“Gotta eat big to get big brother!” “It’s the off-season man, I’m on that SEE-food diet, heheh ya feel me?!!” It’s been like this for decades in the muscle building world, and there’s a ton of anecdotes that you gotta eat enough to grow. Certainly, we can’t build muscle out of thin air. But given the modern understanding that body recomposition - at least in novice and early stage intermediate lifters who aren’t too lean - is actually quite normal, how much do you really have to eat? In this episode Omar interviews Eric Helms who just published a study on this very topic with surprising results. Is it really true that eating at maintenance is just as good as a small and large surplus for strength and muscle gain? Tune in to find out.

00:00 …It happened (intro to a power episode)

The Truth About Getting Lean: It's Not JUST About Calories (ft. Eric Helms) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnTHQafSh7A 

https://raskolapparel.com/

8:38 The weight gain study: breaking down the methods

Effect of Small and Large Energy Surpluses on Strength, Muscle, and Skinfold Thickness https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372871560_Effect_of_Small_and_Large_Energy_Surpluses_on_Strength_Muscle_and_Skinfold_Thickness (link and title will be updated upon publication)

19:06 The findings and its interpretation

28:40 Applications for coaches

Schoenfeld 2017 Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27433992/ 

Baz-Valle 2022 A Systematic Review of The Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35291645/

Iron Culture Ep. 229- Is Failure More Important Than Volume For Hypertrophy (ft. Dr. Zourdos & Zac Robinson) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C_48z5Cplg

Robinson 2023 https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/server/preprint/view/295 

40:40 Skinfold thickness vs muscle thickness changes

Garthe Effect of nutritional intervention on body composition and performance in elite athletes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23679146/ 

48:53 Assessing an individual’s genetic potential

Rozenek 2002 Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following resistance training https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12094125/ 

Smith 2021 Predicting Adaptations to Resistance Training Plus Overfeeding Using Bayesian Regression: A Preliminary Investigation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33919267/

58:53 Adjusting your training and Eric’s reflections

1:05:39 Conclusions from the study and closing out (we are interdimensional)