Do you really need to EAT a calorie surplus to gain muscle?

[ironwill2008]

This. For me (skinny kid), eating at maintenance always led to wheel-spinning, & there seem to be a plethora of accounts on this site of people who are not even advanced lifters who make no strength gains at maintence cals.

You are certainly not alone on this website; such threads form the majority of those in many forums on this site, and IMO, are the primary reason why the quitter percentage is so high among beginners. They've been led to believe they can have their cake and eat it too simply due to hearing one piece of information that is telling them what they want to hear, rather than what they need to hear.

[Mrpb]

And there are also many examples in this forum of people bulking up and then cutting down for and looking virtually the same. Had they approached their goal with a slower approach they would probably have been in a better place. I've been one of those people.

Wheel spinning is possible with every approach.

And it's easy to prevent wheel spinning at 'maintenance': if you're not making strength progress on a good hypertrophy program, eat more! For some people that may mean they have to gain weight to make progress, for others not.

[ironwill2008]

And there are also many examples in this forum of people bulking up and then cutting down for and looking virtually the same. Had they approached their goal with a slower approach they would probably have been in a better place. I've been one of those people.

Wheel spinning is possible with every approach.

And it's easy to prevent wheel spinning at 'maintenance': if you're not making strength progress on a good hypertrophy program, eat more! For some people that may mean they have to gain weight to make progress, for others not.

True; I can't argue with ^^^^this.

it's still my opinion that kids whose goal is to build mass/strength need to do everything possible to optimize their chances of doing so, and IMO, that will always include a moderate calorie surplus.

[Mrpb]

True; I can argue with ^^^^this.

it's still my opinion that kids whose goal is to build mass/strength need to do everything possible to optimize their chances of doing so, and IMO, that will always include a moderate calorie surplus.

The average 21 year old 5'10 160lb noob... I totally agree, they should be bulking.

But things get more complicated when we're dealing with overweight or skinny-fat types, people in their late thirties and beyond or women in general.

[ironwill2008]

The average 21 year old 5'10 160lb noob... I totally agree, they should be bulking.

But things get more complicated when we're dealing with overweight or skinny-fat types, people in their late thirties and beyond or women in general.

I don't like to use myself as an example (n =1, not statistically relevant), but I didn't start training until age 45, at 130 pounds. I too tried to keep calories too close to the vest, and as a result, I significantly hindered my ability to reap the advantages of being a beginner trainee.

[Mrpb]

I don't like to use myself as an example (n =1, not statistically relevant), but I didn't start training until age 45, at 130 pounds. I too tried to keep calories too close to the vest, and as a result, I significantly hindered my ability to reap the advantages of being a beginner trainee.

As a 130 pounds novice it makes sense to bulk, I agree.

I did the bulking thing when I started around age 40 skinny fat, trusting the advice here on the forum and on Lyle's site gaining 1 pound per week, running starting strength. I gained strength and a massive amount of fat, but barely any muscle. Looking back I should have just recomped for the first few months and then used a surplus once I needed it.

Everyone reacts differently to a surplus though.

If we could make worthwhile gains during a deficit we would all be doing it, at least someone would. Truth is you can't (omitting outlier cases of untrained obese subjects with relatively low LBM).

Gaining LBM in deficit is far from optimal, I agree. However, it's certainly not impossible. For example, trained men and women gaining ~2 pounds of lean body mass while dropping ~10 pounds of fat in ~8 weeks: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21558571

And there a many other studies showing that recomping happens, even when you're not an overweight novice. For example:
Experienced lifters gained ~3.3 pounds of fat free mass while losing ~3.5 pounds of fat in 8 weeks: http://www.jissn.com/content/12/1/39
Lean beginners gained ~7 pounds of lean body mass while losing ~6 pounds of fat in 10 weeks: http://jap.physiology.org/content/85/2/695.full

And there are many other studies that have shown LBM gain combined with fat loss.

