how do you actually bulk up? I want to hear from people who’ve really done it. What worked for you? Training, food, routine anything that helped. Did you track calories or just eat more?
Fellow men out there. How do you actually bulk up
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how do you actually bulk up? I want to hear from people who’ve really done it. What worked for you? Training, food, routine anything that helped. Did you track calories or just eat more?
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how do you actually bulk up? I want to hear from people who’ve really done it. What worked for you? Training, food, routine anything that helped. Did you track calories or just eat more?
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You NEED to eat more than your body burns. Use a TDEE calculator, guess your baseline caloric needs based on that and try to go above that consistently by 300-500 calories for 5-8 weeks. At the same time train hard and eat at least a gram of protein for every pound of bodyweight you have. Good luck
Off topic, sorry, but when I tried to bulk up I actually ended up bulking down. I had be lying to myself for a very long time about how much body fat I was actually carrying.
Sleep.
I’ve been training for years and couldn’t really put on much muscle. Finally got diagnosed with sleep apnea and got treated. About a year into my treatment I started to put on significant muscle without any dietary changes or workout changes.
Generally though if you lift a lot of weights and eat, you will bulk barring some underlying medical issue or poor genetics.
It’s not that complicated. Lift progressiveluy heavier weight and eat calorie excess with plenty of protein. Whatever you eat now, eat a little more. I never bothered to count calories. I’ve seen people get stuck on trying to follow the numbers, completely ignoring what their body was saying.
Generally speaking, as long as you’re putting more weight on the bar every week or so, you’re on the right track.
Dirty bulk up 30-40 pounds. And then go on a weight cut while still training.
Lots of hard work, diet, keeping healthy, and most of all, and this is very important, genetics….
Jeff nippard has a great video about this but find your maintenence calories. Then go 400-600 above while eating a good amount of protein. Exercise heavily and eat nutritious foods.
Just eat more calories than you burn. Its literally that simple and anybody claiming otherwise is just wrong. Similarly, people massively overestimate how many calories they eat in a day. I highly recommend tracking this for a while until you get a better idea since most people think they’re eating excess when in reality it’s barely maintenance.
Now if you want to bulk up nicely then you need to be lifting weights and heavy. None of that I lifted until I was mildly uncomfortable, you need to be pushing yourself until failure.
For me, I found making my own calorie dense bars really helpful. I used oats, peanut butter, honey, and powdered milk. Snacked on those between meals.
I’ve always been a skinny/fit guy with a high metabolism. I had been an athlete through most of life, training for sports and in the gym constantly and the best results I got was a thin/ripped look.
What started to change for me was when I started to just eat more. More protein, but really just more calories in general.
One of my bulky muscular friends once told me to just eat a big bowl of ice cream every night, lift heavy weights and you’ll gain. And that may be one way, but really it comes down to the calories regardless of where you get them.
Tracking! You NEED to be in a surplus w. plenty of protein (1g/kg is a good foundation) and sufficiently strain your muscles (but not neglect your cardio). I rec apps to track progression like rpstrength and the basic guides by dr mike isratel on their yt.
Just move man and eat clean. Protein, Leafy Vegetables, Tea, Coffee and water. Stay hydrated.
Add a vegan protein smoothie…
I eat as much as I can – mainly healthy foods plus loads of protein. Life heavy weights regularly, done.
Track calories and macros so you don’t get fat. Lift heavy, get 200g of protein a day
Eat more and lift heavy. Start by either adding an extra meal for the day or eat bigger portions.
For me I had a hard time eating more meals so I just added a smoothie for the day. Easy to get down and add extra calories with honey, protein powders, peanut butter, oats etc. plus fruit, milk, yogurt. You can get creative.
What helped me bulk for workouts was doing 3 sets of each exercise concentrating different sections of your body each day. Arms, shoulders, chest, back, legs, core doing 12,10,8 going slightly heavier weight each time.
Hey there.
I do two bulks a year. I am not really a body builder, so I guess my bulks are pretty light comparatively. I generally add another high protein meal; like a plate of scrambled egg whites (with some cheese).
I also add weight and drop reps from 12 to 10, but add two rest pause sets (total of 5 sets) till failure.
