So you want to get bigger and stronger and you look online and find that everyone is
recommending bulking to you. But what exactly is bulking and how do you achieve it?
The concept of bulking is pretty simple: just eat more calories than you expend. Over time,
given that the calories you're consuming contains sufficient protein and you're training frequently,
you'll add on more muscle and consequently add on more pounds.
Let's look at bulking as building a pyramid. The pyramid will represent your muscle, and
the builder will represents your training. In order to have the builder build the pyramid,
you're going to have to give him bricks in the form of protein. The more bricks you give
him, the bigger he can build the pyramid. Of course, you're gonna have to pay him and
also give him shelter, so you supply him with enough incentives in the form of the macros
carbs and fats. You can tell him to build faster by training more frequently and intensely,
but he's going to only go so fast, so giving him extra bricks doesn't means he going to
build you a pyramid any quicker. Of course, pharaoh dude here doesn't like the look of
all these bricks lying around, so he ask other dudes to take them away, break them down,
and put them into storage. On top of this, it's also easier for the builder to place
bricks at the beginning of the construction and becomes increasingly harder the taller
the pyramid becomes. Same goes for building muscle, where it's easier to put on muscle
in the beginning but as you come closer to your growth potential ceiling, the more difficult
it is to put on new muscle. So by the look of it, eating more will build
you mass, but it's only to a certain extent. And that's where a lot of bulkers make THE
crucial mistake of not monitoring their calories. They want to get as big as they can, but they
overdo to a point where most of the food they eat gets stored away as fat rather than used
for building muscle. It's widely believed that perhaps your body only synthesizes about
a quarter to at most a half a pound of muscle per week, given you're training effectively
enough to illicit optimal muscle protein synthesis and minus steroids.
In caloric terms, you're going to have to eat above your maintenance calories, or TDEE,
short for total daily energy expenditure. At a half a pound of muscle per week, that's
roughly 250 calories above your TDEE per day. Unfortunately, that's not what many bulkers
do. Heck, that number might be closer to 2500 rather than 250. And of course, that means
fatty fatty. So bulking does work, but it's important to
not overdo it. To be safe and give yourself some cushion, consuming roughly 500 to 750
calories more than your TDEE should be just about right to do the trick for bulking. And
also make sure the "bulk" of the added calories comes mainly from protein. This ensures that
you are taking enough nutrients to reach maximal muscle building potential as well as avoiding
storing fat away. But to be real, there's still pretty much
a guaranteed chance that you'll store some fat away, but it's better than storing way
too much fat away in a large, unmonitored bulk. And on top of that, make sure you're
hitting the gym enough to justify the added calories. Give it a shot and see how it goes!
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