What happens after you bulked for at least 2 months? (and not jump ship after one week, where you may lose some ab definition)
Time-Stamps:
- What do I even mean by an "extended" bulking phase? - 0:17
- Your body-fat increasing (and how nobody gives a shit) - 0:50
- The illusion of "pressure from social media) - 2:00
- Your performance going up in the gym - 3:53
- You will be able to tolerate more training stress (training volume) then you did before - 4:45
- Your well-being will increase in general (libido, energy levels, sleep quality) - 5:19
- You will have more general fiexibility (your metabolism will ramp up, you will have more calories to play around with) - 6:15
- You will start losing interest in food (a slice of pizza will be as exciting as chicken and salad would be on a cut) - 7:30
- You will realize that the way we glorify low body-fat percentages is a bit overblown. (you just feel better when you bulk) - 9:00
- Conclusion (the importance of actually committing to a longer bulk) - 9:43
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First of all, what do I mean by “extended” bulking phases? In short, I mean eating for at least 2 months in a surplus without interruptions, as opposed to pulling the plug at the first sign of losing some ab-definition or maybe waking up a bit more watery, or feeling guilty that you overdid food a bit.
The first thing you're going to notice is that you're going to put on some weight - and yes, this includes putting on body-fat. But more importantly, what you’re going to notice is that nobody is going to give a damn. Certainly not the people in your day to day life.
But even if you’re a fitness professional of sorts and you feel like you need to look a
certain way to have credibility, often this pressure is mis-perceived.
If you have a 6 figure business that is predicated on hundreds of thousands of fans
appraising you for your shredded physique, I understand this bourdain. But I’ve
heard so many people complain about their obligation to be shredded for their “following”,
who never even posted a picture of themselves before.
On top of that: Are you only following people that are shredded all the time?
Did you unsubscribe from people when you saw their body-fat creeping up
a bit higher? No.
The second thing that happens: your performance in the gym starts going up. Sounds like a
no brainer, but it’s so common to have your lifts being plateaued for extended
periods.
I’m sure you had times like this when you hit a certain number on squts or bench
presses, and you just couldn’t get past that for several months.
You’re also going to notice that you will be able to tolerate more total training stress in the gym - this mainly refers to the total amount of volume you can do without impairing your well-being, messing with your sleep, and just run you into the ground on the whole. If earlier 10 sets was the most you could recover from, maybe now you’ll be able to do 15-18 or even more sets a week.
Your well-being is also going to improve. You will probably find that you’re irritable less, your sleep quality will improve (even I noticed this, having had years of sleeping problems) and you will be more motivated to move around and do things during the day. I noticed that in between sets in the gym, I’m often walking up and down as opposed to sitting down lethargically. My libido has also increased - I won’t go into details there, but I often felt like a 13 year old with raging hormones.
You’ll also find that you’re general flexibility in life is going to increase. You will notice that minor things, like getting home 2 hours later to get in your meal is going to bother you less than it did before. A lot of this has to do with the fact that you will have more calories to play around with over time as your metabolism adapts higher and your body starts resisting fat gain.