[boo99]

The average 21 year old 5'10 160lb noob... I totally agree, they should be bulking.

But things get more complicated when we're dealing with overweight or skinny-fat types, people in their late thirties and beyond or women in general.

Agree with you guys but wanted to add that it seems these days (compared to when I started lifting and was a young dude) quite alot of the younger noobs have this obsession with having abs, over putting on overall mass, which wasn't a goal and I don't even remember it being discussed back when I began generally.......and that appears to hold some guys back a bit in gaining the most LBM as possible as noobs

[Shadowman82]

"You may be able to put on muscle in a deficit if you have enough fat, but gaining weight (as in overall weight (not just LBM)) is ridiculous"

Well I believe most people are mainly interested in gaining muscle rather than just weight . Of coarse this depends on just what your current weight is . If you are very scrawny then it makes sense to want to gain weight as well .

[WolfRose7]

Agree with you guys but wanted to add that it seems these days (compared to when I started lifting and was a young dude) quite alot of the younger noobs have this obsession with having abs, over putting on overall mass, which wasn't a goal and I don't even remember it being discussed back when I began generally.......and that appears to hold some guys back a bit in gaining the most LBM as possible as noobs

Years of youtubers who are 8-10% all year round thanks to there OJ and Cucumber diets seem to have contributed mostly to this..
It's only getting worse with Instagram etc too

[Joseph1990]

I feel bad for all the skinny kids posting on this site, trying to build muscle while also obtaining a "six-pack," who will be misled by some of the posts ITT, and go away thinking they will actually accomplish this, even while other posts appear, almost by the minute, from their contemporaries who complain of never making any progress at all when trying to do this.



Sometimes, you just have to step away from the studies, and apply a little bit of common sense instead.

The 2 posts mrpb made did imply he believed weight gain is possible in a deficit for all purposes relative to the conversation.

[Heisman2]

Agree with you guys but wanted to add that it seems these days (compared to when I started lifting and was a young dude) quite alot of the younger noobs have this obsession with having abs, over putting on overall mass, which wasn't a goal and I don't even remember it being discussed back when I began generally.......and that appears to hold some guys back a bit in gaining the most LBM as possible as noobs

I started coming to these forums in 2003 and back then the general advice was to tell everyone to eat big and train hard. I don't recall many caring about abs back then. I really think this became more prevalent in the past 10 years.

[Joseph1990]

As a 130 pounds novice it makes sense to bulk, I agree.

I did the bulking thing when I started around age 40 skinny fat, trusting the advice here on the forum and on Lyle's site gaining 1 pound per week, running starting strength. I gained strength and a massive amount of fat, but barely any muscle. Looking back I should have just recomped for the first few months and then used a surplus once I needed it.

Everyone reacts differently to a surplus though.



Gaining LBM in deficit is far from optimal, I agree. However, it's certainly not impossible. For example, trained men and women gaining ~2 pounds of lean body mass while dropping ~10 pounds of fat in ~8 weeks: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21558571

And there a many other studies showing that recomping happens, even when you're not an overweight novice. For example:
Experienced lifters gained ~3.3 pounds of fat free mass while losing ~3.5 pounds of fat in 8 weeks: http://www.jissn.com/content/12/1/39
Lean beginners gained ~7 pounds of lean body mass while losing ~6 pounds of fat in 10 weeks: http://jap.physiology.org/content/85/2/695.full

And there are many other studies that have shown LBM gain combined with fat loss.

Studies are flawed sorry. You can't possibly expect me to care about these. It's like comparing 2 of the same model cars driven by 2 different people. Both now have 300,000 miles but they are in drastically different conditions. Even if they were driven to the same place and back 5 times a week there is still subtle differences in acceleration, stopping, turning etc that will put slightly different wear and tear on the vehicle overall over the course of "x" amount of time. Just like the energy expended when subject "a" does 4 sets of 10 squats with the same weight as person "b" with identical height, weight, lbm and BF%
.
Neural efficiency or motor unit recruitment efficiency, technique, breathing, amount of ATP each person has readily available during the time they started training etc etc all add up in the end and completely throw off any hope of an accurate result. To find this out in a study would be impossible today.

