Bryan’s Comprehensive Beginners Guide to Bulking Lately I’ve been getting hammered with beginners asking very basic “What should I do?” and “where do I start” kinds of questions. Rather than spend tons of time reciting the same stuff over and over to various individuals, I’ve decided to compose this summation of what I’ve learned and would recommend to beginning weight lifters wanting to gain quality muscle. I’ll cover the three cornerstones of gaining: diet, training, and supplementation. Bear in mind some things, I am NOT a dietician, nor am I a certified personal trainer, and I am most certainly not the most knowledgeable in any aspect of bodybuilding. Furthermore, I can only speak on things I have personal experience with or have found a general consensus among other experienced lifters. This is more of what I would recommend, versus being what is actually the best. With that in mind, let’s begin!
Diet Let’s start out with the single most important and most often neglected portion of gaining muscle, DIET! That’s right, without a proper, high
protein and high calorie diet, you WILL NOT make the gains you want or, at the very best, an appreciable rate. I’ve watched too many hardworking individuals slave away in the gym only to shoot themselves in the foot by not eating enough.
A diet isn’t something you do just to lose weight, those are fad diets. When I say diet, I’m talking about a regular, scheduled eating plan. Ideally, you will want to be consuming 6-7 quality meals per day. This might seem overwhelming at first, but bear in mind that eating, like strength training, takes time to build up. Just like you have to work at it every week to build your bench press numbers up, so you also have to work at eating. This is extremely important for 2 reasons: it will keep your muscles fed with a steady supply of nutrients throughout the day and it will elevate your metabolism to help minimize fat gains. Start out with smaller meals eating every 2-3 hours. This should land you in the 6-7 meal range.
However, eating often isn’t the end of it. What you eat is just as important. I’ve heard it put this way “all calories are not created equal” and it’s very true. Some good general rules to begin with are as follows:
-Choose carbohydrate sources from whole grain and low-glycemic index (GI) sources.
This does not necessarily mean complex carbohydrate sources!
Maltodextrin, a common component of weight gainers, is a high-glycemic complex carbohydrate. Though in the right context, high GI carbs can be beneficial. I’ll go into this later. Low GI carbs provide a longer-lasting supply of carbs in the bloodstream and more importantly, do not
spike insulin levels, which can result in extra fat gains and low
blood sugar levels after the over secretion subsides. This is a lose-lose situation. The first loss is that high insulin levels
PREVENT fat burning. By avoiding insulin spikes, you’ll help ensure your gains are leaner, aka more muscle, less fat. The second loss is the hypoglycemia that results from the crash after too much insulin hangs around once carbs have been shuttled into cells. This can create a catabolic environment, meaning muscle loss.
-Choose
lean protein sources.
Muscle is
protein. It’s pretty simple. So it makes sense that you’d need it and lots of it if you want to get more muscle. This can mean any variety of foods including, but not limited to chicken, beef, eggs, pork, fish, shrimp, milk, whey, and on and on. All have their advantages and a place in a bulking diet. However, avoid choosing excessively fatty foods, especially meats, as these generally tend to be high in saturated fats. Not cool. A good general rule of thumb is 2 grams of
protein for every 1 gram of fat or better. Get used to checking nutrition labels. Granted, there’s more to it then this, but the 2:1 rule works pretty well when you’re first starting off lifting or getting a diet in order. Also important is quantity. 1.5g
protein per pound of bodyweight is probably sufficient. I would not recommend below 1g/lb. Another point to consider, part of the advantage of high
protein diets is not only that they build muscle, but
protein has a high Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) meaning it takes a lot more
energy to metabolize it in your body. This also will help keep gains leaner.
-Fats are essential!
They comprise the majority of the membrane of every cell in your body and even cholesterol is needed as it’s a precursor to testosterone. But not all fats are needed! Saturated fats and Trans fats are what you’ll want to be weary of. In addition to the fats you’ll inevitably pick up from carbohydrate and
protein sources, other fats are invaluable.
Flax seed oil is my personal preference. It contains a great ratio of
Omega-3 and -6
fatty acids, which are excellent at promoting good blood lipid profiles and boosting calories from a healthy source.
Fish oil works along the same lines, but can be less economical and generally in tablets. I prefer
flax simply because I can throw a tablespoon in with a
protein shake and not notice it. Other good fat sources are fatty fish such as salmon, nuts, and peanut butter or almond butter (NATURAL, not Jiff-style!). However, don’t overdo it. Fats provide over twice the calories per gram of
carbohydrates and proteins and can easily cause you to lose track of your daily intake.
