Bulking refers to the muscle-building phase of a traditional bodybuilding routine. It involves creating a calorie surplus to support muscle growth.
There are two main phases of the bodybuilding cycle: bulking and cutting.
During a bulking phase, bodybuilders typically consume additional carbohydrates and protein to maintain a calorie surplus. The goal is to use these additional calories to build muscle. A person must strength train during a bulking phase to stimulate muscle growth. Bulking increases muscle mass and body fat.
Cutting involves entering a calorie deficit to lose any additional body fat from the bulking phase. Strength training is also essential during the cutting phase to minimize muscle loss.
Some people also include a maintenance phase in their bodybuilding cycle. This involves consuming enough calories to maintain the same body composition.
Determining your calorie and macronutrient intake
Bulking requires consuming more calories than your body needs.
You can estimate your daily calorie needs by using a calorie counter, which considers your weight, sex, age, height, and physical activity level to estimate your daily calorie needs. Experts recommend consuming 10–20% above your daily weight maintenance calorie needs during the bulking phase for an average weight gain of 0.25–0.5% of your body weight per week.
For example, if you need 3,000 daily calories per day to maintain weight, you should aim to consume 3,300–3,600 instead, depending on your experience level. For a person who weighs 150 pounds (68 kg), this equates to an increase of 0.4–0.8 pounds (0.2–0.4 kg) per week. While novice bodybuilders who have 6 months or less of weight training experience should aim for the higher end of this calorie range, bodybuilders with several years of experience should target the lower end to limit increases in body fat.
If you’re gaining less or more than 0.25–0.5% of your body weight per week, you should adjust your calorie intake accordingly.
Macronutrients
Once you establish the number of calories you need for bulking, you can determine your macronutrient ratios.
Macronutrients — carbs, fats, and proteins — are the nutrients that are needed in larger quantities in your diet. Carbs and protein each contain 4 calories per gram, while fat packs 9.
Experts recommend that you get:
- 45–60% of your calories from carbs
- 30–35% of your calories from protein
- 15–30% of your calories from fat
- 371–495 grams of carbs
- 248–289 grams of protein
- 55–110 grams of fat
Can you eat too much protein?
In 2016, BBC Three reported on a man who was hospitalised after trying to 'bulk up'. He had kidney stones, which he believed were likely to be caused by eating too much protein. He said his body couldn't process the protein and so turned it into calcified deposits in his kidneys.
The NHS links a high-protein, low-fiber diet to recurring kidney stones. The risks associated with a high-protein diet are greater for people with a pre-existing health condition, and if you have kidney or liver damage you should consult a doctor before making changes to your diet.
Back in the 1960s and '70s, when bulking first became a phenomenon, bodybuilders relied on nutrient-dense, natural foods such as steak, milk and eggs. Nowadays, protein is available as shakes, bars and capsules, making it easy to consume vast amounts of it with additional sugar and calories without getting full. If you want to take a protein supplement, experts suggest sticking to the recommended serving size and never taking more than is needed.
Safety and risks
The goal of bulking is to maintain a calorie surplus in order to build muscle. However, it is still essential to maintain a healthful diet. Some people may be tempted to increase calorie intake with highly processed foods and snacks, but an unhealthful diet has the same consequences during bulking as at any other time. People who bulk may develop poor nutritional habits, which can increase the risk of health problems over time.
Specifically, poor nutrition increases the risk of:
- heart disease
- stroke
- type 2 diabetes
- cancer
- cognitive dysfunction
Benefits
A bulking phase may help a person increase their muscle mass. People new to strength training rarely require bulking to build muscle, as they typically build muscle quickly. However, more experienced bodybuilders require additional calories to achieve this effect.
Foods to eat and avoid
Your diet is essential to bulking the right way. Remember that just because a food is high in calories and will lead to a calorie surplus doesn’t mean that it’s great for muscle gain — or your overall health.
Foods to eat
Including nutrient-dense, whole foods in your diet ensures that you get adequate vitamins and minerals, healthy fats, and quality protein. Here are examples of foods that should comprise the majority of your diet:
- Fruits: apples, avocado, bananas, berries, grapes, kiwi, oranges, pears, pineapple, and pomegranate
- Vegetables: asparagus, arugula, beets, broccoli, carrots, collards, cucumber, kale, mushrooms, and peppers
- Starchy vegetables: arrowroot, jicama, peas, potatoes, rutabaga, and yam
- Grains: breads, cereals, corn, oatmeal, popcorn, quinoa, and rice
- Seafood: cod, crab, lobster, salmon, scallops, shrimp, tilapia, and tuna
- Dairy: butter, cottage cheese, cheese, milk, and yogurt
- Meats, poultry, and eggs: ground beef, eye of round steak, pork tenderloin, skinless chicken, sirloin steak, turkey, and whole eggs
- Legumes: black beans, chickpeas, lentils, lima beans, and pinto beans
- Nuts and seeds: almonds, chia seeds, flaxseed, sunflower seeds, and walnuts
- Oils and nut butters: almond and peanut butters, as well as avocado, canola, and olive oils
- Beverages without added sugar: coffee, diet soda, unsweetened tea, and water
Foods to limit
While a bulking diet allows for most foods, some should be limited because they contain very few nutrients. These include:
- Alcohol. Alcohol interferes with your body’s ability to build muscle, particularly when drunk in excess.
- Added sugars. Added sugar, which is common in candy, desserts, and sugar-sweetened beverages, is linked to several negative health effects when eaten in excess.
- Fried foods. Regularly eating fried foods may increase your risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Fried foods include fried chicken, onion rings, cheese curds, and fish and chips.
Should I still use supplements?
In a word, yes! Eating the calories required to bulk effectively and healthily is actually harder than it sounds, and often you may find yourself eating when you’re not hungry. This is where protein shakes come up trumps. Mass gainer protein shakes are an easy method of consuming a large volume of calories in one go and are packed full of protein to help you hit your protein targets as well!
There are 3 main supplements that can also help improve your physical performance in the gym in order to maximise gains. These are:
Creatine
Supplementing with creatine boosts your intramuscular phosphocreatine stores, which is your body’s primary energy source for explosive, high intensity movements. As such, this enhances your performance in the gym by enabling more total work or volume to be performed, providing a greater training stimulus for muscle growth.
Caffeine
Known to work via a number of mechanisms, caffeine is a common addition in pre-workout supplements. This is due to the increased pain tolerance associated with caffeine, which has been shown to reduce RPE (how hard you feel the exercise is) and therefore increase total workload.
Protein powder
While it may not directly affect performance, animal- or plant-based protein powders offer an easy and convenient way to meet your daily protein targets.
Summary
Bulking is a phase in the bodybuilding cycle that involves consuming excess calories to build muscle. People tend to consume additional protein and carbohydrates in this phase. Afterward, a person tends to enter a cutting phase to burn the excess fat that builds up during a bulk. During bulking, avoid foods that are high in calories but provide little nutrition, because these foods can still have negative health consequences — and may interfere with training.
