For most of the bodybuilding population, the eventual goal is nothing less than a strong, muscular physique with impressive, razor-sharp definition.
This desire for the perfect body makes many people dive headlong into an exercise regimen. Everyone wants to bulk up, and bulk up fast, but at the same time they’re also worried about gaining the extra bulk of body fat.
To significantly gain muscle – and to add as much of it to your frame in as swift a period of time as possible – there is always the fact that you’ll inevitably gain some extra body fat to go with it.
This is simply the nature of the entire process and if you really want to travel a significant way in the “bulking” direction, you have to be willing to accept this.
In order to gain muscle size, you must consume a surplus of calories in order to support protein synthesis. However, there is no way to divert 100% of this caloric surplus towards muscle growth. A certain amount of it will always end up as stored body fat.
If you want to make dramatic changes to your appearance over the shortest period of time, it is always best to focus on gaining size for a set period of time, followed by focusing on losing body fat for a set period of time.
You never want to lose body fat during the bulking phase. You simply want to gain as little as possible.
This can be accomplished in 3 main ways:
1) Make sure that your caloric surplus is limited to a precise amount. Because this surplus is what fuels muscle growth, it’s tempting to eat too much in the mistaken belief that this will help you gain muscle tissue, but actually the only thing you’ll gain with haphazard eating is body fat.
The general rule of thumb for muscle gain is to take 15-20% more calories than you need to keep your weight. If you are already within this range, there’s no need for you to add more.
2) Watch what you eat. You should be concentrating your diet on lean, high quality proteins, high fiber carbohydrates, and unsaturated, healthy fats.
Rather than aimlessly chowing down on every food item in sight, make sure that you’re sticking to lean protein sources, keeping blood sugar levels stable through proper carbohydrate choices, and avoiding high amounts of saturated fats.
3) Implement cardio sessions. There’s no need to go overboard here, but implementing 2-3 cardio sessions throughout the week is another way to cut down on fat gains during a bulking cycle.
Stick to high intensity/low duration forms in the range of 10-20 minutes, as these types of sessions do not cause the same degree of muscle loss as longer duration forms do.
Once you’ve achieved the amount of muscle size that you want, a goal which is completely up to you as an individual, it’s time to move into a fat loss cycle. In this way, you can focus on stripping off the excess body fat gained during the bulking cycle, while still maintaining muscle size.
The trick is to minimize it rather than try to totally avoid it, and you can do this with a reasonable diet and sensible exercise.
Get the #1 natural bodybuilding program, the Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail Method and achieve the best results in a few weeks. Visit us if you want to read more Bodybuilding Articles