Is BULKING necessary for muscle growth?

Do you have to bulk to build muscle? Now this is a question I get all the time, seeing as though I am now 200 pounds at 46% body fat, but the answer here is no, and here’s why. At the end of the day, building muscle really just boils down to 3 things, training, recovery, and diet. Your training needs to be intense enough, or in other words close to enough to failure, where your muscles need to produce more force in order to keep moving the weight. This is what elicits mechanical tension. Then in order to translate that mechanical tension into actual muscle, you now need protein in order to support muscle protein synthesis. This is what actually hypertrophies the muscle, making your muscle cells larger. And then to continue building muscle from there, you need to repeat this process, over and over and over again, which requires consistent rest and recovery, to fuel and sustain your performance in the gym. In other words, if you eat right, with enough protein and calories, and you recover sufficiently, with lots of sleep, little stress, and proper training volume, you will build muscle assuming, you are training to failure and progressively overloading. So if that’s all you need, why even bulk in the first place? Very simple. Bulking significantly helps meet these requirements from your protein, your diet, your sleep, your calories, your carbs, your energy, and all other factors of your recovery, which significantly improves your performance in the gym, making your training much more productive, and much more hypertrophic. So, although bulking is not necessary, it will definitely speed up the muscle building process by creating a much more anabolic environment. But as with all things in life, if you don’t want to bulk, simply don’t bulk. Sure, you won’t build muscle as quickly, but it’s not like you can’t build muscle, right? As long as you’re still training hard, and making progress, even if it’s, you know super slow, you’re still making progress. And if you love being lean, and you don’t care about getting as big as possible, you know you’re not tryna be a bodybuilder, you just want a healthy, athletic physique, then yea bulking probably isn’t super necessary. But what is necessary is training hard, recovering, and eating enough pumpkin spice protein powder, which you can buy with code “MAXE” for 40% off anything on the myprotein website.

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About Me: I'm a college student with a passion for fitness hoping to make it my career. I started training in early 2019 and have devoted a big portion of my life to it ever since. Now, with the help of this amazing community I've been blessed to be a part of, I will try my best to give back the information I've learned for those hoping to embark on a journey of their own.

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[WalkerOfTheVoid]

max might not be pregnant, but he never fails to deliver.

[laytonstanner]

If anybody thinks he's 40 percent bf you need your eyes testing 😂

[ryanh]

Lots of sleep and little stress are my weakness.

[Paraselene_Tao]

It does get about this simple after a little practice: exercise three times a week with a focus on big compounds, rest days between those workout days, and eat about 0.8 grams protein per pound of bodyweight.

Hardly worry about the calories because you will need to eat so much protein that the calories will easily follow. There is a game with macros, but you can just focus on protein and let the calories follow your protein.

The time it takes to practice this is short, perhaps less than three months. By the end of that time, you can have the vast majority of good habits (exercise, rest, diet) figured out. The rest is small stuff.

[Randy-vgsd]

Bro explained everything in 1 video which is why I like watching your content.🙂

[vishweshmashruwala]

also i have noticed that when i am in a greater calorie surplus I recover faster, than when i am in only a slight surplus.

[michaeldaley]

you don't have to really bulk to build muscle, but I feel like why it works so well is most people neglect the importance of carbs in muscle growth. so most people notice large gains when bulking because they are actually getting adequate carbs

[boi-iese]

Day 1 of asking max for a cardio workout

[mariocosta]

I was just wondering about this question, thanks Maxine!

[rubygod]

Imo, Max Euceda is the best natural lifter. And the biggest 💪 keep going man, I love your content

[Suleyk]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to bulk, then once you have more muscle it will be much easier to cut because of your higher BMR? I feel like bulking and cutting will get you faster to your "goal" (ignoring the fact that we're always increasing our goal haha). Maybe just a slower bulk, doesn't need to be huge.

[dynaspinner]

This is maybe okay for beginners who are fat/skinny fat but it doesn't really apply if you are an intermediate or advanced right? You will see stupidly slow growth without being in a surplus if you try to recomp.

[eric]

Almost right, Max. You need to actually find the physical matter from somewhere... so if you're very lean (thus it can't come from fat), you'll have to eat in a surplus (or "bulk" lol)

[adamgucki]

it’s short, but it seems to be the best guide on achieving an aesthetic physique i have seen on youtube

[wolle]

BRO why is there a menace at 0:37 doing front raises at the lateral raise machine. i will never understand these dudes

[sng]

Bulking is definitely necessary if you’re serious about building muscle.

[BrofUJu]

You need to be in a calorie surplus to gain weight. Especially upping carbs has helped me so much and my strength is going through the roof.

[CHp-uptx]

Would be *really* useful to know whats your body-fat percentage. That way I would know what proportion muscle-fat I should aim. Nice vid btw

[Merudinnn]

You do kinda need a bulk if you wanna get stronger and make *consistent* improvements in the gym. if your body isnt in a slight surplus (200-300 extra calories) then it has to take that energy from somewhere else. If youre overweight (meaning ACTUALLY overweight, not just body dysmorphic) then you can build muscles and eat less because your body has fat stores it can use to fuel muscle growth. If youre already a skinny person though, training intensively and eating at maintenance can make you smaller and weaker. Especially because a lot of people are wrong about what their maintenance calories are lol

If youre watching this because you dont wanna bulk youre probably suffering from body dysmorphia and its making you scared of getting "fat" for no reason, and at that point you should probably see someone about that and get some help cause youre gonna develop an eating disorder. Just eat one extra meal a day, get your protein intake right, and train consistently and you dont need to worry about it after that.

[ChillyBlitzHD]

love you bro! always nice to see new content!