Muscle Diet

MuscleDiet.net

For many years and until fairly recently, most bodybuilders used to “bulk up” in the off-season and between shows. The theory was that you had to be in a calorie surplus to gain muscle, so if you could take that calorie surplus to the extreme, you could build more muscle faster. The Internet reveals hundreds of pics of off-season bodybuilders with huge bellies, puffy cheeks, pink noses, and purple/red complexions (this colouration being due to high blood pressure from all of the salt, dirty calories, pharmaceuticals, and being overweight).

However, over the last several years, the trend has been moderate weight gain in the off-season, thus making it easier to lose the fat come prep time and causing fewer negative health implications. The main reason for the switch, though, is probably that the guys who substantially bulk up look pretty much the same as they did before the bulk come contest time.

Now, I should make a distinction here: Young guys with fast metabolisms and/or who burn a lot of calories over and above their activity in the gym are different. They often do have to really push the calories quite high to make any gains, but for guys who’ve been hitting it hard in the gym for several years, bulking too much usually just means a longer dieting and prep phase and greater physical stress.

So in consideration of the above, the obvious question becomes, “How can we ensure that we gain mostly lean mass in the off-season?” The answer is to use the same kinds of tricks that are used pre-contest when decreasing calorie and carb intake but in reverse. So number one, just as when cutting calories, never suddenly and dramatically increase your calories. It has been proven (although not in physique athletes specifically) that after a significant period of calorie restriction, increasing calories causes disproportionately more fat gain than muscle, and by the time you get back to your original level of lean muscle, you’ll be carrying more fat than before. So after your contest, of course you can still enjoy a massive pizza or burger or serving of ice cream, but after a few such meals, rein it in and increase calories gradually in a manner that causes gradual gains. This will allow time to let your metabolic rate catch up so that the excess calories that aren’t used to build muscle are more likely to be burned off instead of stored as fat.

Another trick used to maintain the metabolic rate while dieting is carb and/or calorie cycling. The same can be done in reverse when in a gaining phase. At some point when adding calories, you’re going to start gaining more fat than muscle. My advice is that when you notice an unacceptable amount of fat starting to accumulate, take the carbs right down to 100 grams or less for a few days. To ensure an immediate stop to fat gains, do a HIIT session of at least four 30-second bursts of 95 to 100 percent effort with two to four minutes in between each one. This will burn off most of your glycogen in big muscle groups and make carbs unavailable for energy, thus forcing the body to switch to mostly fat use for fuel. Then after two or three days, gradually take the carbs up from 100 grams and repeat this whole cycle again when you notice the blubber coming back on. The cool thing about this cycling during a gaining phase is that as an added bonus, you increase insulin sensitivity, which probably makes gaining lean mass that much easier too!

For more information on how to keep a lean, clean offseason, click here!