Lean guys are faced with two options. Either they accept their fate and be fine with their fragile frames or they turn around their fate by eating and exercising more, turning their bodies into living powerhouses.
Most probably, it’s the second option you consider choosing. And the mere thought of walking down this lane excites you, as you imagine your totally altered outlook with an addition of whopping 40 pounds or more on it.
However, your aspirations are met with surprise. You wish to put on mass but end up gaining fat. Your diet doesn’t swell your body but instead amasses around your core. Since lean guys often get too caught up with the excitement of getting bigger, they lose track of what’s happening in reality. Though they keep on amassing pounds, it only makes them soft from the core.
You can paint your future bright by equipping yourself with detailed knowledge of the mechanism of bulking and a solid strategy. For this, first you need to understand why your bulking approach may bring you more harm than good.
Bulking Gone Wrong
Our bodies are capable of adapting to all kinds of situations. Regardless of nature of your workout or the type of diet you consume, your body is ready to back you in your decision by adjusting itself accordingly. Let’s take an example of lifting weights. When you start with the workout, you gain immense strength, making your body grow. Then the body becomes conditioned to the routine and the growing stops. In fitness terminology, this state is known as adaptive resistance.
In order to keep up with the supply of strength to your body while building on with the muscle, you need to train more than you previously did. This calls for the process of progressive overload – you must eat more and trainer harder than before to continue on with your growth.
Though you might be happy with the fact that your body adapts to what your offer to it, but in the long this adaption can go wrong. Your body starts transforming incredibly. But then comes a time that it becomes too used to the process (read: adapts). It becomes familiar with your training routines and the huge bulks of food you are throwing down your throat. The anabolic resistance puts a full stop your growth spurt.
You must be wondering what is anabolic resistance and how does it damper your growth process? This process starts off with insulin resistance which turns into leptin resistance, then taking the form of excessive fat gain, stagnant response to trainings, inflammation and sometimes, low libido as well.
If you are constantly adding more weight to the bar and noticing your scale notch up every time you weigh as you continue with your hardcore workout, suddenly the picture changes altogether. The scale moves higher a bit only after several weeks and when it does, it packs pounds on your core, not on your arms.
Lesser Returns Greater Fat
The above scenario is similar to the law of diminishing returns; the more you work towards getting mass, the lesser you gain. Once your body is desensitized to the overexposure of training and food, it completely halts the growth. Trying to force the process by increasing the amount of your diet and intensity of your workout would further worsen the condition.
Overcoming This Issue
In order to overcome this growth plateau, you need to give your body a different stimulus so that it can re-adapt itself for gaining strength and mass. The solution to this problem is not added trainings and extra food, in fact it is the opposite.
In order to re-sensitize your body into building mass, you should eat and train in a way that it helps you combat fat and stress. You can do that by following these bulking tips:
- Observing Calorie Deficit: Drop down your calories by eating lesser than your normal maintenance level.
- Training Less: Perform less in the gym. Pitch in a few rest days. Consider training for 3 days only like Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
This technique will help your body normalize itself, welcoming mass gain and strength while avoiding fat accumulation. Once you have amassed muscles, it will become quite easy to maintain them, requiring few, moderate training hours, contrary to the intense workouts during your bulking period. You’ll notice that in a few weeks’ time your body is growing again at a good rate.
Strategy
- Incorporate a diet for 2-5 weeks to regain your insulin sensitivity
The simplest way to begin is to cut your carbs intake into half so that you can achieve a calorie deficit. However, consume your protein and dietary fat the same manner you did during the bulking phase.
- Alter your training routine for 2-5 weeks
Just train at maintenance levels. Do not engage in excessive workouts. Perform less-than-an-hour body workouts 3 times per week. Make sure to incorporate big compound lifts and strength training in your routine.
- Start with the bulking again
Once you are over with the mini-diet and less training phase, your body will be all set to embrace growth again. Revert to the bulking process and experience your body change. But, be wary when your body becomes desensitized and that’s when this strategy should come in handy again.
