Ep. 246- Why Bulking Is NOT The Answer

“Gotta eat big to get big brother!” “It’s the off-season man, I’m on that SEE-food diet, heheh ya feel me?!!” It’s been like this for decades in the muscle building world, and there’s a ton of anecdotes that you gotta eat enough to grow. Certainly, we can’t build muscle out of thin air. But given the modern understanding that body recomposition - at least in novice and early stage intermediate lifters who aren’t too lean - is actually quite normal, how much do you really have to eat?
In this episode Omar interviews Eric Helms who just published a study on this very topic with surprising results. Is it really true that eating at maintenance is just as good as a small and large surplus for strength and muscle gain? Tune in to find out.

00:00 …It happened (intro to a power episode)
The Truth About Getting Lean: It's Not JUST About Calories (ft. Eric Helms)    • The Truth About Getting Lean: It's No...  
https://raskolapparel.com/
8:38 The weight gain study: breaking down the methods
Effect of Small and Large Energy Surpluses on Strength, Muscle, and Skinfold Thickness https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... (link and title will be updated upon publication)
19:06 The findings and its interpretation
28:40 Applications for coaches
Schoenfeld 2017 Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27433...
Baz-Valle 2022 A Systematic Review of The Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35291...
Iron Culture Ep. 229- Is Failure More Important Than Volume For Hypertrophy (ft. Dr. Zourdos & Zac Robinson)    • Ep. 229- Is Failure More Important Th...  
Robinson 2023 https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/serve...
40:40 Skinfold thickness vs muscle thickness changes
Garthe Effect of nutritional intervention on body composition and performance in elite athletes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23679...
48:53 Assessing an individual’s genetic potential
Rozenek 2002 Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following resistance training https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12094...
Smith 2021 Predicting Adaptations to Resistance Training Plus Overfeeding Using Bayesian Regression: A Preliminary Investigation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33919...
58:53 Adjusting your training and Eric’s reflections
1:05:39 Conclusions from the study and closing out (we are interdimensional)