Thread by @Rob_NBF

A strategy I've been using recently to bulk very slowly and minimise fat gain whilst putting on mass.

THREAD 👇

Firstly, it should go without saying that you need to be tracking what you lift, and consistently getting a tiny amount better on your key lifts.

I've been focusing on compound barbell and dumbell exercises, and using the fitnotes app to track my progress.

It's very simple, has a clean design, and crucially, it's very easy to see what you lifted last time while you're tracking the current session.

This enables me to always have a target to beat, and aim to add at least 1 more rep to 1 of the sets.

I'm generally doing 3 sets per exercise, and using a reverse pyramid approach.

1 set of 5-7
1 set of 7-9
1 set of 9-11

If I'm managing to escape those rep ranges and do more, I go up in weight.

Right, here's what I think is the really valuable bit.

I'm tracking what I eat, but instead of eating to an estimated surplus (even a small one) I'm eating to what I estimate as my maintenance.

What always happens when I eat in a surplus, is I gain too much fat too quickly.

This is because tracking inevitably relaxes when you're bulking.

You sneak a few more bites off of your wife's plate. You eat your son's leftovers. Someone brought in free food to work? I'm bulking, let's enjoy it! Going out to eat? Yes please!

I always find when I'm bulking that I end up being much less strict with myself, and there are far more days where I'm estimating.

Humans (and me in particular) are bad at estimating. I'm greedy. I'll tell myself it's less than it is.

I can also relax my tracking on certain things. When I was eating to a surplus, I would track all my vegetables like broccoli, carrots, mushrooms and onions.

I'm not bothering with that now either, as it's a pretty small amount of calories after accounting for fibre.

So I now track to maintenance, and all the things I didn't account for put me in a small enough surplus to minimise fat gain, but still gain muscle.

I've been gaining slightly more than half a pound a week for the last 3 months, which is pretty much where you want to be.

All my lifts are going up, I weigh more, and I still look lean. Usually by now, I'm thinking about my next fat loss phase.

Not this time! Interested to see how long I can keep this bulk going.

What's your bulking strategy?