Brandon Bulking Phase - Part 2: Training/Results
In part 1 of 2 in this article series (READ HERE), I talked about my nutrition approach and my mindset going into this 12 week bulk.
In this article, I am going to touch more on my training, the results, and some takeaways for the future.
Training
Intent
My goal was to maximize muscle hypertrophy (fancy way of saying muscle growth). This means over the course of a mesocycle and macrocycle, I will be progressing through increases in volume and intensity to get bigger. For me, my arms and legs are a weak point so there is slightly more focus to try and bring those up. Although, this was not done at the expense of overall body progression. I am probably not experienced enough as a lifter to do full-on specialization phases. My training goal also coincided with my high carb approach that I touched on in my previous article. If you want to make sure you check all your boxes when gaining weight, your nutrition should also take on a periodized, structured approach.
Also, to reiterate a statement made in part 1, I wanted to make training my primary focus. I wanted to have a sense of anxiety going into harder training sessions. For me, it was to get training in a place to where I was doing things I had never done before without totally destroying myself.
Split
For the past 10 months, I've essentially been running the same split:
Upper/Lower/Rest/Pull/Push/Legs/Rest
I choose to do this split because it gives me enough frequency where I can essentially check all my boxes in terms of volume and adhere to even in busier times. I generally enjoy this split and it is something my coach Steve Hall has helped me navigate over time to tweak it better for my individual needs.
Exercise Selection
Programming Notes:
No Deadlifts off the ground: Something that is foreign to a lot of athletes, especially powerlifters, is not having a deadlift off the ground in a training split. First off, my back is my strongest body part, so there is a rationale to not devoting as much programming focus to it while other lagging parts (arms & legs) can take on more volume. Secondly, deadlifts generate a lot of systemic fatigue. This means that per unit of volume, they can create a large overall stimulus, but at the expense of a great amount of fatigue. Considering I could potentially benefit from more direct glute and hamstring work, something like a Romanian Deadlift variation is more suitable to my goals. This is a humbling conclusion considering the deadlift is my strongest move and also my favorite. It was a tough choice to let go, but the rationale just backed up its case and it made sense to go this route.
No Shoulder Pressing: I had no shoulder pressing in my programming these 12 weeks. Reason being is that there’s reason to believe that your anterior delts already get a lot of work from all the horizontal pressing one does throughout the week. From there, you can make up the practical amount of volume left through lateral and rear delt work to really maximize all around shoulder development. That being said, I still included a good amount of incline pressing which still hits the anterior delts, just not as much as would a standard shoulder press.
Down Sets: Down sets are a technique that powerlifters and bodybuilders can both get benefits from including in their programming. Essentially, it allows you to get in more sets of an exercise over the course of a training block without accumulating as much fatigue as if they were all straight sets. The way my programming was set up was to include a couple of top sets at a prescribed weight followed by lighter sets where intensity was reduced 10-15% of the top set. Another benefit is to give more practice to performing the movements themselves.
Metabolite Work: My coach likes to periodize hypertrophy training block such that volume increases over the course of a mesocycle and a macrocycle. This means that while volume increases week to week, it also increases from one training block to the next one. As this goes on, your body becomes more desensitized to high volume training. The theory is that there is a marginal benefit of using all your intensity techniques at your disposal to max out volume before you start over this cycle and enter a lower volume phase. This means incorporate techniques such as drop sets, myo-reps and supersets to increase metabolite accumulation in the blood, or in bro terms get a better “pump”. Now because this is a chemical accumulation and not a physical one, there is some theory that your body can only benefit so long from doing this work. Therefore, its best reserved to saving towards to later of your hypertrophy mesocycles. My coach has another great podcast going into this in more detail
Progression
Progression through overload over time is essentially how you get bigger. Now there are a multitude of different ways to achieve this particular outcome. You can progress over time in volume, intensity, rest times, form, rep speed, and a host of other variables. The way my programming was set-up was using the concept of Volume Landmarks (popularized by Dr. Mike Israetel (Read more here: https://renaissanceperiodization.com/training-volume-landmarks-muscle-growth/).
It its simplest sense, progressing through your volume landmarks is a training technique that uses systems in place to alter your volume over time to progress based on 1) previous data (your OWN volume landmarks) and 2) your own subjective fatigue ratings. Its a very fun, evidence-based away to approach your training, especially for engineers like me who love to look at data. Using these concepts, I was able to take note of several training conclusions that are individual to me:
1. I don't need high Hamstring or Chest Volume: For me, I am fairly good at feeling my hamstrings when I hip-hinge. I can really get a good overloading workout in from minimal sets of hamstrings. Because of this, I'm able to "donate" more of my prioritization to Quad volume. As for my chest, I find that my performance can drop off pretty quickly throughout a workout from doing a lot of pressing.
2. It is easier for me to progress my back volume: My back being my strongest body part, has always had a good mind-muscle connection. Thus, from whatever training volume arises week to week, I am fairly certain that I am targeting and overloading week to week.
Nutrition Data
Let’s look at some takeaway points. First off, I essentially was right on pace with my goal to hit 185-186 lbs by the end of the mass.
Calorie bump from 3200-3300 to 3400-3500:
From Week 8 to week 9, my calories went up from 3200-3300 to 3400-3500. Why the change? If you look at the scale weight data, there is probably a 3 week period where weight seems to stall a little bit. Is it possible my maintenance went up to around 3200 from my earlier claim of 2900-3100? Perhaps not long term, but an important thing to note is that when dieting we pick-up a lot of negative effects that make dieting harder. This includes slower metabolism, reduction in NEAT (basically being more lazy), and slower calorie expenditure from digesting food. All of these contribute to less overall calories burned per day. Now after 8 or so weeks of not dieting, there’s a very high probability that most of these effects were reduced. I was subconsciously moving around more, eating more food, and doing higher volume training. All of these factors may have contributed to this increase in my maintenance baseline. But, just like when dieting, no rash decisions were made the SECOND I started feeling more tired.
