Bulking is Dead? (NEW Research Explained)

Summary

In the video, Wolf Coaching debunks the traditional view of bulking where significant weight gain leads to greater muscle growth. Citing a study by Eric HMS, it demonstrates that like moderate and high-calorie surplus lead to similar muscle gains, but increased body fat in high surplus. Despite a traditionally low sample size, evidence suggests that the rate of weight gain should be tailored, with newcomers to the gym considering a 1% body weight increase monthly, whereas experienced lifters should aim for 0.5% for optimal lean gains. These findings urge for a cautious and personalized approach to bulking, questioning its long-held broad endorsement by past studies.

Highlights

• Recent studies challenge the effectiveness of traditional bulking, promoting more tailored approaches. 📊
• Traditional aggressive bulking may lead to more fat than muscle gain. 🍕⚖️
• Moderate calorie surplus strategies can yield similar muscle growth without excess fat. 🌟
• Trained individuals generally find it hard to gain specific weight percentages consistently. 🎢
• Newbies should aim for a monthly weight gain of 1%, seasoned lifters around 0.5% for optimal results. 🏋️‍♂️

Key Takeaways

• Bulking is not one-size-fits-all! Tailoring your calorie surplus to your experience level is key! 🔑
• Traditional aggressive bulking may lead to unnecessary fat gain, not just muscle growth. 🍔➡️💪
• Studies show moderate calorie surpluses can lead to similar muscle gains as high surpluses, without the extra fat! 🥗
• Even with the help of skilled researchers, gaining a specific weight percentage consistently is tricky. 🎯
• For those starting out, aim for 1% body weight increase per month, but more seasoned lifters should aim for 0.5%. 🚀

Overview

Is bulking in the traditional sense—rapidly putting on weight to gain muscle—truly outdated? New research shared by Wolf Coaching suggests that blindly following this approach could lead more to increased fat than muscle, especially with high-calorie surpluses causing similar weight gain results as moderate ones. 📉

A study led by Eric HMS highlighted that even with seasoned research participants, the muscle gains between 5% and 15% calorie surplus were indistinguishable, questioning the aggressive bulking strategies often employed by fitness enthusiasts. For those looking to optimize their gains, listening to your body's needs might just be smarter than adhering to conventional wisdom. 🤔

For those stepping into the gym for the first time, the advice seems straightforward: aim for about a 1% increase in your body weight per month for healthy muscle gains. Meanwhile, seasoned lifters should tone it down a bit, targeting around 0.5% weight increase to balance lean gains and fat control. 🎯

