low-fat yogurt; ○ eggs; ○ seeds (flax, pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower); ○ beans (garbanzo, kidney, navy, and pinto); ○ lentils and peas; ○ almonds, cashews, and peanuts; ○ whole grains, such as barley, oats,
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Eat as many or few meals per day as you’d like, although I recommend eating every 3 to 4 hours as you’ll probably find this most enjoyable. • Eating protein more frequently is likely superior to less frequently, and each protein feeding should contain at least 30 to 40 grams of protein.
Eat 30 to 40 grams of protein and 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrate 30 minutes before training.
Eat 30 to 40 grams of protein and 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight after your weightlifting workout. • Consider eating 0.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bod...
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If you’d like to get some help with your meal planning, you can learn more about my custom meal plan service at www.muscleforlife.com/mp.
Cutting is “fitness speak” for feeding your body less energy than it burns every day to maximize fat loss while minimizing muscle loss. Generally speaking, you can’t build muscle when you’re cutting. • Bulking refers to feeding your body slightly more energy than it burns every day so as to maximize muscle growth. You also gain body fat while bulking. • Maintaining refers to feeding your body the energy it burns every day, which enables you to make slow muscle gains without adding any fat.
Restricting calories hinders your body’s ability to build muscle, and eating a slight surplus of calories maximizes it.
• I recommend that you juggle your cuts and bulks to remain in the 10 to 17 percent body fat range until you reach a point where you’re absolutely satisfied with your overall size at 10 percent, and then cut below this point.
You’re looking to lose between 0.5 and 1 pound per week when cutting, and if that sounds low to you, remember that rapid weight loss is undesirable as it means you’re losing a fair amount of muscle as well as fat.
During your first week or two of cutting, you can expect to be a little hungry at times and to run into some cravings. This doesn’t mean that you’re losing muscle or that anything else is wrong.
When I’m cutting, I try to be within 50 calories of my daily target. Some days I’m a little higher and some a little lower, but I don’t have any major swings in my intake.
Your waist measurement (at the navel) shrinking is a reliable sign that you’re losing fat, so if your jeans feel looser, that’s a good sign. • Although it can be tough to observe changes in our bodies when we see them every day, you should definitely notice a visual difference after several weeks of cutting. You should look leaner and less puffy. • We all have high- and low-energy days, but if you’re having more lows than usual, then chances are you’re not eating enough or are relying on too many high-glycemic carbohydrates.
If your strength drops considerably, chances are you’re undereating and need to increase your food intake.
The best way to avoid hidden calories is to prepare your food yourself so you know exactly what went into it.
As you know, if you’re in the 10 to 12 percent body fat range and looking to put on muscle as quickly as possible, you want to bulk.
In terms of weight gain while bulking, you want to see your weight going up at a rate of 0.5 to 1 pound per week. Any more than that, and you’ll be gaining too much fat. If you’re new to weightlifting, however, then you’ll probably gain 2 to 3 pounds per week for the first few weeks while your muscles fill up with water and glycogen. • When you have your bulk dialed in, you should be increasing reps on your major lifts every week and weight on the bar every 3 to 4 weeks. You can also expect to hold more water than normal, as you will eat a substantial amount of carbohydrate every day.
When I’m bulking, I try to be within 100 calories of my daily target, and I err on the high side (it’s better to be over your target than under).
• I recommend eating plenty of meat while bulking because it’s particularly effective for building muscle. Generally speaking, I eat two servings of meat per day (lunch and dinner) and alternate between various types such as ground turkey, chicken, lean beef, and fish.
Get at least 80 percent of your daily calories from healthy (micronutrient-dense) foods that you like.
Eat as many or few meals per day as you’d like, although I recommend eating every 3 to 4 hours as you’ll probably find this most enjoyable.
Eating protein more frequently is likely superior to less frequently, and each protein feeding should contain at least 30 to 40 grams of protein.
Eat 30 to 40 grams of protein and about 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrate 30 minutes before training. • Eat 30 to 40 grams of protein and 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight after your weightlifting workout. • Consider eating 0.5 grams of carbohydrate...
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For instance, a 20-ounce bottle of soda sweetened with HFCS contains about 35 grams of fructose. One gram of sucrose is about half glucose, half fructose, so if you eat a dessert with 50 grams of sugar, you’re getting about 25 grams of fructose. Even agave nectar, which is touted as healthy by many due to its low-glycemic properties, can be as high as 90 percent fructose. Other less processed forms can be as low as 55 percent.
That’s why the Bigger Leaner Stronger program is built around heavy, lower-rep weightlifting and compound exercises like the squat, deadlift, military press, bench press, and many others.
