I aim for this.
I prefer this route as well
Was waiting for this to come up lol
I think the bulk/cut route can just as easily result in wheel spinning. Either way works if you do it right. I think it depends on what your goals are...if you are not a competitor, then I don't think there is ever a reason for a hard bulk. If you're, say a light heavy looking to move up to heavyweights, a more traditional bulking/gaining phase is in order. you must take in a lot of calories if you're gonna make a big jump in size and weight. but it is stressful on the system and takes skill and discipline to stay lean doing it....there is no good reason to every "dirty bulk"
Agree with this for every human being bit Les Priest lol
Reminds me of a diet plan I saw on T-Nation called the 5/2 diet.
It is there, but I cannot find the original author, it wasn't them
Oh yeah, I'm sure they didn't make it up. It was actually adapted from a popular diet called the 5/2 diet.
I actually have done really well in the off season with the anabolic diet, which is kinda like the polar opposite of what you wrote. 5 no carb, 2 high carb. You def stay lean and the days following the hi carbs are massive pumps! I put on around 15 pounds, and gained strentgh throughout.
As much as I would love to say recomp year round.... I'm much closer to this haha
Funny that you mention Steve; he was the first guy I thought of when I saw this topic - Steve was a big believer in looking good year round. He never saw the point in looking crappy most of the time to look good for one day on the stage - he felt a bodybuilder should, at least most of the time, strive to look like a bodybuilder. This echoes the way most of the serious bbuilders at my local gyms do it - most keep within 20lbs of stage weight (and these are 230lb stageweight guys, not 180 guys).
They also usually have sub par bodies as well..
Well, if Im going to continue with my generalising then yes, many of 'them' seem to be "do you even lift?" in appearance.
recomping isn't ideal though it's just a tool in the tool box, one that should be used the least often IMO and focus on one goal at a time unless you have finished a cut and are looking to maintain your condition, which is what i would call the gaintain phase where your kind of reversing but not looking to gain weight, some guys who might be stuck at a high body fat to lazy to cut properly may use "recomping" as an excuse to not bring there calories down, and haven't been smart in there gaining phase to get there macros high enough, and actually spend a decent period of time in a surplus to make considerable progress. but if we bring drugs (AAS) into the picture, recomping becomes a whole different ball park, and for beginners who are skinny fat, recomping is actually a very good idea because obviouslly there going to be able to lose fat and gain at the same time, unlike guys who have been training long past that stage, and are natty, so for most who are natty recomping is really not ideal, it's either, eating at a surplus, a deficit or maintenance, which for most people is what would be ideal if they are looking to stay the same for the most part.
Paragraphs, not even once. Lol
Exactly and that's why it's better to be open minded about multiple different approaches and remember everyone's got different goals and are also at different points in there physique development
Boom, thats it. Nothing about this is black and white, hence why when someone says it is impossible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time its a smh moment.
I have one word for them: tren
Very difficult to attain without drugs. The processes required are polar opposites.
You are obviously very well versed in all the processes involved compared to my rather tip of the iceberg understanding, but for the past few years I have made the most positive composition gains and have barely bulked at all. Except for holidays or short term overeatting but yeah. Something as simple as introducing HIIT into my routine resulted in notable gains across the board in my lower body, was in a calorie deficit as well...
Hmmm. So would you say that a trainee is (more or less) bulking or cutting at any one time, not both simultaneously? Im not trying to put words in your mouth, but think there could possibly be some crucial semantic distinctions to be teased out here that, left implicit, may result in unnecessary disagreement.
Cool, we definitely on the same page; the terminology we use to describe the process is dependant on perpsective (or, better, the 'temporal splice' under consideration)...the bigger/longer the time splice, the more it looks like we are genuinely recomping ie losing and gaining simultaneously. The shorter the time splice, the more defined or apparent the opposing processes become.
Recomp for someone starting out.
What do you consider later in training career in years?
Well. It varies. Some people who are perfect or near usually constantly plateau 7 to 9 years in. (Average)
Thanks for the insight. Im coming up on 7 and bit years now. To be honest, these days I have been making great progress eating around my known maintainence calories and just slowly attempting to increase metabolic capacity by adding in small amounts of calories fortnight by fortnight ensuring my weight remains relatively constant. Have seen really decent body recomposition and gains in the gym doing this over the longer term.
Body recomp is the primary objective imo later in training. Tbh....a ton of the older guys often become weaker chasing the old gains they used to see. Why not maintain the beast mode transformation and increase strength?