[Heisman2]

Neural efficiency or motor unit recruitment efficiency, technique, breathing, amount of ATP each person has readily available during the time they started training etc etc all add up in the end and completely throw off any hope of an accurate result.

I do not understand your point. All of those variables (other than ATP likely, or at least this would be incredibly minor) could significantly impact maximum strength attempts but I don't see what they have to do with the acquisition or loss of lean body mass vs fat mass. You'd be better served using variables such as total body sodium, glycogen stores, renin-angiotensin-aldosterone activity, ADH levels, cortisol levels, etc as these could impact total body water and potentially lead to differences in lean body mass that do not reflect differences in skeletal muscle.

Anyways, studies can definitely be flawed, and most are in some capacity (not just in this field), but blindly saying you are not going to believe any of them makes any discussion pointless.

[Joseph1990]

I do not understand your point. All of those variables (other than ATP likely, or at least this would be incredibly minor)

I personally disagree. All those things could easily add up to 100kcal. 8 weeks 60 days days 6000kcals. Seems like plenty to throw off most studies.

Anyways, studies can definitely be flawed, and most are in some capacity (not just in this field), but blindly saying you are not going to believe any of them makes any discussion pointless.

If I were to link you a study making a claim hinging on accurately measuring something that you know, can't be accurately measured to the degree required to produce concrete evidence, I wouldn't blame you for not looking at it. In fact, it would be silly for you to do so.

You'd be better served using variables such as total body sodium, glycogen stores, renin-angiotensin-aldosterone activity, ADH levels, cortisol levels, etc as these could impact total body water and potentially lead to differences in lean body mass that do not reflect differences in skeletal muscle.

You seem to be missing the point. All of the above you listen can be understood, measured and accounted and compensated for in a study can they not? The examples I gave cannot. And that was my entire point.

[Heisman2]

I personally disagree. All those things could easily add up to 100kcal. 8 weeks 60 days days 6000kcals. Seems like plenty to throw off most studies.

Oh, I see, you were referring to whether or not people were in a deficit, I thought you meant regarding if the gains or losses in LBM and fat mass were measured accurately. My mistake.

If I were to link you a study making a claim hinging on accurately measuring something that you know, can't be accurately measured to the degree required to produce concrete evidence, I wouldn't blame you for not looking at it. In fact, it would be silly for you to do so.

This is a bit of a slippery slope. Sometimes things cannot be measured directly but aspects can be inferred. Largest scale example I can think of is dark matter; many physicists believe it exists but we have never been able to directly observe it. I get your point though; if you're of the opinion the methodology used cannot accurately answer the question asked then there is no reason to trust the rest of the study.

Might be interesting to study this from a different perspective; take people who are beyond beginner stage (who have come close to maximizing neuromuscular efficiency), have them eat at a deficit, and have them continue training. Strength is supposed to correlate well with the cross-sectional area of muscle once you're beyond the beginner stage. If they gain strength at a deficit that would imply skeletal muscle hypertrophy to a degree.

[Joseph1990]

Oh, I see, you were referring to whether or not people were in a deficit, I thought you meant regarding if the gains or losses in LBM and fat mass were measured accurately. My mistake.

Easy mistake.

This is a bit of a slippery slope. Sometimes things cannot be measured directly but aspects can be inferred. Largest scale example I can think of is dark matter; many physicists believe it exists but we have never been able to directly observe it. I get your point though; if you're of the opinion the methodology used cannot accurately answer the question asked then there is no reason to trust the rest of the study.

I see myself the scientist looking at these studies concluding there is no deficit. Like dark matter indirectly being observed as remainder of matter or gravitational lensing implying the presence of a black hole.

