In my previous blog I went over a few tips to cut and shred fat. In this post I want to share my experience with bulking and putting on mass. When you think about bulking you probably thing you can eat anything as long as you eat a ton of calories. Well… that’s not entirely true. If you want to put some muscle on you, you need to eat to build muscle. You cant just eat what ever you want and train 3 times a week to get huge.
Eat!
First things first. You need to eat. A lot! There is absolutely no way you can gain muscle if you are not eating in a caloric surplus. Each day you need to consume more calories than you are burning and those need to be quality calories that go towards building muscle. How many calories you need to consume? A good estimate is to multiply your body weight in pounds to 15 -16. That is a good place to start, but over time it will be beneficial if you increase. For example increase by 200 calories every 2-3 weeks.
Eat the right calories
You don’t wanna make the mistake of eating everything in sight. You want to be selective in what you eat. Putting quality calories in should be the goal. Here is a list of good bulking foods. It’s best to focus on a high protein diet. Carbs and fats are very important too. But to simplify we will focus on a high protein diet. Typically it’s a good idea to make sure 40% of what you eat is protein. After all you are what you eat.
Skip the crap
Goes without saying but we need to avoid drinking soda and other processed food. Processed food has a ton of calories and is easy to consume and will make bulking very easy. But we are not seeking the shortcut, we are not gonna look for the easy way because it’s not gonna work. It’s important that we limit the sugar intake and other processed crap. I am not a big fan of veggies, in fact i rarely eat veggies. They are great for you but not the only healthy thing. There’s plenty of healthy foods that will help you reach your caloric goals.
Trainning
You already know it! You need to train hard. In bodybuilding, diet makes up 70% of your progress but do not forget that it won’t even matter if you don’t properly train. I recommend going heavy and doing drop sets and maybe even super sets. Training is fun when you are bulking. It’s a beautiful thing. You gain strength when you’re consuming a lot of calories, so lift heavy. I would recommending doing super sets on everything but compound lifts. Also drop sets will go a long way. Say you do 5 reps of shoulder press for 60lbs dumbbells, you would drop the weight to 30lbs and do another 10 reps and another 15 with 15lbs till you physically can do no more. That’s how you build muscle. Someone asked the legendary Muhammad Ali… “how many sit ups do you do?” Muhammad Ali replied “I don’t start counting till it start’s hurting”
My tip
I struggled with gaining weight and building muscle till one day a buddy of mine told me to eat a ton of peanut butter. Peanut butter is a phenomenal way of gaining weight and muscle. I like making my self a shake every day when I bulk. In this shake I add milk, oats, whey protein, 4 tbsp of peanut butter, and some honey. This shake comes out to be 1000-15000 calories. You drink this everyday… I can confirm you will add mass.
One of the most important aspect is to get enough sleep and rest. People often neglect this. Rest is when your body gets a chance to build and repair. Take melatonin if necessary.
Lastly as always, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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