4 Mistakes To Avoid When Bulking 🍽

Bulking is basically a phase in which we eat at a calorie surplus with the aim of gaining weight and add more size.

It is also important to note that bulking up is by no means required for muscle growth. That is unless building muscle is your main goal right now and this in most cases will be the best approach to take.

A positive energy balance has been shown to elicit a significantly greater anabolic effect and protein synthesis response as compared to being in a maintenance or deficit phase when pairing it with resistance training.

Here are the 4 common mistakes to avoid when bulking:

Mistake 1: Not lean enough to start bulking

It is very likely that you are going to commit to a much longer diet to “reveal” the gains further down the road because you will need to lose the excess fat you had initially and also the additional fat you put on during the bulk.

It is completely doable but dieting in general is just not enjoyable. The short the dieting phase, the less likely you will quit halfway through.

Therefore, to maximise the chances of building more muscle and as little fat as possible, it is ideal to start the bulk under roughly 15% body fat. If you are higher than this, diet first to lean down before you commit to a calorie surplus.

Mistake 2: Gaining too much fat as compared to muscle

Although you can technically eat more to gain more, it is definitely more effective to take a slower approach in the long run due to the more favourable muscle:fat accumulation ratio.

The best way to bulk up is to implement a small-to-moderate surplus of around 10-20% above your maintenance calories.

Mistake 3: Not setting a target rate of weight gain

For most individuals, we should aim to gain around 1 to 1.5% of Bodyweight monthly. We should monitor our weekly average weight and adjust our calories if we are under/over shooting our target weight gain weekly.

This will keep us on track and know that we are not either eating too much and gaining too much fat or eating too little and slowing down the muscle building process.

Mistake 4: Not being patient enough

It is inevitable that in addition to the muscle gain during a bulk, we are also going to put on at least a bit of fat during the process.

This can “hide” the increase of muscle mass and visually make it seems like we are not progressing. This lack of visible progress leads most people back to dieting too soon and hence makes no progress.

Instead, we should understand that it takes several months to put on noticeable size and it is important to commit to bulking up for an extended period of time.

We just need to be patient when it comes to bulking and building muscle. Trust the process and track as much data as we can. This keeps us on track and adjust accordingly if we do veer off track.

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For those looking to gain muscle & lose fat while simultaneously getting leaner & stronger in the process, do schedule your complimentary personal training consultation to explore the possibilities of working together & providing you valuable takeaways that you will find it beneficial to get started! 📧