Might be interesting to study this from a different perspective; take people who are beyond beginner stage (who have come close to maximizing neuromuscular efficiency), have them eat at a deficit, and have them continue training. Strength is supposed to correlate well with the cross-sectional area of muscle once you're beyond the beginner stage. If they gain strength at a deficit that would imply skeletal muscle hypertrophy to a degree.

I still can't see how it can be measured accurately enough to imply one way or the other let alone conclude considering this.

I'm sure we can agree if you could catch the great white buffalo and subtract BF add LBM while in a deficit using some part of the remainder "X" calories (9-4) - (TEF) fat has over protein. The amount of LBM gained would be TINY. Meaning you would have to be more accurate measuring energy in vs out then possible with any method I can imagine. Making things even more difficult because this means 99.9% accuracy must be consistent over a longer time span to have enough LBM gain / adipose loss to measure that! This is why I don't even bother looking at these studies where NEAT is greatly underestimated.

Just to maintain homeostasis the body/mind will increase/decrease energy levels, temperature ETC, resulting in slightly more or less NEAT, so little you wouldn't be consciously aware of, putting a big monkey wrench in the study. You would just assume you were tired after a long Monday because the body was slowing metabolism to ration energy (Feeling low energy = decreased NEAT by 'y') or you might feel like doing something active on a Friday (Feeling high energy = increased NEAT by 'x') expending more calorie and falsely assuming you're just high energy because it's Friday. Chalking it up to a regular week. Variances such as Monday and Friday occurring sporadically and unrealized by the subject over the course of the experiment spoil the data right there.

lets just say .00033g LBM is gained /day while losing adipose. This means over 13 weeks of perfect consistency (not gong to happen) would net you .03g of LBM gained. Can this even be accurately measured with today's tech?

There are just too many little energy expenditures that slip through the cracks summing up to a large enough number to spoil this kind of study.

My personal conlusion:

Spoiler!

[boo99]

I started coming to these forums in 2003 and back then the general advice was to tell everyone to eat big and train hard. I don't recall many caring about abs back then. I really think this became more prevalent in the past 10 years.

Very true

I had to think back to my starting days in the gym, others I trained with then etc, and honestly don't recall anyone being so into abs, even the pros on cell tech weren't that obsessed with them

We trained them of course, but the focus was on every muscle equally, not just one area

[Mrpb]

The 2 posts mrpb made did imply he believed weight gain is possible in a deficit for all purposes relative to the conversation.

Yes it is and it's backed up by scientific data from Kevin Hall's lab (his studies tend to be metabolic ward studies with the highest level of control).

You may have misunderstood the part you quoted by the way. Notice that the two sentences you quoted are separated by a full stop and a blank line, indicating that they should not be read as one sentence. No one is suggesting that people should bulk from a lean 75kg to a lean 80kg by eating a deficit of course. That would be ridiculous.

As to your point that current technology can't accurately measure changes in LBM. I'd agree with you if we were discussing individual changes but we're discussing group changes over 12 weeks with n=17 in the Antonio study for example. That will take care of the standard error in individual measurements.

Not that I care that much about LBM changes because LBM changes aren't a great gauge for changes in skeletal muscle, even on a group level. I'd rather focus on studies that actually measure skeletal muscle, which can be done pretty accurately with biopsy (still not 100% accurate of course but a lot better than trusting LBM data). Not that that would change any of the points I've been making in this thread.

[necon76]

Agree with you guys but wanted to add that it seems these days (compared to when I started lifting and was a young dude) quite alot of the younger noobs have this obsession with having abs, over putting on overall mass, which wasn't a goal and I don't even remember it being discussed back when I began generally.......and that appears to hold some guys back a bit in gaining the most LBM as possible as noobs

True. No one cared about abs in the 70s.

