Long term bulking question

[Adiakritos]

This may be a silly question because I may have the logical answer already…

But when it comes to bulking with the goal of adding as much mass as fast as possible naturally and without ending up with huge amounts of fat to chisel away…

It seems the best approach is to basically control my bulk over 3-6 months, then maintain for a month, then trim down over a month or two, and then repeat this again and again until I reach some upper size limit given whatever constraints exist.

I was at 175 this past April and decided I wanted a Fk ton more mass. So from then until now I “dirty” bulked and reached 212 over 8 months. So that’s around 3.7lbs gained per month. Assuming half of that is fat, I think I may have added about 19 lbs of pure fat.

It will take me about 25 weeks to burn that off.

I am regretting this dirty bulk now but whatever. I know how to lose fat.

For a natural bodybuilder, is the cycle I described of bulking and trimming the a primary focus of getting as big as possible without getting seriously fat basically on point or am I missing anything?

[Camarija]

I'm in the same boat.

Long term bulking natty.

Was at 182 lbs June 23 @ close to competing levels body fat

Spoiler!

Now I'm over 220 lbs

That's about 40 lbs gain in 22 weeks

Shooting for 235 lbs, but i'm stopping around the second week of January.

Basically plan is to cut for 3 to 4 months after my bulk

Going to be shredded for Summer again

I dont know if its worth it or optimal, but I thought it's probably the only way to milk my natty gains to the max so giving it a try

*edit*

My logic was, while 'science' shows long term slow bulks are better, I don't know of any huge natty who didn't dirty bulk at some point

[Spanishdream]

I'll always advocate a slower, controlled bulk. 250-300 over maintenance. Anything over isn't a benefit to you for muscle growth & just elongates the cut. Cutting is miserable so why make it longer than it needs to be when you can spend longer bulking?

I like to bulk for 20-25 weeks usually putting on around 10-11lbs. That leaves me to cut for 8-10 weeks. That way I'm spending more time in a bulk, making progress than I am being miserable in a cut. It's probably as optimal as you can be for naturals.

[TAWS6]

Long term bulks ( 6 months ) are superior because the muscle building process for a natural is slow. Very slow. My preference is to cut to 12 percent and bulk to 15-16 percent over the course of 4-6 months. For me that’s between 175-185 lbs. which is hilarious to think that someone who’s been training for so long is only a 180 lb lifter at his peak..

[Adiakritos]

I'll always advocate a slower, controlled bulk. 250-300 over maintenance. Anything over isn't a benefit to you for muscle growth & just elongates the cut. Cutting is miserable so why make it longer than it needs to be when you can spend longer bulking?

I like to bulk for 20-25 weeks usually putting on around 10-11lbs. That leaves me to cut for 8-10 weeks. That way I'm spending more time in a bulk, making progress than I am being miserable in a cut. It's probably as optimal as you can be for naturals.

Makes perfect sense. Roughly 6 month bulk and then 2-3mo cuts again and again.

[Adiakritos]

I'm in the same boat.

Long term bulking natty.

Was at 182 lbs June 23 @ close to competing levels body fat

Spoiler!

Now I'm over 220 lbs

That's about 40 lbs gain in 22 weeks

Shooting for 235 lbs, but i'm stopping around the second week of January.

Basically plan is to cut for 3 to 4 months after my bulk

Going to be shredded for Summer again

I dont know if its worth it or optimal, but I thought it's probably the only way to milk my natty gains to the max so giving it a try

*edit*

My logic was, while 'science' shows long term slow bulks are better, I don't know of any huge natty who didn't dirty bulk at some point

Nice aesthetics brah.

And that makes sense. Basically right on with that I thought - bill for like 6 mo and then cut for 2-3 ish depending.

Sounds like you started super low bf.

I read that right after a cut is a good time to start a bill because the body is ready to absorb all the additional nutrition rapidly and it sorta jumpstarts the bulking process.