Deliberate Surplus, The Bulk Begins

In this post, I’ll discuss how I decided to focus on adding strength and size with a winter bulk after years of focusing exclusively on aesthetics and staying lean. I’ll walk through the steps I plan to take to gain size and strength without gaining too much body fat.

I am pretty lean and pretty strong relative to others my age and weight, ok with where I am in my fitness journey.  I am comfortable being able to maintain my current 12%-13% or so body fat and current strength levels, and also comfortable that I could get leaner if I wanted to.  I’ve accumulated the necessary tools to feel confident about that without any fear of losing my physique to some ephemeral or unknown variable that forces me into a dad bod.  

See the below chart for my daily weigh-ins since the end of March this year.  Hovering around 176 lbs, plus or minus 2 lbs, without much effort.

In summary, I think I have reached the point where I am willing to sacrifice aesthetics in order to get stronger.  So, I guess that means the time has come for me to bulk. And the timing works out such that my bulk will coincide with the traditional bulking season employed historically by gym bro’s for generations.

As noted above, me choosing to bulk comes down to confidence in my ability to maintain my current physique or diet down to get as lean as I am currently without much trouble.  It also comes down to a sense of urgency. At 38 years old, time is running out. I don’t know how many more years I have to grow my strength and the numbers on the bar before the slow march towards death begins.

I have basically concluded I don’t think I can gain strength from here without going up in weight, based on training very consistently with good programming for a few years with limited growth in strength.  By making strength a top priority, and adding some more weight to the frame, I am expecting higher absolute numbers on my lifts.  

The expectation and plan is to slowly add 10-15 pounds in bodyweight with a hard cap of 190 lbs weight or 20% body fat as measured by this machine I have that says I’m at just under 13% body fat today.  I will be bumping up calories by 500 from the start and might increase more as I go along, depending on how the gains are going.

Then I can strip away the extra layers and return to my current bodyweight, but stronger.  At least that’s the theory. The hope is that when it is done and I diet back down to 180 or so, that I’ll keep more muscle than I had before at 180 lbs.  

The internal permission for me to do this really came from a poorly tailored suit from Indochino.  I ordered a made-to-measure suit, after going in to a retail location to get measured by a guy there. When it came, it had a much bigger waist than it should have.  So, I was like, hmmm, at least I know that if I bulk and I have to put on a suit for work, it won’t be uncomfortably snug. That’s always a concern.  

It was never pressure from my wife that held me back from bulking.  She’d be fine if I was fluffier (and she’d probably prefer it if I generally cared less about all this fitness stuff that keeps me so busy).  Also, my kids don’t care. Long-term negative health impacts of carrying more body fat for a few months is probably not going to make much difference either.  So, nothing is holding me back, why not?

The Plan:

• Gain 15 pounds, stop at 190 or 20% body fat, at a rate of around 1 lb per week
• Eat in a 500 calories per day surplus per day, mostly from extra carbs
• Track measurements weekly, take photos
• Higher volume training, less cardio
• After the bulk, peel away the fluffy layers and get back to 180 lbs, but stronger than ever

So, the bulk begins this week.  Here are the official statistics I’ll be measuring and updating over the next 10-12 weeks until this is over.  

• Stats I care about tracking:
  • Trailing 7 day average weight
  • Trailing 7 day average body fat
  • Weekly waist, chest, arm measurements
• I’m going to try to keep calories constant day to day to keep things simple, but will re-evaluate each week to make adjustments if I’m gaining too fast.
• In addition, I’ll make a more conscious effort to extend my eating window so I’m eating more consistently throughout the day rather than intermittent fasting.
• I’ll take pictures, but probably will wait to share those until the end of the series…if at all

What Program Will I Run?

One challenge in planning the bulk was determining the optimal training plan to run.  I definitely want something high volume, but not something that would get my heart going too much, this is a bulk after all, so the goal should be to add mass, not stay lean.

I settled on a 7 week hypertrophy program from Barbell Medicine.  Its a 4-day, full body split that has me doing each of the main 4 lifts or a variation thereof 3 times per week.  It also has GPP days on non lifting days and minimal cardio.

After the 7 week program is finished, I will either transition into a Brian Alsruhe program like my version of his Darkhorse template (an excel version of which I will post here next week with a write up), or another Barbell Medicine 12 week strength program.  It sort of depends on how fluffy I am and how the strength is progressing 7 weeks into the bulk.

In any event, I will employ a Brian Alsruhe program for the lean back down phase of this project next Spring.  With his programs I would have more full off days and more intense workout days, because he employs giant sets and 90 second rest periods.  His programs also will utilize more strongman implements like sleds, farmers carries, waiters walks and the like, which are easier to implement when the weather is above freezing.