I work out 5 days a week and rest on weekends.
I will generally pick up 3-4 lbs lean over a 8 week bulk.
Then go into a cut for 4 weeks.
I’m fortunate that my physique allows for bulking up. So I never had to worry about diet or anything else, just working out with weights and other physical activity was enough.
No one’s gonna give him an honest answer?….
Track calories and macros. Eat 300-500 Cal over TDEE. Train for hypertrophy 4-5 days per week. But also, depending on your age, get on testosterone therapy.
All the dudes over 35-40 at your gym who are jacked are on performance enhancing drugs. I’m sorry I had to be the first one to say it.
I have really big biceps and everyone asks me how I got them so big? Curl pull-ups. It’s full biceps activation and better than curling dumbbells. I learned it from male gymnasts. Look at their biceps when you watch them perform.
Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Literally.
I was 120lbs at 5’10” coming out of highschool. I hit 160 within 3 years when I was weightlifting 6 days a week and eating a ton. You can do it faster but you might gain some fat too.
To start I just dirty bulked and ate as much food as I could stomach because I wasn’t used to that. Once my body got used to eating more I was able to eat leaner foods and get in enough calories. I never tracked them, but as long as I gained around 1lb per week while eating healthy foods I did it without gaining fat.
If you’re tracking calories identify your TDEE, then add 500 calories so you’re eating 3500 calories excess per week which is about a lb of weight.
2.) Eat enough. your weight should be increasing slightly every week by about half a kilo or so. Also male sure you have enough protein. 1g per kg of your own weight should be enough to start but the more the better.
3.) Get enough sleep. For most people this is around eight hours maybe a little more maybe a little less. Six or less is too little unless you have an incredibly rare mutation.
When I was bulking I just added more calories to my meals (and kept it at mostly protein if I could).
But also people who are gigantic and jacked aren’t just eating more and you probably shouldn’t use them as a basis of measurement.
Test your weight: Weigh yourself everyday and at the end of the week and take the average. Do that for a month. Is your weight increasing/decreasing/maintaining?
If increasing: If your weight is increasing and you are making progress at the gym, great you are bulking.
If decreasing: If your weight is decreasing and you are making progress at the gym, you are living the dream. If you are not making progress add 500 calories and test your weight again.
If maintaining: If your weight is increasing and you are making progress at the gym, you are in a decent spot. If you are not making progress add 500 calories and test your weight again.
Assumptions: You are on a proper training program and all other factors are in place – proper sleep habits, proper stress mitigation, TRACKED EATING, and physical health including hormones are right.
Never tried, I’m naturally an endomorph.
My diet is mostly lean meat and vegetables and I do weight training maybe 3 times a week. Basic stuff. Mostly just an adjustable bench and adjustable dumbbells. I don’t really track calories but I definitely know what’s in everything I eat.
Lift. Eat a high protein diet with all the right micros. Rest. Repeat.
I don’t track calories, I just eat a bunch of meat, fish and dairy plus the bare minimum of carbs to function.
Well, I’d assume that training hard/heavy is a given. What worked for me was a Hyperbolic shake. I’m a skinny guy with a speedy metabolism; Hyperbolic was a game changer for me!
Train 6 days a week and track your calories. You want to eat in a 500+ calorie surplus and get 1g of protein per pound of body weight, there isn’t a shortcut or easier way. “Just eating more” doesn’t work.
Get MyFitnessPal. Track what you eat every day for a week.
After that aim for the weight you want to be and the app will calculate how many calories you should be eating.
Eat a gram of protein per pound each day for the weight you wish to be (do not listen to the commenters who say “oh my god that’s too much” or “you should eat 1.5 grams per pound of weight!”). Have protein shakes when you wake up and before bed.
Train 4 times a week atleast. Lift heavy but train HARD. Emphasis on train HARD. Make sure you are pushing yourself and you will gain weight and muscle.
