Do you need calorie surplus to build muscle ?
There is a rather absurd myth in bodybuilding which was always a joke to me but even otherwise intelligent people still continue to take seriously — namely the myth that you can’t build muscle without calorie surplus.
The logic ( i am using the word “logic” in a very loose sense here ) goes something like this — you build muscle by eating like a pig ( bulking ) then you lose fat by eating like an anorexic girl ( cutting ) and you end up being jacked and ripped. This never actually worked for anybody ever because there is no possible way for this to work but people continue to believe in this for the same reason people believe everything else — because it feels good to believe it.
It feels good to believe results will come out of nowhere — no optimizations to training or nutrient timing, sleep, drugs — nothing at all — you just eat more at first then you eat less and BAM ! you look like a fitness model.
In your dreams that is …
Nutrient Partitioning … the way you get jacked and ripped in reality is by Nutrient Partitioning. This means you make your body preferentially divert calories from fat to muscle — there are many ways to do this, but neither “bulking” nor “cutting” are among those. Bulking simply means both your muscle and fat grow and Cutting simply means both your muscle and fat shrink — at the end of the full cycle you return to EXACTLY the same place you started from IF YOU ARE LUCKY !
In actual reality at the end of a cycle of bulking and cutting you will likely look WORSE than at the beginning because the extra calories during bulk will come in form of junk food and the calorie deficit during the cut will come at the expense of protein and other essential nutrients.
Of course when people embark on this foolishness it is accompanied by training and / or drug use which do result in improvements … these improvements are then attributed to the bulk or the cut, but actually have nothing to do with either.
So if there is no logic whatsoever ( there isn’t ) behind bulking and cutting where does the idea originate from ? There are actually two sources for this lunacy.
1 — the very top professional bodybuilders compete once a year ( or maybe 2 or 3 times a year ) during which competitions they must nail as close to zero percent bodyfat as possible for 2 days ( prejudging and finals ). The optimum amount of bodyfat for a man is maybe 15 pounds so this is how much pro bodybuilders hold throughout the year then about 3 months before the competition they cut. This makes sense because they remain at optimum bodyfat for healthy maintenance most of the year and at the bodyfat they need to compete at only during competition. However this isn’t referred to as bulking and cutting — it is referred to as contest prep, off season and rebound. Pro bodybuilders do NOT “bulk” EVER.
2–the 2nd source of the bulking / cutting lunacy is good old wishful thinking — during the bulk the victim convinces himself that all of the weight gained is muscle and during the cut he convinces himself that all of the weight lost is fat. This way if you gain 20 lbs then lose 20 lbs you tell yourself you gained 20 lbs of muscle and lost 20 lbs of fat … in reality you gained ZERO muscle and lost ZERO fat UNLESS you took steroids OR you trained harder than you did previously. Without bulking and cutting it would be obvious that nothing is changing whatsoever and motivation would be lost — but with Bulk / Cut it is easy to delude yourself into thinking you’re making progress and people thrive on deluding themselves — this is the real reason why the myth will not die.
Fine so what is the solution then ? How do you build muscle ? Well if you don’t want to take steroids and if you’re already training as much as you can the way to achieve optimum nutrient partitioning is … macros and nutrient timing.
This means you eat more protein and less fat and the food is spread into multiple small meals spread evenly throughout the day but concentrated around workout time — mainly after the workout.
You also need to hit optimum bodyfat level ( lean but not ripped ) and stay there forever. No bulking or cutting — just maintaining optimum bodyfat — this would be like a permanent off-season for a pro bodybuilder ( since you don’t compete ).
Drugs, Training, Macros and Nutrient timing are the only tools at your disposal to achieve nutrient partitioning. Whatever gains you make using those are real. Whatever gains you make by bulking and cutting are only in your head — you are just chasing your own tail — you’re not going anywhere.
Just take my fucking word for it — chasing your own tail is not intelligent behavior. Weight gained or weight lost DOES NOT MATTER. Only the BODY COMPOSITION CHANGES matter. Instead of looking at the scale you should look at pictures and measurements ( arms, legs, waist, bodyfat % etc ). If you don’t have abs your first order of business is to get them — it doesn’t matter how anxious you are to gain muscle RIGHT NOW— your goal should be to get abs FIRST and keep them FOREVER. Only the weight you gain while holding on to those abs at the same time matters — anything else is just you deluding yourself.
