Bodybuilders typically have one or two short-term objectives: either they want to bulk up and shed body fat, or they want to get ripped. To accomplish both would be the Holy Grail, but it is unlikely possible given that it requires moving in two opposite directions at once. Keeping your muscle mass while decreasing fat is the best you can hope for. Cutting up and gaining muscle mass are two completely distinct processes.
The food component of building muscle used to be, to put it mildly, erratic. You just ate whatever wasn’t nailed down. Of course, this led to substantial increases in bodyfat in addition to improvements in lean mass. The following phase was to cut back on calories, carbs, or both until you dropped the extra weight. The majority of the muscle you added during your bulking-up phase was also preserved, ideally.
Bruce Randall, who started his bulking phase while he was serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in the early 1950s, is a famous illustration of the very basic bulk-up/cut-down procedure. He ate a huge amount of food, including a lot of bread, quarts of full milk, and dozens of eggs (thanks to Uncle Sam). Randall’s diet caused him to gain more than 400 pounds, yet he wasn’t simply another obese slob. Throughout the entirety of his monstrous phase, he actively lifted weights, performing some incredible feats like good mornings with 900 pounds.
I remember hearing a tale about how Randall once went to a gym in New York to work out during those times. He chose to perform incline presses but for some reason changed his mind and moved the bench. Randall didn’t see that the bench was bolted to the floor until he had moved it from one end of the gym to the other. He was so strong that he unknowingly tore the bench from its moorings.
Later, Randall started preparing for bodybuilding contests and, with the help of a strict diet and exercise regimen, reduced his weight from 405 to 187. He raised it to 227 after that, and in London in 1959, he was crowned Mr. Universe. He received his prize from sexy movie star Jayne Mansfield at the competition.
The “Incredible Hulk” TV series actor Lou Ferrigno, a two-time Mr. Universe, is a more recent example of a successful hulking program. Lou began his bodybuilding career in Brooklyn while he was still a slender but passionate young man. After some time at the gym, Ferrigno was almost 300 pounds. How did he attain such incredible bulk gains?
“Plenty of milk and food,” he said.
And therein is the secret to being successful in bulking up muscularly. Simply said, you need to eat more. Nowadays, the goal is to make sure that the weight you gain is mostly muscle rather than just any type of weight. The issue is that you need to consume more calories. Whatever you read or hear, there is simply no way around that.
That last statement needs to be somewhat qualified. Although certain anabolic substances, such as anabolic steroids, growth hormone, and insulin, among others, can increase muscle size, quality muscle growth still requires a healthy diet and regular exercise. In fact, new study demonstrates that you may influence your body’s anabolic hormones by making specific dietary and supplement changes. By doing this, you can optimize your gains such that they primarily consist of lean mass rather than a mix of muscle and too much fat.
How much muscle can I anticipate to acquire in a reasonable amount of time? is a typical question about gaining muscle. Individual differences in lean mass increase are caused by things like genetics, body type, and exercise volume. The fastest initial gains will go to those who have both naturally high androgen, or testosterone, levels and a high proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers, but even those with less of a genetic advantage can still make impressive gains by eating well and working out hard. Because your body isn’t acclimated to it and reacts quickly to the additional stress of exercise, a bodybuilding axiom states that you produce your best gains ever when you first start training. Regardless of genetics, it gets harder and harder to gain muscle each year as you go to the advanced level.
Mass-With-Class Weight-Gain Diet
- Meal 1 – 1 cup orange juice – 1 cup oatmeal – 1 cup milk – 4 scrambled eggs – 2 slices whole-grain toast with butter (no margarine; avoid transfats)
- Meal 2 – 8-ounce hamburger – 1 large baked potato – Tossed salad with dressing – 1 cup milk – Fresh fruit
- Meal 3 – Weight-gain drink or meal replacement with a banana mixed in nonfat milk
- Meal 4 – 8 ounces cottage cheese with fruit – 1 cup yogurt
- Meal 5 – 6 ounces tuna – 1 piece fruit -1 slice whole-grain bread
- Meal 6 – 8 ounces chicken – 2 cups brown rice – 2 slices whole-grain bread – 1 cup broccoli or other vegetable – Tossed salad – Fresh fruit – 1 cup milk with added protein powder
What to Eat for Mass
Regardless of your genetic makeup, you’ll need a positive energy balance to build more muscle. Simply put, that implies you must consume more calories than you expend. The effect is so strong that eating exceptional amounts of food on its own can build lean mass even in the absence of exercise, however it is not advised. Human volunteers in studies who overate but did not exercise demonstrated some unexpected changes in body composition. Lean mass increased significantly in all of the participants.
The body’s responses to the unusually high intakes of food were what led to the gains. The body responded by producing more growth hormone, testosterone, insulin, and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), which caused the participants to gain more lean mass (muscle mass).
Additionally, eating all those calories reduced cortisol levels, the body’s main catabolic hormone. The catabolism, or breakdown, of muscle is facilitated by high cortisol levels. Since cortisol is mostly released in response to high levels of stress, it is known as a stress hormone. However, energy-deficit conditions, like not getting enough calories or carbs, are more frequently present in stress situations that cause cortisol release. Therefore, overeating itself is anabolic.
The idea here is not to imply that you must overeat in order to grow muscle mass, but rather that you must increase your caloric intake since this encourages the release of anabolic hormones, which will combine with exercise to produce gains in lean mass.
Protein is a key component of any hulking diet. Maintaining a high level of amino acids from food-protein sources promotes a positive nitrogen balance, which prepares the ground for muscular gains through increased muscle protein synthesis reactions in muscle. It is true that adding additional calories in the form of carbohydrates alone has a protein-sparing action in muscle. The technique is sometimes known as the “anabolic-drive effect.”