[Shadowman82]

I'm not entirely sure where the obsession with a very lean physique comes from . Sure the media is constantly bombarding us with guys that look like that but wether they started the trend I don't know . But yeah look at action movie stars of the 70s and compare them to today . Heck look at Connery and Moore as Bond and compare their bodies to what Daniel Craig looked like as Bond . True Connery was once a bodybuilder but by the time he was playing Bond he looked pretty average actually body wise . Moore was never huge or muscular to begin with , also average body .

[achillesbruh]

eat at maintanence untill you no longer progress for 2 weeks, then add 200 calories, rinse, repeat. secret has been reveals.

[Joseph1990]

Yes it is and it's backed up by scientific data from Kevin Hall's lab (his studies tend to be metabolic ward studies with the highest level of control).

As to your point that current technology can't accurately measure changes in LBM. I'd agree with you if we were discussing individual changes but we're discussing group changes over 12 weeks with n=17 in the Antonio study for example. That will take care of the standard error in individual measurements.

I'm skeptical leaning towards I flat out don't believe the studies at all. You're going to have to break down to me how they magically become so much more accurate by adding more people and n=17.

Until I see otherwise I'm going to have to stand by it's not possible to a degree that can be achieved in the real world with real impact.

[Mrpb]

I'm skeptical leaning towards I flat out don't believe the studies at all. You're going to have to break down to me how they magically become so much more accurate by adding more people and n=17.

A measurement has a certain standard error. When you measure a group you can perform a measurement for each participant. As the number of measurements increases, the standard error decreases. In other words, the standard error evens out. That way you get more precision in the result.

But as I briefly mentioned before, accuracy in measuring lean body mass doesn't mean accuracy in measuring muscle mass. In one study they found no difference between groups when using DEXA scans, when they used biopsy they found almost twice the muscle growth in one group.

Until I see otherwise I'm going to have to stand by it's not possible to a degree that can be achieved in the real world with real impact.

Well it's not possible to maximise muscle gain in deficit, I agree with you on that. The size of the deficit correlates almost perfectly with the decrease in muscle protein synthesis. Meaning a 30% energy deficit leads to roughly a 30% decrease in MPS. So eating a large deficit makes it almost impossible to gain muscle. As calories increase though, it becomes more viable.

On the topic of gaining muscle while losing fat, here's an interview with Stu Phillips one of the most respected researchers on the topic, he addresses it in one of the questions: http://www.leanbodiesconsulting.com/...uart-phillips/

[Shadowman82]

Well obviously being in a large deficit and trying to gain muscle is pretty silly . The only way I could see that working for a while was if someone was very overweight and very untrained .

[Dorich]

He puts it very well IMO:

[Heterodox]

I would like to share my own experience with this.

My progress was extremely slow when i was eating at maintenance when i was 140lbs and skinny fat, my lifts were going up but very very slowly and i hated looking skinny in a t shirt so I decided to screw worrying about fat gain and just bulk to 160 i just didn't want to be so skinny, I got a bit carried away and achieved 160 in just 2 months. I gained some fat no doubt but my lifts started going up significantly faster and there was no doubt eating at maintenance was holding me back.

However now i am eating at maintenance again weighing around 160 and i am progressing just as fast, now i am not sure if this is because its easier now i am carrying more bodyfat or it could be that at 140 i was under weight and my body simply wanted more than maintenance calories?

[Heisman2]

I would like to share my own experience with this.

My progress was extremely slow when i was eating at maintenance when i was 140lbs and skinny fat, my lifts were going up but very very slowly and i hated looking skinny in a t shirt so I decided to screw worrying about fat gain and just bulk to 160 i just didn't want to be so skinny, I got a bit carried away and achieved 160 in just 2 months. I gained some fat no doubt but my lifts started going up significantly faster and there was no doubt eating at maintenance was holding me back.

However now i am eating at maintenance again weighing around 160 and i am progressing just as fast, now i am not sure if this is because its easier now i am carrying more bodyfat or it could be that at 140 i was under weight and my body simply wanted more than maintenance calories?

How tall are you? Male or female?