When most of us design a cycle it is either a traditional bulk where I am going to eat everything in site or a cutting cycle. However, doing your typical bulk where you try to pack on as much weight as possible and follow it with a cutting cycle is not the most efficient way to do things and will likely lead to making it even harder to gain muscle and to strip the fat off in future cycles. Follow with me here and I will try to explain why.

It is a fact that to gain muscle you have to be in a calorie surplus. This is where it gets interesting. You probably know that fat cells are flexible and they will expand to a certain degree to store any excess fat as you are packing down the food in your calorie surplus. Now what happens when these fat cells become full since you have been overeating for an extended period time during your bulk? Your body will make MORE fat cells to provide storage for the extra fat that can no longer be put into your existing fat cells since they are full. This phenomenon is known as hyperplasia. Your body creates new fat cells to store the excess. These new fat cells are now with you forever. This is now going to make your body more efficient at storing fat and ALSO more PRONE to store fat. Now as you are cycling through your traditional bulk then cut cycles it is going to be easier to gain fat during the bulk and harder to lose fat during the cut since you now have more fat cells in your body. There is a way around this fortunately so keep sticking with me and I’ll get to it.

I am sure you have noticed how easy it is to peel off fat when you first start your cut. Your body is cocked and loaded to cut the fat when you first start because your metabolic rate is always at a higher level in the initial stages of the cut but reality soon sets in and the fat becomes harder and harder to get rid of as you get further into the cut. Your body/metabolism adapts to the new calorie restriction.

On the flipside I am sure you notice how quickly you can pack on the mass when you come out of your cutting phase and go into bulking. The gains can be unreal sometimes. The reasoning behind this as far as I could find out is that your previous calorie restriction has optimized your insulin sensitivity and other hormones which spurs your body use the extra calories for muscle gain BEFORE fat storage. As with everything, all good things come to an end. Your body once again adapts and the lean body mass gains slow down.

If you have stuck with me so far, here is how you can actually use these “transitional” phases to your advantage where the gains come fast and the fat melts away just as fast. You do CYCLIC BULKING. You do shorter cycles of bulking and cutting which can be accomplished in the same cycle. You do a short bulk which takes advantage of your increased insulin sensitivity and ramped up hormones to pack some quality mass on and then switch over to a short cutting phase before your hormones adapt and your increased calories start producing NEW fat cells. Basically you are rebooting everything and avoiding the plateaus where you stop gaining muscle and stop losing fat in each phase.

Now you are probably wondering how long these “mini” bulk/cut cycles are supposed to be. From what I have seen the bulk phase could be anywhere from 2-12 weeks followed by 1-4 weeks of cutting. If you are doing a 12 week cycle try bulking for 2 weeks followed by a 1 week cut. This will give you 4 mini-bulk cycles during your full 12 week cycle. You get the idea. You’ll have to try it out and see what works for you but you should know when to stop one and start the other because you will start to plateau with the gains or the fat loss. You are actually trying to avoid that plateau to stay in the most anabolic environment so take note and shorten it for your next mini bulk/cut cycle.

It probably goes without saying but I’ll mention it anyway. You are obviously going to be taking in surplus calories during your bulk but calories are NOT calories. They have to be QUALITY calories. If you are just eating everything in sight you are going to end up short circuiting everything and just put on fat and create new fat cells right away because those junk calories are likely including high glycemic index carbs/sugars which will screw up your insulin sensitivity right away and lead to rapid fat gain and not the quality mass that you are after. Now when you go into your cutting phase you have to be careful that you don’t cut the calories to low which will cause your cortisol levels to spike and also throw all your other hormones out of whack. And as always, don’t skimp on the protein.

GROW BIG
Makwa