-Water!
And tons of it. A gallon per day is generally good for most. Your body is made up mostly of water, so why would you think you can increase your body size without increasing your intake of it? Nothing complicated here, get a big water jug (like an empty half gallon or gallon of milk) and haul it with you everywhere drinking it all the time. No excuses and yes, you will piss keg or two. It comes with the territory.
Your necessary caloric intake will vary. My recommendation is to start at about 2,500-3,000 calories per day for a week or so and
see how you progress. Increase your calories about by about 200/week until you start to
see the growth you want. This will all vary by individual of course.
-Now for another essential topic: nutrient timing.
This is just basically when to eat what. I’ll keep this relatively simple. Breakfast should be a very large meal. Think about it, you haven’t eaten for probably 8 hours or so and your body is ready to get started. Eating a high
protein and carb meal here will get your body back into a positive nitrogen balance and rev up your metabolism. Another key timing is post workout. It’s vital that you ingest a good amount of
protein (~50g) and plenty of carbs (75~100g). I’d recommend these come from a mixture of low and high GI sources. The high GI sources can be yogurt,
dextrose,
maltodextrin, or baked potato. These will quickly replenish your expended muscular glycogen (carb) reserves. The low GI may help to level out the insulin
spike and blood glucose drop, but that’s just my theorizing. At the least, it will help keep
carbohydrates in your bloodstream longer until you’re ready to eat again, which should happen before you reach 3 hours after workout completion. The final nutrient timing I’ll discuss is bedtime. The key here is slow
digestion so nutrients will be in your system later into the night after you’ve gone to bed. Good
protein sources are
casein, either from shakes, milk, or best of all cottage cheese. But any whole
protein will still be decent. Also, fats come into play here as they slow
digestion. Peanut butter or almond butter would be a good choice along with a teaspoon or so of
flax oil to improve the omega 3:6 ratio. Avoid carbs as best you can before bed. Some are inevitable, but you don’t want them to be high here.
Here’s a sample eating plan for an afternoon workout, it’s not perfect though:
Meal 1- 6 egg whites, 2 whole eggs, 1 cup of raw Quaker oats mixed with cinnamon and Splenda, 1 banana
Meal 2-
protein shake (16oz. milk, 2 scoops whey), ¼ cup nuts
Meal 3- 6-8oz chicken breast, 1 cup of green beans, 1 cup brown rice with salsa
Meal 4- Big sandwich (roast beef, turkey, ham, light cheese, veggies), whole wheat bread, fruit
(Workout!)
Meal 5-
protein shake or
weight gainer, 1/2 cup Quaker oats, 1 cup yogurt
Meal 6- 6-8oz lean steak (preferably the round cut), sweet potato, 1 cup carrots
Meal 7- 1 cup cottage cheese, 2 tbsp. natural peanut butter, small
protein shake (casein-based ideally)
Remember that this is just a template, you can work things however you want provided you try to stay toward some general guidelines. Everyone’s needs and situation is different. Also, don’t be overly afraid to cheat every now and then. When you’re bulking, being excessively strict isn’t as vital as cutting, so enjoy a meal of binge eating with friends once or twice a week. Just don’t make a habit of it. Never forget this:
“Stimulation happens in the gym, growth happens in the kitchen!”Training Man that was a lot more than I thought it would be! Now on to the gym! Where to start here? First and foremost, train EVERYTHING! This should go without saying, but going in with the mindset of working biceps and chest every day will land you a lopsided physique. Many, though not all, experienced lifters train each muscle group only 1-2 times per week. Yep, as little as 1 time per week. In fact, that’s where I recommend every new lifter begins. Increased frequency can be beneficial, but newer lifters will benefit especially from the shorter workouts and better focus on exercise execution. One program I’ll highly recommend is Max-OT, a program made available for free from
AST Sports Science. You can sign up for their 12-week program at www.ast-ss.com. For those who’d rather read, I’ll cover the basics here.
