Execute the PERFECT lean bulk.

I often get asked if doing more cardio or ‘eating clean’ is what separates a lean bulk from a traditional bulk, one where you also accumulate a fair bit of body fat…

The ‘lean bulk’ prioritises muscle mass gain & usually appeals to those who want to grow & gain muscle, but maintain a respectable composition they’re happy with.

Does doing more cardio & eating clean, assure a successful lean bulk?

One where you primarily gain muscle mass, with little or no fat as well?

Well, it can, but in some cases, won’t.

It’s a little more simple than that & it shocks me that people still can’t wrap their head around the basics of thermodynamics. It ALL, always, comes back to energy.

Calories in & calories out.

Why do you think cardio would be useful for a lean bulk? Because it increases your calorie output, meaning, it’ll be harder to achieve a massive net calorie surplus.

Why do you think ‘eating clean’ would be useful for a lean bulk? Because it lowers the chance of you over-consuming calories due to the low calorie nature of these food’s.

But, you could do all the cardio you like & you could also eat clean, all you like & whilst it may be much harder, you can absolutely achieve a surplus that’s still too high & thus leads to a cumulation of excess body fat eventually, leading to a poor look.

So yes, doing cardio & ‘eating clean’ could be quite good characteristics of a solid lean bulking strategy, but it’s not necessarily what defines or creates one. Calories as a whole kind’ve do & along with that, the training stimulus you can provide…

To summarise; If you consume too many calories you will gain more fat than you’d like regardless of whether you do cardio & the calories mainly come from ‘clean sources’…

With that said when it comes to a successful lean bulking strategy I believe the following factors are most important & should be prioritised;

• Maintaining a big enough calorie surplus to perform your best.

• Providing an adequately intense, growth promoting training regime.

• Primarily sourcing your calories from whole-food’s, for sustainability.

• Remaining in your calorie surplus for as long as possible (so it can’t be huge).

• Keeping your routine & other variables in check, to maximise the whole process.

Now cardio isn’t up there, because it’s not necessary to execute a lean bulk. But would I recommend some forms of cardio? Absolutely & I do indeed do cardio myself & have all my clients doing at least some level of cardio, whether that’s HIC or LIC.

*HIC = High impact cardio.

*LIC = Low impact cardio.

When used appropriately cardio can be a great tool that allows you to push more calories thus increasing your performance, while not having too high of an energy balance weighted to the ‘calories in’ side. So use it wisely, if you think it’s needed.

Along with that there are certain other tools i’d use as a coach, that are more on the advanced side, but definitely do help with the execution of an approach like this. Such as calorie partitioning & macro-cycling (such as carb cycling) but these are add-ons.

Hopefully you’ve learnt a good thing or two about lean bulking in this episode. If you’d like to learn more & have me guide you through the lean bulking process to maximise the results you can achieve in a 3 month time-span, click the link below!

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