BULKING

WHAT IS BULKING?

Bulking is a term used by beginners and bodybuilders who merely want to try and build up as much lean muscle as possible, where this is the primary goal, it is also desirable to gain as little fat as possible in the process. The general rule of bulking is to consume more calories than your body burns during a day, increasing weight training intensity and reducing cardio to minimalistic time periods to reduce calories burned by exercise.

TYPICAL BULKING NUTRITION

The typical bulking diet can be approached one of two ways, by either a clean bulk or a dirty bulk, these are pretty self-explanatory, however let's have a look at clean bulking first. A clean bulk diet typically consist of complex carbohydrates, unsaturated fats and lots of protein, the majority of calories comes from the carbs and healthy fats and the increase in protein, up to 250g, contributes to the increase in lean muscle mass. If you aim to consume 500-1000 more calories than your basic metabolic rate, you will gain 1lb of muscle every 14-20 days with sufficient tearing of the muscle fibres and sufficient nutrition. Common ratios used in bulking are 30:20:50 and 40:10:50 (carbs, fats and protein respectively). Also do not forget to always take a multivitamin tablet or training supplement to aid in recovery and protein intake.

TRAINING WHEN BULKING

In order to get the correct response out of your muscle groups while bulking bodybuilders tend to hit moderate to heavy weights in a rep range of 8-12, or even as low as 4-6. This type of training causes maximum stimulation to the muscle fibres to tear and grow, and as long as you are eating enough protein you will see results fast. Weight training is the same for every muscle group, however when it comes to cardio try to keep it very short, no longer than 15 minutes or even 10 minutes if you do high intensity interval training (which can also promote anabolic growth and spike testosterone levels in the blood). When you tear your muscle fibres down as much as when you do training with this system, protein synthesis in your muscle fibres and surrounding cells is amplified greatly, so the increase in protein uptake is simply there to provide the amino acids in order to keep up with the body's demand, if it is not met, the muscle will simply not grow bigger but be broken down by the body which is just a waste of your hard time.

Bulking can last for however long the individual requires, however i would reccommend a time allowance of at least 3-6 months on a bulking programme in order to make it worth your while to build up some serious gains that are noticable once you do a following 1-2 month cutting programme. Dont fall in to the trap of stopping your bulk a few months in and thinking oh no im getting to fat i need to cut! Not only will you not have gained any real muscle mass but when you cut back down again youre just going to be the same weight and look the same size. You need to ride it out! Don't be a middle man.



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