Jordan,
I’m trying to figure out my plan for the near future in terms of body composition and calories. I’m 6’2" 198 lbs, and a 34.5" waist, and I’ve been holding tight on the weight and waist for several weeks. When I began my cut, I was at 214 lbs and a 38" waist.
I started the bodybuilding template last week, and I’m really enjoying the charge of pace. I don’t compete in anything, and I’ve started caring less about my PL total and mainly want to get bigger. I know I probably shouldn’t bulk right now, but what about if I were to get down under 33" on my waist? Then what?
I believe you said in some recent IG Lives that we don’t know if we gain more muscle in a caloric surplus vs a caloric maintenance phase. Did I hear that correctly? If so, I don’t see why I would ever need to bulk, I could just cut down a little more here soon, then maintain forever. But that seems like it would be impossible to gain a significant amount of muscle over the next 5-10 years. So do you still recommend the traditional cut/bulk cycle, or will maintaining weight for significant periods of time allow me to build similar amounts of muscle?
Yep, that’s correct. I don’t know if I’d say it’s impossible to gain muscle in a deficit, but you might not gain that much, sure. On the other hand, maybe you gain quite a bit…that’s going to be fairly individualized.
I think that, in general, most folks will gain more muscle mass when they’re gaining weight. However, we should be clear that muscle gain occurs quite slowly and it’s not like gaining more weight is going to produce more muscle mass most of the time.
Jordan, for those who are wanting to gain muscle mass and get stronger, is your recommendation that they eat at maintenance or in a slight surplus? I wasn’t sure which statement in the original post your ‘Yes’ was in response to.