“Main-gaining”

Guess their is some new trend going on called” maingaining”. Guess the claim is you can eat only around 30-40 calories extra above your maintenance and slowly build muscle without the worry of any body fat accumulation. I believe Gregg doucette first started the trend and now it’s all over IG. What the evidence behind that kind of “bulk” ?

When gaining weight, going to gain body fat regardless and this seems to be most influenced by genetics provided an individual is resistance training. Slower weight gain tends to produce reduced fat and LBM gain when compared to more rapid gain, but I don’t think trying to eat the smallest surplus possible is “the move”

I hope EZgains doesn’t mind me jumping in on this but this is something I hoped to ask Jordan about. Greg actually clarified that what he calls “main gaining” is different to a ‘lean bulk’ and that it is literally eating at maintenance and that stored body fat will be used as an energy source meaning you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time. Sounds like he is rebranding what people used to call a recomp.

Is this as nonsense as it sounds? The closest I’ve seen to a rebuttal was by Mike Israetel who said something along the lines of it does work but is massively inefficient.

Mechanistically, this doesn’t really seem to occur as stated. People can lose body fat and gain LBM at the same time, though this is generally restricted to newbies and those with great genetics. Save for that, I don’t think that it’s a great use of time/energy.