#023 The Bulk

Welcome back to the 23rd edition of the Boats & Logs Lifting Club. I really appreciate you being here. We are the based fitness community that focuses on mastering the basics instead of getting lost in the details.

If you are reading this newsletter, odds are you want to gain muscle. Sure, your current goal might be to get leaner first and lose some fat, but eventually, you also want to add some muscle mass. This is where we need to have a caloric surplus phase, more commonly known as “bulk.”

There are many discussions, misconceptions, and questions around the bulk: When to bulk? Dirty bulk or clean bulk? What about “gaintaining”? How long to bulk? 

And to make sure that you are not only successful but also efficient in your goal to gain muscle mass, we will break down all these questions (and more) to give you a clear guide on bulking.

What is a bulk?

As far as I’m aware, there is no real definition of a bulk. And while there are many different understandings of what a bulk is, there is one thing all share: A bulk has always the goal to gain weight.

As we are looking at it from a muscle-building perspective, we not only want to gain weight, but more precisely, primarily muscle mass.

To do that, we need to have a calorie surplus (we will discuss body recomposition later). You won’t grow bigger without consuming enough calories for your body to grow. For more information, check out our guide on calories in vs. calories out.

How you bulk is up to you. There are a lot of different approaches and advice out there on how to bulk. Some try to follow the example of Sam Sulek and try to eat as many calories as possible with little regard to the source (while hitting protein goals). Others take a slow approach and try not to overeat and simply try to increase their protein intake.

At the end of this newsletter, you should be able to decide for yourself which route you want to take.

When to bulk?

Now that we have a common understanding that a bulk is a calorie surplus phase with the goal of gaining muscle mass, you may want to start a bulking phase to add more muscle mass. But let’s hold on for a second.

Not everyone should bulk. At least not now. One of the key determining factors if you decide that you want to bulk should be your current body fat percentage.

A good body fat percentage to start is 12% or below. If you are above 12%, it may not be optimal for you to go into a bulking phase for two reasons.

First, your body fat is already rather high. For most of you, there is little incentive to increase your body fat even more just to gain some muscle. If you are not planning to compete, you are probably training to look good and/or be healthy. Increasing your body fat harms both. Instead, take the time necessary to get your body fat down to around 10-12%, and then start your bulk with a solid foundation. This way, you will look good year-round and improve your health.

Secondly, you can and should take advantage of the fact that you can gain muscle mass while losing fat simultaneously. Also known as body recomp. The higher your body fat already is, the more potential your body has to lose fat while building muscle. Do this until you are at around 10-12% body fat -or until you notice that you are not growing muscle anymore- before starting a bulk.

To sum it up:
up to 12% body fat → bulk
12-18% body fat → Maintenance (body recomp with focus on muscle growth)
above 18% body fat → Cut (body recomp with focus on fat loss)

How big should your calorie surplus be?

Choosing the right amount of surplus calories (the amount of calories above your maintenance level) is critical to how your body will develop during the bulking phase. Will you add aesthetic muscle mass or blow up and grow your body fat from 11% to 19%? Finding the right amount of surplus calories to eat in a bulk is a balancing act between maximizing muscle growth and minimizing fat gain.

To give you two (extreme) examples of what I mean:

1. 100 calorie surplus/day:

   You are in a (very) slight surplus and will, therefore, gain weight over the long term. Assuming you are training properly and eating enough protein, the overwhelming weight gain will be muscle mass. That’s great! Exactly what we want, right?

   Probably not. While we make very lean gains during a slight calorie surplus, we will probably leave a lot of gains on the table by not providing our body with enough calories to capitalize on the muscle-building potential from our workout.

2. 1,500 calorie surplus per day

   You are in a large calorie surplus and will, therefore, gain weight quite fast. However, even if you are training well and consuming enough protein, you will add a lot of unwanted fat. You are providing your body with more calories than it needs to capitalize on the muscle-building potential from your workout, and it stores these additional calories as fat.