You’ll train basically two different muscle groups per day. Here’s an example training split:
Monday- Quadriceps and hamstrings
Tuesday- Chest and Triceps
Wednesday- Back and biceps
Thursday- Shoulders and Traps
Friday- Abs, calves, and forearms
Saturday- rest
Sunday- rest
What exercises you choose are up to you. I would choose 2-3 exercises that each hit a muscle from a slightly different angle or method. To use chest as an example, choose flat barbell bench press, incline dumbbell bench press, and low cable crossovers. With these three exercises in mind, hit each for two sets only (or 3 at most, provided you reduce the number of sets on another exercise)! No more and yes, this will be more than sufficient to give you quality growth. The smaller muscle groups (biceps and triceps) can be sufficiently stimulated with 3-4 sets, since they are heavily involved in back and chest work respectively. So if you have any basic math skills, that means 6 sets total per muscle group for about 12 total sets per workout. Take about a 2 minute rest between sets to recuperate. In the end, you’ll want to be out of the gym in 45 minutes to an hour. Longer and you’ll start to get an increase in cortisol levels, a strongly catabolic (bad) hormone. Finally, your rep range will vary. I would recommend either 4-6 reps or 6-8 reps per set. This means at the 6th rep, you should NOT be able to complete another rep (or 8th). This is positive failure, it’s how you grow and get stronger. If you can get 6 reps for every set, it’s time to step the weight up!
Of course, there’s also cardio training. While it has its merits for sport-specific training and cutting, I don’t recommend you do cardio while trying to gain muscle. All you will be doing is burning vital additional calories and potentially tearing into your heard-earned muscle. Don’t try to justify it; cardio is good for losing weight and being a better runner/cyclist/etc. Focus on gaining mass, since that’s what you want, and go after it 100%.
One good tip is to take a notebook with you. Track every set and rep of your workouts. Recording your weights (and bodyweight!) and reps will not only help you
see your progress and motivate you, it’ll make sure you don’t forget what weight to use on a particular exercise! This is especially important the first 2-3 weeks of your training as you’ll mostly be trying to assess where you are in terms of strength and will obviously have to work your way up to your failure point. Along this same theme, progress photos are a GREAT motivator. Take a few pictures at least monthly in the same position or pose. You will be glad you did a year down the road when you look back.
No discussion of training would be complete without touching on overtraining. This is when you work too hard and short-circuit your gains. I’d be willing to bet many people you
see in the gym do this. They’re in the gym for 2 hours, train their whole body every day, and train every day. This is bad. It does not allow your body enough time to recover after workouts primarily, which is vital to making growth. It also elevates cortisol levels. Keeping your training frequency low (times per week you hit a muscle) and time in the gym low will
prevent you from overtraining. Don’t forget:
“You cannot out-train a bad diet!” No volume of training is going to compensate for a lack of properly applying training or diet principles. So don’t think that by working out more and kicking your own ass more often than others in the gym will make you a better physique, because it won’t. Getting in great shape is often also about what you DON'T do and sometimes holding yourself back.
Supplements Oh boy, here we go. This is probably the most overrated department of developing a good physique. Don’t get me wrong, supplements are wonderful and can, when the proper ones are applied in the proper context, substantially enhance your progress. But too often many elevate them to a level of importance they don’t warrant. Supplements will not help you gain 30 pounds in a month or lose that amount that quickly either. They will augment (supplement, get it?) what you’re already doing. So with that in mind, let’s touch on a few.
-Protein shakes
The single most vital supplement you’ll purchase. If you can only buy one thing, get a quality
whey protein shake. Personally, I recommend Optimum Nutrition’s
100% Whey Protein. It’s arguably the best price-quality
protein on the market. There are more “pure”
protein sources, but the price difference, in my opinion, just can’t justify it. Flavors are up to you, chocolate- and vanilla-based flavors are best for milk shakes while fruit flavors tend to be better when you’re going to mix with water. I’d recommend 2-3 shakes per day, one with/for breakfast, one after your workout, and one before bed. This will supply additional
protein when you need it most.
-Creatine
Regardless of the millions of opinions on various forms and brands of
creatine, it’s still
creatine and it’s still very effective at increasing size and strength. Start with reliable, cheap,
creatine monohydrate. It works and it’s the cheapest. Buy the plain raw powder and throw in 5g with each of 2 shakes, one morning and one afternoon dose. It is not necessary to “load”
creatine, which is taking large doses at the beginning of use. Muscles get saturated with
creatine, once they are at this point, maintaining
creatine levels is all that matters. So after 2 weeks of using
creatine, “jacking up” the dose to 20g or 30g per day will make no difference but burn through your supply faster. Be sure, however, to jack up your water intake to about a gallon per day (which you should already be doing regardless). I’ll touch on
creatine concoctions in a bit.
-Flax/
Fish Oil I already touched on this in the diet, but these are great sources of fat calories and are great for generating growth. 2 tablespoons per day of
flax oil should be plenty and you can mix it in with your
protein shakes and
creatine.