This decision was made because there was about a 2-3 week trend of training moving a little slower, getting more hungry and more lethargic. By being patient and letting 2-3 weeks of data and subjective markers come in, there was a higher probability that we had accurately diagnosed the reason for my scale weight stall. From there, a 200 calorie spike was made to my daily macros. A 100 calorie increase would of been a <5% increase to my calorie intake while 200 calorie increase was a 5-10% increase. The higher increase was made considering that the smaller increase may have not resulted in a meaningful change given its small effect size.
High Weigh-Ins
Another note is that in a lot of the middle days of the week, I had some obnoxiously high weigh ins (See the 188 lb weigh-ins in the later weeks). Remember that when you train hard and have Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), you hold onto water. My high volume Quad focused day was usually on Monday, meaning that on Tuesday and Wednesday my legs were nice and puffy because they were slowly recovering. Don’t freak out of high weigh-ins when bulking and just keep sticking to macros and the fluctuations will falter out, just like they do when on a cutting phase.
Training Data
As you can see, things went pretty good! Feel free to scroll right to left to see both starting and ending points for both training blocks.
I progressed exactly as I wanted to on my Squat and hip hinging movements, hitting PRs after each training block in both. Pulling movements moved well too with some rowing PRs and a cable upright Row volume PR. Pressing movements did not move as smoothly, but looking back they moved pretty well given the circumstances.
Reflection/Takeaways
As with any planned progression period of nutrition and training, reflection will always be a key component helping you climb closer to your desired outcome. For this bulk, I had several takeaways.
High Carb/Low Fat
For the most part, I did well with this approach. But I have to say, sticking to lower fats with such a big calorie range is a big task in itself. For me, this required a lot of planning. I only could strategically choose where I wanted to place fats. I chose to eat them mainly later in the day or at least after training. It was also a lot harder to do when I had events planned. On those days, I went closer to the higher end of my fat range. Also, on some days I felt pretty lethargic and craved fats. I found that 50g was too low and a minimum of at least 60-65g had me feeling fairly normal. I would not recommend this approach for a couple different types of people.
1. People who don’t have a lot of years under their belt with tracking: It can be very meticulous and frustrating having to plan out meals a while in advance to make sure you don’t go over in carbs. Because I have 3+ years of tracking food I had a very good intuition about what foods to eat when I was out or didn’t have as much time to plan out foods. You need a very good knowledge of food macro composition and how to select foods to minimize fats.
2. People who don’t like routine as much: In an offseason, it is important to use it as a break from structure. I am okay with eating foods like rice and pasta over and over again to stick to the high carb/low fat approach. It can be very hard to fit in a lot of tastier foods like sushi, donuts, chipotle, etc because of their high fat content.
Hunger/Sleep
As I progressed, I did a better job than last time with hunger and sleep. I started taking a majority of my days as if I were on a cut and tried to really maximize recovery and relaxation to have as many overloading lifting sessions as possible. I also found that in the morning I tended to be fairly hungry if I had a big workout. I tried to include a little bit of fats in this meal to help keep me a little more satiated as opposed to a meal of just carbs and protein.
Nutrient Timing
This was one variable that I really impressed myself with. First off, I did a much better job spreading protein throughout the day. I typically had a minimum of 4 servings of protein with sometimes getting 5 or 6. I found this helped me not feel as bloated/lethargic all the time and helped a little bit with recovery. Greek Yogurt and Casein protien were two big contributing factors to getting more consistent feedings in. I typically had a greek yogurt snack more or less every day (with some fruit and other carbs). Then, 2-3 times a week I would try and have some casein (slow digesting) protein with my big bowl of cereal. It was little planning victories night after night that set me up to be more consistent. Although this has a very small effect size out of all the variables that matter, it was step I wanted to take in order to step up my nutrition game.
Focusing on Training
I did a really good job prioritizing training. It was my sole focus leading into those last harder weeks. I did things I NEVER have done in the gym before. More importantly, I progressed at a rate that I was fine with. In the future, I want to solidify this approach at picking starting weights and being able to ramp up volume and intensity from there. Not to mention, form was probably the most crisp it has ever been. No wasted momentum on back movements, no bouncing off the chest on pressing, and no unwasted motion in any leg exercise.
Future Outlook
I am now currently in a low-volume maintenance phase holding around 185-186. My scale weight has came down from those later weeks due to 1) lower carbohydrate intake 2) less cellular swelling because I haven't been as sore. I hope to push another 10 lbs by late fall/early winter afterwards. Calories will start at 3400-3500, interested to see how long it will take for another bump. Have never been on 3600-3700 daily calories. Eating should be very interesting then! Haven't been above 192 lbs. since spring 2017 while dieting.
I hope to keep nailing my recovery modalities. I recently started a new job and don't have to commute an hour to and from work anymore. This means more time for other activiites including sleep :) which should help a LOT with recovery. I am also going to keep pushing the High Carb approach and open up my flexibility to try some new foods in the area. I am in a state where I am not diet fatigued, have a pretty good idea of my calories and am very focused on training.
The goal is to stay level-headed, keep my targets in mind, and have another productive bulking phase up until December where I will be doing a Mini-Cut to further potentiate even MORE Bulking.