There are, of course, reasons to choose one of these examples. Maybe you want to compete in bodybuilding and want to maximize muscle growth, even if it means gaining a lot of fat and sacrificing health and looks for months. Then option 2 might be for you. Otherwise, you may be happy with your current physique and want to -mostly- keep this aesthetic (and maybe add a bit more over time). Then option 1 might be for you.

But most of you should find something in the middle, as both examples are clearly suboptimal. Imagine a scale:

The left end is a very slight calorie surplus, and the right end is a very high calorie surplus. The further you go towards the left, the more likely it is that you are not fully taking advantage of your workouts and leaving gains on the table. But you will also gain very little or no additional fat. The further you go towards the right, the more you increase your chance of tapping into your full muscle-building potential. But there is a limit to how much muscle you can build, and the further you go towards the right, the more you are also increasing the risk that you are going beyond that point and gaining too much fat in the process.

To find the right calorie surplus, you need to know your goals. I believe most people should be well served by choosing a calorie amount that lets them take advantage of most, if not all, of their muscle-building potential while also gaining a bit (!!!) of fat in the process. Three things most should avoid are making too little progress, (an unhealthy amount of) force-feeding, and gaining too much fat.

This range should be around 10-20% above your calorie maintenance level for most. If you don’t know your maintenance level, use this tool.

But it doesn’t matter what number of calories you start with; be open to adapting the amount based on how your weight and body fat develop. Are you not gaining weight or too slowly? Add 100-200 calories to your diet and observe if you are starting to make better progress. Are you gaining too much fat? Decrease your diet by 100-200 calories and check if you are still making progress.

Should I do a Dirty Bulk or a Clean Bulk?

A common association with bulking is that you can eat as much as you want, as long as you hit your protein goals to gain as much weight as possible. This is also known as dirty bulking.

After reading the newsletter until this point, you probably know this is a bad strategy, as you don’t want to gain too much fat. Therefore, we assume your goal is to eat 15% above calorie maintenance.

If you asked me if you should bulk clean (read: healthy, high-quality whole foods/unprocessed foods) or dirty (read: unhealthy, (highly) processed food), my advice would be to do it clean. But not because of muscle growth but mainly for mid- and long-term health reasons.

Simply for building muscle, it wouldn’t matter much if you bulk dirty or clean as long as you hit your calorie and protein goals in both scenarios.

This is also not a black-and-white decision. You can have a mostly clean diet and add a cheat meal/dirty meal every now and then - which is probably also the most practical way to approach a bulk.

What about Gaintaining?

If you read carefully until here, you already know the answer to the question if gaintaining is also a viable strategy. For those who don’t know what gaintaining is, gaintaining (Gaining + Maintaining) is the idea that you can add muscle mass over time by eating a high-protein diet around maintenance calories.

As described above, this works if you have a higher body fat level, but you will eventually reach a point where you are at 10-12% body fat and can’t continue to make progress that way. Then you need to go into, at least, a slight calorie surplus.

Some people also describe a small calorie surplus as gaintaining, but this doesn’t fit our definition, as we consider every calorie surplus phase a bulk.

Progress wanted!

In times when most fitness influencers are on some form of “enhancing supplements,” it can be extremely discouraging to compare your progress with the progress you see on social media. Therefore, I’d like to dedicate a part of this newsletter to real pictures of transformations/progress from our community.

Whether it’s anonymous/with your Instagram name, with/without your face, full body, or only upper body, I appreciate everybody who wants to help show others what realistic progress looks like. If you want to be part of it. Just send me a DM on Instagram!

Thank you for reading today's newsletter. I hope I helped you better understand how to approach a calorie surplus phase! If you have further questions, simply DM me on Instagram.

If this newsletter was helpful to you, please consider sharing it with a friend (https://boats-logs.beehiiv.com/subscribe) to spread the word and support the Boats & Logs community and the work I put into it.

Stay strong,
Boats & Logs

Disclaimer

This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol, please consult a medical professional. These are the opinions from an AI voice.