-Carbs
This is really
maltodextrin and
dextrose. Both are high GI carbs and, when used in the right context, can be beneficial. Throw them in with your post workout
protein shake and you’ve got a DIY
gainer. Try about 25g of each (make sure you increase your water in the shake some to allow for the extra solute to be dissolved). Also, they are good during your workout. This spares muscles and glycogen from being used as
energy. Mix them in with some crystal light or
BCAA mixture (again, I’ll discuss soon). Other than these times, they really aren’t necessary.
-Multivitamin
Should go without saying, but having a quality multivitamin will make sure you body gets everything it needs to do everything it does. Which you choose is up to you, but look for one with primarily amino acid chelated sources, such as NOW Food’s ADAM multivitamin.
-Creatine/
Nitric Oxide Concoctions
These are products like N.O.-Xplode,
Xpand,
V-12,
NO Shotgun, etc. Most include some form of
creatine in conjunction with other “preworkout boosters.” These can range from
amino acids such as arginine to
caffeine. They’re usually not cheap and
nitric oxide (aka pump) enhancers are NOT necessary. They won’t increase your growth, but can obviously be fun in the gym and may enhance your training
intensity and satisfaction. Just have reasonable expectations. If you want to save money, look for simple arginine supplements such as
AAKG powder and
citrulline malate, as these are the primary pump-boosters in these products.
Other
creatine concoctions are not
nitric oxide promoters. These are mostly just way overpriced
creatine and
dextrose mixes. Don’t buy these. The same theoretical effect can be achieved through using plain
creatine powder and sugar for a lot less.
-Branched Chain
Amino Acids (
BCAAs)
Before you ask, yes, these are in every
protein you eat. However, using isolated
amino acids means much faster absorbance.
BCAAs are especially important because they are metabolized as fuel during exercise. Supplementing with them has been reported to increase recovery ability between both sets and workouts. Also, L-leucine (one of the
BCAAs) has been shown to be directly linked to increased
protein synthesis. Hell yea! However, supplementation with L-leucine alone depletes levels of L-valine and L-isoleucine, the other
BCAAs. So using
BCAAs instead of just leucine is important. The best time to use these are during your workout and immediately afterwards.
Xtend is a great product by
Scivation which combines
BCAAs,
glutamine, and
citrulline malate and, in my experience, works great at improving recovery. Mixing this in conjunction with simple carbs during workout (like Gatorade for instance) would make a great workout mix.
-Caffeine
It’s popular not just with early morning workers, but also as a
preworkout lift. It will increase your strength slightly but can lead to crashing, or really low
energy, late into your workout. This is bad.
Caffeine also increases your metabolism, which I believe to mean will burn more vital calories that could be put to use growing. My only recommendation is don’t overdo it. Minimize your
caffeine when bulking.
There are obviously tons of other types of supplements out there and you’ll learn more about them as you hopefully do your own research. These are just some of the more commonly used supplements which are beneficial for bulking. It’d take way too much time and effort on my part to go into each and every supplement you could use.
Here’s what I call my “Perfect Beginner Bulking Package”
-ON’s
100% Whey Protein-PrimaForce
CreaForm-NOW
Flax Seed Oil-NOW ADAM Multivitamin
It’s basic and very effective. I started with this and made gains along the lines of 2.5-3 pounds of mass a week for nearly the first 6-8 weeks. The leveling-off thereafter is normal.
Wrapping Up Hopefully you’ve actually read this entire thing. Just know that it’s only the beginning. My goal here is to provide you with a solid working foundation of what it takes to
see the results you want, not to be the end-all of your bodybuilding learning. While it may all seem overwhelming at first, practical application will help it all soak in very fast. If you still have questions after all this, that’s what forums and friends are for. Ask questions, but most importantly read. People get annoyed being asked questions that could easily be found by simply putting a little effort into Google or a search feature. Also, don’t mistake this article as me being pissed off at having to talk with other people starting out about bodybuilding and training. I love it and it keeps me motivated and on my toes. Let me know how you progress using this advice! I love to hear success stories, especially ones I helped write.
If you want to
see what this advice has done for me, check this video out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsDKZBIU48 Now go smash f*cking weights!
Bryan's Complete Beginner's Bulking Guide, This is overdue. Read before asking ?s!
. How do you keep the fat levels down because i noticed your abs are built up like crazy. Do you take and suppliments to help with fat loss?? 
he was pretty big 
