Saturday, September 4, 2010

To bulk or not to bulk?

What many men seems to be struggling with this upcoming winter, as all winters, is whether or not to bulk. Bulking, for those of you who aren't familiar with the terms of the common gym-rat, means to put on weight basically. There are then the "clean bulk" and the "dirty bulk", clean bulk being where you eat healthy foods with a kcalorie intake that would make you gain as much muscle and as little fat as possible during this period.
The dirty bulk is where you eat everything in excess just to make sure that you're gaining, no matter what. Not to say that a dirty bulk means to eat nothing but pizza and drink beer, but a dirty bulk-er might not care as much because what the hell, it's not a clean bulk anyways.

Should one bulk? Or... should one.. cut?
Cut is what it sounds like, you cut weight off, specifically fat, which makes you look ripped and defined. This is what all the manly man models do before they're showing their abs off and this is what all the bodybuilders do for when they're competing to make their muscles as defined as possible. Example?


That is one ripped man, for example.

The normal cycle for a person going to a gym and being somewhat invested in this hobby is to put on weight (muscle + fat) during the autumn + winter and getting rid of the fat acquired later on to look good during the summer season. Works especially well in scandinavia where we're practically riding polar bears to work during the winter season, the extra fat keeps us warm and fuzzy all the way to where we're going. Jokes aside, it is much less straining on our ego to be fat during the winter and fit during summer, it's as easy as that. So -
Should you bulk?

There is a third way of adding and subtracting weight, which is based upon determining a goal for yourself as to where you want to be when you're done. This is within a 6 month-12 month period, don't be setting goals such as "I want to weigh 250 lbs  with 8% bodyfat in 6 months" if your current weight is a stone cold 130 lb with practically zero bodyfat.
So what you do is you determine this goal of yours, as an example let's use simple numbers. Your current we'll say is 180 lbs, what you want to achieve is 200 lbs. Now you calculate what kind of calorie intake you would need to maintain a 200 lb body and use that as a template for what you eat until you reach your goal.

You can find these calculations on several parts of the internet (google hurr durr), but knowing well that you're all a bunch of lazy bastards (when) sitting behind your screens you can just click HERE for one of the most thorough and easiest ones.

TL;DR - It's wintertime, put on some weight.
(link for john berardi's calculations and wisdom: http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/masseating_1.htm)

16 comments:

  1. It's funny. My body does the opposite. I lose in the winter but gain in the summer.

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  2. supporting!

    http://the-state-of-human-intelligence.blogspot.com/

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  3. clean bulk FTW... I like to have semi jacked fibras year round

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  4. Im gunna try and bust my ass off to work out

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  5. haha nice pic XD its weird though because a guy i know is sooo skinny and now matter how much he eats he will not gain weight, its mind boggling

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  6. well chasity, that guy just needs to eat MORE.

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  7. Spreading the loooove :3

    http://djmidnyt.blogspot.com

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  8. aw it ain't easy man. you gotta get tan enough in the summer to last through the winter. unless you have a tanning bed.

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  9. Cut and a bit bulky makes a handsome man. Not for women!

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  10. I wish I could bulk up! Damn my over-active metabolism :(

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