Huge

[bicepflexed]

Do you think the best way to get huge is to bulk up for like 3 years and than rip up.

 

[supertech69]

Well, I've been bulking for the past 6 months & plan to continue until Nov-Dec. I'll let ya know how it goes. My philosophy is, why waste time, energy, food & juice on cutting when you plan to just turn right around & swell again. That is, unless you are in competition mode.

 

[Beezers]

Yes, and in many cases it may take longer than three years. All this yo-yo style training and dieting does is rob you of valueble time to be growing. I think people are far too concerned with "ripped" when they should be thinking about adding muscle mass to acually cut up. Eight to twelve weeks of bulking does not make a massive human being. It takes years of work. If your goal is to be "huge" then it will take time, not one or two cycles. All to often people think "I'll bulk for ten weeks and then I had better cut up or else". If you know how to eat right and have a good feel for your body then there is no reason you should add any significant amount of bodyfat while bulking. I think people think that if they actually bulk for years at a time that they will get morbidly obese. Again this comes from the fixation of being ripped. You have to make sacrifices to get truely huge and though you certainly shouldn't get fat while gaining muscle mass you won't be chisled unless you're genetically gifted. Most people seem to refuse to accept this notion, yet they still want to be massive. In order to get massive you have to sacrifice that rippedness for muscle mass. THEN when you are at your goal of "massiveness" then and only then should you foccus on dialing it in. Perpetually going back and forth between cutting and bulking with the emphasis on cutting only serves to limit ones overall gains. This is the very reason most people never get big. Bulking has come to mean getting fat and jolly by eating anything that's eatable in the name of mass. This misconstrues the true meaning of buling. You can still have abs while bulking...They just won't be clear and solid. You can still have a trim waiste line while bulking, but it may still be two inches bigger than when you're at 6%bf. These are trivial aspects of the game that most people make a do-or-die ordeal out of. The bottom line is if there's no muscle there to cut up you're not going to look impressive no matter how lean you are. If the goal isn't massiveness than I suppose it's a different story, but that's not my department. If you want to get as big as you can it is a constant building process that takes time and sacrifice. You have to put aside to goal of being ripped for a few years so that when it does come time to dial it in you are a truely impressive physical specimen.

 

[Beezers]

My philosophy is, why waste time, energy, food & juice on cutting when you plan to just turn right around & swell again.

Magnificently articulated!!!

 

[Evik]

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Originally posted by Beezers

Yes, and in many cases it may take longer than three years. All this yo-yo style training and dieting does is rob you of valueble time to be growing.

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I agree 150%!!!!!!!

 

[HansNZ]

If your goal is to look good then it would be a good idea to trim down periodically. The cost-benefit equation you have to make is whether the increase in time to get to your lean mass size is worth looking good in the meantime.

As a general rule I lean down whenever I reach 10kgs more than where I want to ideally be. My goals are more cosmetic so looking like a blob defeats the purpose for me. If your goals are for sport and looking sexually appealing isn't so important then keep bulking.

p.s. I have found that I don't really store a great deal of fat when I am bulking. Eat heaps early in the day and try to avoid foods with lots of staurated fat (i.e. red meat, dairy). Eat fish, complex carbs and fruit & veges instead.

Best of Luck.

 

[Travbedaman]

Your body adapts to everything you do, it makes little sence to bulk for extended periods of time because your body will adapt to higher calories and eventually you will add much more fat than lean muscle mass (less fat will be gained on a good steroid cycle, but it will still happen) Plus most poeple I know feel thin once they go on a cutting diet and get freaked out and try to bulk again immediately. So down the road you may be happy with your lean mass, but you`ll have wayy too much fat.

I think it`s a good idea to keep the body guessing... a month or two of bulking, followed by a two to four week cutting phase, I think you will grow much better (and look better) this way in the long run. Just be sure to keep lifting heavy weights during your cutting phases or you will lose too much mass.

 

[Beezers]

Your body adapts to everything you do, it makes little sence to bulk for extended periods of time because your body will adapt to higher calories and eventually you will add much more fat than lean muscle mass (less fat will be gained on a good steroid cycle, but it will still happen) Plus most poeple I know feel thin once they go on a cutting diet and get freaked out and try to bulk again immediately. So down the road you may be happy with your lean mass, but you`ll have wayy too much fat.

I think it`s a good idea to keep the body guessing... a month or two of bulking, followed by a two to four week cutting phase, I think you will grow much better (and look better) this way in the long run. Just be sure to keep lifting heavy weights during your cutting phases or you will lose too much mass.

I completely, yet respectfully, disagree. Yes, the body adapts. One adaptation to a hypercaloric intake is the speeding up of ones metabolism. This would be a positive in all instances. I disagree that the longer you bulk the more fat you will gain. I have found it to be the complete opposite. The longer you bulk the more capable your body becomes at dealing with a high caloric intake. Nitrient partitioning increases favorably for muscle tissue the longer one trains and eats to support anabolism. The way to keep the body growing is through training, not taking periodic and frequent breaks from a high calorie balanced nutrition plan. Alterations in training will stimulate the need for muscular adaptations and with a hypercaloric intake the resources will be thee for the body to make these changes...i.e strength/hypertrophy. Wothout sufficient nutrients these changes would be severly restricted or even inhibited. That would equate to a lack of progress all because you have robbed your body of resources needed to grow. A change in training on a frequent basis will keep the body "in need" of change. In our case muscle gorwth. A change in diet shifting to a iso/hypocaloric intake will only shock the body's metabolsim into slowing down and initate a catabolic state. This is a more suitable scenerio for fat retention/muscle loss. A better trained, more muscular physique is more capable of dealing with high calories than a "yo-yo" physique is. This means less fat accumulation and a more efficient metabolism. You said that high calories would eventually lead to more fat gains and less muscle. It is the other way around. The longer you stay with higher calories the more the ratio of muscle gain to fat gain shifts towads muscle gains as the metabolism becomes better at handling high calories. Muscle gains will slow down, but if you are eating and training right fat gains will cease to exist as the body becomes better adjusted. The continually increasing muscle mass also has a significant impact on metabolism. All this leans in favor of a physique with more lean body mass, a faster metabolism, and a leaner apperance. To keep growing requires change, yes, but not a change as drastic as swinging into full diet mode.

 

[Hugh Gellatts]

I guess extended bulking would work if you made sure not to get over a certain bodyfat and waist size. These things can really creep up on you. I've seen some guys who have been bulked so long that when they cut there still seems to be alot of intra-abdominal fat or something (big waist, belly) even though their sub q bodyfat is very low.

 

[Keep it beefy]

beezers: 100% right