Bulking is Dead? (NEW Research Explained) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 yes bulking in the traditional sense gaining much more than 1% of your body weight per month is probably dead that's what a recent study by Eric HMS and colleagues suggests in their study Eric and his colleagues had trained participants with an average bench max of around 225 lb perform a complete 8we resistance training routine composed of squatting bench pressing and several back and arm movements the three groups only differed in one way the maintenance
• 00:30 - 01:00 group The participants aim to maintain their body weight over 8 weeks the moderate Surplus group aimed for 5% over maintenance calories the high Surplus group aimed for 15% over maintenance calories for a male weighing 80 kg and with maintenance calories of around 3,000 this is what these protocols would look like the researchers measured muscle growth by ultrasounding the thickness of the quadriceps biceps and triceps at a few sides before and after the 8we training program and diet
• 01:00 - 01:30 additionally they also assessed body fat gained using skinful Calpers well which group gain the most muscle all groups ended up observing similar muscle growth importantly the 5% and 15% Surplus groups ended up gaining a similar amount of body weight illustrating the idea that achieving a very specific rate of weight gain is difficult even with the help of experienced researchers the researchers found weak evidence in statistical terms of bicep growth scaling with body weight G there are two
• 01:30 - 02:00 important limitations here first the sample size was very very small at only 17 participants total due to the co pandemic second the groups generally didn't grow much muscle to begin with as you'd expect in a trained population in only 8 weeks this makes it difficult to parse out any small differences is that really enough to declare bulking truly dead fortunately there have been more studies on the topic of bulking by the end of this video you'll have learned about all of them and will understand
• 02:00 - 02:30 how to diet to make lean gains just like this video myapt was designed with all the research on training in mind myep is a training app that we've been working on it's a coach in your pocket at a fraction of the price of a good coach we used all the latest scientific research to build it I can't wait to share it with you all the only reason it isn't out yet is because we want it to be as good as it can possibly be and blow everything else out of the water the good news if you go to myup.com now and
• 02:30 - 03:00 sign up with your email you'll be notified when my adap launches and you'll receive a lifetime discount if you sign up when it launches back to buling why did aggressive bulking first become a widespread practice well a group of researchers at California State University may have played a role when they published one of the very first studies on bulking in 2002 interestingly rosnick and colleagues didn't actually intend to study bulking they intended to study the effects of supplementation with various carb and protein powder
• 03:00 - 03:30 on hypertrophy but in the end through supplementation two groups in the study ended up eating 1,800 calories more than they usually would 4,300 calories versus their usual 2500 the maintenance group a control group just stated their usual calories the results all group skin muscle the maintenance group stated essentially the same body weight and gained around 1 and A2 kg of fat-free Mass while losing a tiny bit of fat in just 8 weeks the group consuming high
• 03:30 - 04:00 calorie supplements on the other hand gained around 3 kog over 8 weeks the kicker nearly all of that was fatory mass suggesting they grow around twice as much muscle as the maintenance group as you can imagine this study naturally created some hype around the idea of bulking there are a few important caveats to this study though first the macronutrient distribution wasn't controlled for between the groups so the group taking additional protein and carbohydrates ended up consuming more prot prot than the other groups which
• 04:00 - 04:30 creates a confounding effect second the only measurements of muscle growth taken were fat-free mass increases and circumferences fat-free Mass measurements can easily be swayed by water weight for example associated with having more food in the digestive tract having more glycogen in your muscles or simply consuming more sodium similarly circumference measurements aren't ideal particularly in a study on bulking since this type of measurement doesn't tell us whether we gain muscle or fat finally the control group generally had a bit
• 04:30 - 05:00 more muscle and strength to begin with suggesting they may have been a bit more trained what about more trained lifters the next study by G at all looked at exactly this over 8 to 12 weeks highlevel athletes from a variety of sports gained either around 0.75% of body weight per month in the lean gains group or around 1.5% of body weight per month in the dreamer bulk group all groups consumed over 1.6 g of protein per kilogram of body weight
• 05:00 - 05:30 these athletes had some experience in the gym already with an average squat Max of around 265 lb in a mixed male female sample across both groups all athletes lifted four times a week the dreamer bulk group gained around 1.7 kg of lean body mass whereas the lean gains group gained around 1.2 kg of lean body mass while this represents a roughly 50% difference in lean body mass gained recall the limitations of lean body mass and fat-free Mass assessments for bulking what weight matters while the
• 05:30 - 06:00 dreamer bulk group gained a bit more lean mass they also gained around five times more fat than the lean gains group while the actual difference wasn't as large as a fivefold difference might make it seem if they kept bulking at this pace over a year that could have been an additional 6 kg or 13 lb of fat gained strength gains were pretty similar between the two groups in the bench press row and squat run of Max this next study found conflicting and interesting results
• 06:00 - 06:30 in their study Smith and colleagues recruited participants with at least 6 months of lifting experience the researchers gave all participants a protein and Corb supplement to increase calorie intake and had them perform a 3-day per week lifting routine they took both direct and indirect measurements of muscle hypertrophy indirect measurements of fat-free mass or lean body mass suffer the aforementioned limitations instead direct measurements such as measuring muscle thickness by ultrasound overcome these ues instead of using a
• 06:30 - 07:00 traditional controlled trial approach where a bulk group was compared to a control group or even to a slower bulk group Smith and colleague simply had everyone bulk to see whether there were any clear Trends in the participants results did the participants who bulked fastest or hardest see the best muscle growth not really for the elow flexors muscle growth was generally lower as participants gained more weight for the quad recepts muscle growth was slightly greater with greater rates of weight gain so as far as the best measurements
• 07:00 - 07:30 of muscle growth the direct ones bulking faster didn't clearly boost muscle growth the author has also attempted to see how much of the weight gained was lean body mass versus fat mass as the rate of weight gain increased as you'd expect as the rate of weight gain increased the ratio of muscle fat gained to Fat gained worsened however at around 2% of body weight gained per month participants appeared to gain 100% lean body mass and no fat now I already hear you saying Milo that doesn't seem legit
• 07:30 - 08:00 I've been training for a while and if I try to gain 2% of body weight per month I'd need bariatric surgery ASAP well I concur again keep in mind that indirect measurements like lean body mass or fat-free mass will generally overestimate muscle growth or how lean your gains are seeing as how the highest quality results the ultrasound measurements were conflicting I wouldn't see this study a strong support for aggressive rates of weight gain particularly considering how wi the 95% highest density probability intervals
• 08:00 - 08:30 were that said strength gains were generally higher with higher rates of weight gain those are all the studies on bulking that's right we only have four studies somewhat directly looking at bulking however based on these studies here's how I recommend you should diet to maximize muscle growth I'll give practical examples at the end of the video so stick around if you're new to the gym and you have more room to grow or you're willing to gain a bit more fat whether it's because you're willing to
• 08:30 - 09:00 cut more often or you actively want to gain body fat and keep it on you should aim to gain 1 to 1 and 1/2% of your body weight per month if instead you've been training for a while and you want to make lean gains gain around 0.5 to 1% of your body weight per month I'm providing a range hit because as you might have noticed from these studies achieving a specific rate of gain perfectly is very difficult if you're in doubt about what camp you fall into I would opt for the latter approach you'll probably still
• 09:00 - 09:30 nearly maximize muscle growth but won't have to cut nearly as often one of my harder takes is that since most people struggle to lose weight and keep it off body weight gaining should be approached cautiously at least for those people to end this video here are two practical examples let's say you had a reasonable body fat percentage of around 10 to 25% for men or around 18 to 30% for women let's say you weigh 75 Kg or 165 lb you
• 09:30 - 10:00 should aim to gain 1 to 1.5% of your body weight per month AKA 0.75 to 1.125 kg AKA 1.6 to 2 1 12 lb per month if you weigh 75 Kg once you've calculated your maintenance calories aim to eat around 10% above your maintenance calories and you you're more advanced you've been Lifting for a few years and you want to keep getting bigger without needing to cut too often for you gain weigh at a pace of 0.5 to 1% of your body weight
• 10:00 - 10:30 per month if you weigh 90 kg or around 200 lb that would be 0.45 kg to about 0.9 kg per month or 1 to2 lb per month gained do you disagree with me our traditional buls still goed for real for real and S tier let me know down below and I'll respond to the most uploaded comments if you'd like some real s tier gym clothing check out Rascal apparel.com and Shop using Code wolfa checkout for 10% off most durable
• 10:30 - 11:00 comfortable slick gym clothing in the game Dr my wolf bulking we're out