The Bigger Leaner Stronger training program follows a formula that looks like this: 1–2 | 4–6 | 9–12 | 3–4 | 60–65 | 5–7 | 8–10 No, that isn’t a secret code that you have to break. Let’s go through this formula one piece at a time.
The first is the fact that training multiple major muscle groups in one workout is very hard when you’re focusing on heavy, compound weightlifting. When you do six sets of heavy chest pressing and then try to move on to heavy shoulder pressing, you simply won’t lift as much as you would if you saved your shoulder work for another day.
By training only one or two muscle groups per day, you’ll be able to give your workouts 100 percent focus and intensity and train hard without struggling through the systemic and muscular fatigue that comes with trying to do too much in a workout.
You knew I was going to have you lifting a lot of heavy weight, and here’s what it comes down to: working in the 4- to 6-rep range for nearly all exercises (we’ll go over the exceptions soon). This means that you’re going to be using weights that allow for at least 4 reps but no more than 6 reps (if you can’t get 4 reps, it’s too heavy; if you can get 6 or more, it’s too light). Generally speaking, this is about 85 percent of your 1RM for each exercise.
The American College of Sports Medicine published a paper in 2002 that, based on the study of hundreds of subjects, concluded that training with weights that allowed no more than 5 to 6 reps is most effective for increasing strength and that resting up to 3 minutes in between sets is optimal when training in this fashion.
Regardless of which exercises you do, the workouts on this program will call for 9 to 12 heavy (or working) sets per workout, which are your muscle-building sets that you’ll be doing after warming up.
As you’ll see, the workouts in the 5- and 4-day plans will always contain 9 working sets for the major muscle group being trained, but will also provide 3 additional optional sets that you can do if you’re feeling up to it. If you’re brand new to weightlifting and are pretty spent after 9 sets, don’t feel like you have to do the final 3. If you’re more experienced or just have plenty of energy at the end of 9 sets, feel free to do the 3 extras. Don’t get overzealous and do more than this in each workout, though, even if you feel like you can keep going after 12 working sets. Doing more isn’t
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Due to the amount of weight you’re using in Bigger Leaner Stronger workouts, you should rest for 3 to 4 minutes in between your working sets. That might sound excessive, but that timing wasn’t chosen randomly—it’s based on clinical research.
Some days you’ll feel energized and ready to lift again after 3 minutes, but other days you’ll feel a bit slower and will need the full 4 minutes. The test isn’t whether you want to do the next set, by the way; it’s whether your body’s heart rate has come down since the last set and you feel like you have the energy to do another.
DIAL IT BACK EVERY 8 TO 10 WEEKS
Thus, between each of its eight-week phases, the Bigger Leaner Stronger program includes a choice between what is known as a deload week and several days, or even an entire week, off the weights. We’ll talk about how exactly the deload week works soon, but it simply involves lower-intensity training for a week.
In terms of how to eat on your deload week or week off the weights, if you’re bulking, you can reduce your calories to a maintenance level, and if you’re cutting, you don’t have to change anything.
And that’s why the Bigger Leaner Stronger program has a simple method of progression: once you hit 6 reps for one set, you add weight for your next set. The standard increase is a total of 10 pounds: 5 pounds added to either side of the barbell, or a 5-pound increase in each dumbbell. For instance, if you get 225 for 6 reps on your first set of incline bench press, you then add 10 pounds (5 pounds to each side of the bar), rest, and work with 235 going forward.
If, after moving up like this, you only get 2 to 3 reps, you can reduce the weight by 5 pounds (leaving it at 5 pounds heavier than the weight with which you got 6 reps), or if your gym doesn’t have 2.5-pound plates, simply drop back to the weight that you got 6 with and finish your remaining sets with that. Then, the next week, try to make the jump again starting fresh with your first set, and you should get 4 or even 5 reps. In most cases, however, you’ll simply get 6 reps, add 10 pounds, rest, and then get 4 reps on subsequent sets.
Your primary goal with every workout should be beating the previous week’s numbers, even if only by 1 rep. If you do that again the next week, you’re ready to move up in weight. You should know, however, that some weeks just won’t go like that. Sometimes you’ll only be able to lift exactly what you did the week prior. Sometimes you’ll even be a rep weaker. These things happen and don’t necessarily mean anythi...
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So, the rep timing I recommend is either the “2–1–2” or “2–1–1” timing. This means the first part of the rep should take about 2 seconds, which is followed by a 1-second (or shorter) pause, which is followed by the final portion of the rep, which should take between 1 and 2 seconds to perform. For example, if we apply this to the bench press, it means we are to lower the bar to our chest in 2 seconds, pause for 1 second or less, and raise it in 1 or 2 seconds.