German volume training (compound lifts only). This will solve both your working out problem and your food problem. I have no problem eating large meals normally, but after GVT it’s on another level. The hunger is practically insatiable. No, I never tracked calories, I find it largely useless. If I want to cut weight, I just go low carb and stick with meat and vegetables, and eggs and sausage for breakfast. Keeps the protein and nutrients high while plenty low in calories. If I want to bulk, I just eat normally. No reason to screw with weight gainers or any of the bullshit products. You want to add calories? Have a slice of pizza, a PB&J, or go something else you enjoy with a bit of protein.
I don’t
Bulking up is easy. Eat. A lot. Work out. A lot. Add at least one additional rep per set or 5 lbs onto the bar every week.
I just put on a solid 5-10 lbs of muscle or so in my last bulk. It’s simple in theory, but takes discipline in practice. You gotta eat, and you gotta workout, hard.
Progressive overload with 6-8 reps adding weight each week. Eating 5k calories a day.
The big thing for me was to track protein only. I try to make sure I’m getting 100+ grams of protein a day. I do daily workouts with a group fitness class, but then added 3-4 additional focused ( around 30 minutes ) workouts that targeted specific muscle groups. Mainly chest, shoulders, and glutes. This helped me add 20lbs of muscle in about 1 year.
It’s really not that hard once you understand it:
Simple:
Explanation:
muscles are made of protein, so muscles need protein to be built: at least, so ~07-1.2 grams per pound of your bodyweight per day (more cannot hurt as far as we know)
the body is made for survival, if the body doesn’t get enough energy needed for maintenance it will get this energy from the protein you consume (instead of using it to build muscle), you will also almost certainly lose some muscle mass when losing weight because of this, so don’t overdo it with the calories either–>small surplus
so this might be the most important one… the body adapts to stimuli, if you lift the same weight every session, the body will adapt to lift exactly this weight with the least amount of energy, so push yourself hard (most people underestimate how many reps they have left in the tank), a few sets per muscle group 1-2 times per week should be enough to gain muscle mass (don’t fool around with supersets, 2h workouts, 5x/week session etc. you’ll only lose motivation over time)
this is the point where most people fail: if you stop lifting for more than a week, you’ll very likely already have made a step back from your last session. Never stop for longer than ~3 weeks or you’ll have to start over again (you will, however, gain the lost muscle faster through muscle memory but it’s like running a marathon and taking the bus back to the start every few kilometres)
Oh and sleep enough, the body builds only through rest, not through exercise per se, don’t drink too much (at least not a day before/after a workout, so try to schedule that). If you’re overweight, try to cut down first, elsewise it’s pretty pointless.
But most importantly… have fun: If you do it only to get girls, fit in socially, be more attractive etc. I have some bad news for you; it doesn’t work. The most attractive person is someone who loves doing what they do and is confident about it. You’ll lose motivation anyway if you don’t like it.
Do a full body workout 3x a week (something like strong lifts 5×5 is a good starting point).
Track your calories and eat in a caloric surplus (ideally about 500 calories over your maintenance calories)
Add more weight to the bar every week. If you have multiple weeks where you cant do more than the last week, you need to eat more.
This works 100% of the time for natural lifters. Don’t waste your time with a bro split. Heavy compound movements at a high frequency.
Well I’m probably going to be the biggest guy to respond to this (absolute biggest I got was 297, but that was a miserable existence and required an insane amount of gear) so I guess I have some authority in the subject.
Uh, it’s honestly just a lot of consistency.
Just eat a lot. Like a fucking lot. You gotta eat like it’s a chore, I mean sure, most of the time people training like fucking pussies but even then atrociously low food intake is always the main culprit.
The thing is it takes a long time. People always want to get huge yesterday. Or think you can get jacked in a few months. Shit takes years of consistent training. Don’t think of it in terms of months. Month to month is a very small metric to determine progress it’s year to year.
As far as training, I just wouldn’t over think it, make sure you’re hitting everything and just make sure you’re constantly pushing some metric each workout, whether it’s total volume, density or intensity you can’t increase everything each session but you can atleast push up one of them.
Intense short workouts for mass and strength low intensity long duration for toning up. Lift heavy weights for as many reps as you can correctly do for mass. Remember to take your time at first. Muscles grow much faster than tendons and ligaments. You can really hurt yourself badly trying too hard at first.
Trained like I was preparing for war, ate like I had a death wish