The Philosophy Behind Bulking and Cutting

When asking someone what their fitness goals are you might often hear them say they’re “bulking” or “cutting”.  But what exactly IS bulking and cutting?

Bulking and cutting are both PHASES that change the body composition of an individual.

Whys is bulking or cutting even necessary?

People always ask the age-old question “why cant I just build muscle AND burn fat simultaneously?”

The answer is simple, you cant. Building muscle and Burning fat at the SAME TIME is only possible in 3 instances:

1. If you are a complete beginner at the gym your body WILL build a small amount of muscle and burn fat for a SHORT period of time. I like to call these “Noob Gains”. This happens for a few months only but people have the misconception that they can continue doing this. Chances are after you’ve been exercising for longer then 6 months you will need to start bulking and cutting phases.
2. If you are chemically enhanced. The advice in my blogs is strictly for people who are NATURAL. Individuals taking Steroids or other drugs CAN build muscle and burn fat at the same time. There are obvious repercussions for choosing to do this I wont go too in depth on that.
3. If you are genetically gifted (lucky you). Although it is extremely uncommon there ARE some people who can build muscle and burn fat just because their genes are that good.

So for the rest of us mortals there are 2 phases for changing the composition of your body.

BULKING

is when the goal of the individual includes putting on muscle mass and increasing the size of their overall body frame. While Bulking your weight WILL increase.

People often have a drastic misconception as to what bulking actually is. Bulking does NOT mean eat what ever you want and exercise to gain weight. Yes you will gain weight but that weight will consist of FAT. Remember the goal for bulking is to put on as much muscle mass as possible while putting on as little fat as possible.

CUTTING

When the goal of the individual is to lose/burn excess body fat WHILE preserving as much LEAN body mass as possible.

It is important to remember losing “weight” is NOT cutting, losing weight can include losing both fat AND muscle, the goal of “cutting” is to lose fat only while preserving all or as much of your hard earned muscle mass. When dieting it is important to remember there is a big difference between trying to lose weight, and trying to lose fat.

The most common mistake people make while either bulking or cutting is gaining or losing weight TOO QUICKLY. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re trying to put on weight, you shouldn’t be gaining more than 1.5-2 pounds per week or you can be sure you’re putting on fat. If you’re trying to lose weight you shouldn’t be losing more than 2 pounds per week or you’re going to be losing some muscle mass.

The SpongeBob animation I have inserted below is a really good representation of the philosophy behind bulking and cutting.

 When people ask me “why bulk?” I always give them a really simple answer. I ask them, what is considered more impressive, a small extremely detailed stone sculpture, or a massive stone sculpture with just as much detail in the engraving? The answer would be undoubtedly the larger sculpture. Why? Because it is much more difficult and takes much more discipline and time to sculpt a large statue with extreme detail as compared to sculpting a small statue with just as much detail.

Before you can “sculpt” the perfect physique you must first ensure you have enough “stone” on your body to work with. If you are a naturally thin and small person (ectomorph) there is no sense in “sculpting” your frame since you do not have enough “stone” to chip away at. The first goal for you would be to add “stone” to your frame that you can later chip away at and mold into the body you want.

Once you have a significant amount of mass “stone” on your body just like the SpongeBob animation above, you can begin sculpting your physique

This Blog on Bulking and Cutting was just intended to tell you WHAT bulking and CUTTING are not necessarily HOW to do it. I will upload a blog talking in detail about how to go about bulking or cutting in the near future. I hope this helped everyone, and as always if you have any questions feel free to message me to get anything clarified.

Image by Cool Text: Logo and Button Generator - Create Your Own Logo