Timing of intentional weight gain in relation to stimulus?

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi Doc,

If an individual’s goal is to gain weight while following a hypertrophy program in the hope of increasing LBM, when should the period of weight gain begin?

For example, should the hypercaloric diet start the week before the program, at the start, during a high volume phase, at the end,or all of the above?

2

It doesn’t really matter, as muscle gain takes quite awhile to take place and 1 week either way isn’t going to make a difference. In general, we wouldn’t recommend gaining weight without training in most cases and the surplus should be pretty small, e.g. 250-500 Calories or so.