You can lose a shitload of fat without
losing much muscle. But the same isn't
true the other way around. Muscle gain
is harder than fat loss and takes
[music] way longer. But bulking and
cutting have a big theoretical advantage
in the long term over gaining. So
gaining works. It's the Chevy Malibu in
our analogy. But bulking and cutting
works faster. It's the Corvette. [music]
Now here's where this new study comes
in.
Hey folks, Dr. Mike here for RP Strength
and I have a question. is gaining dead
according to this new crazy study. Well,
how new or crazy is this study? You may
be asking, well, hold on a second. Let's
talk about the traditional view of
muscle gain dieting phases. In the
traditional view, here's how things
work. You generate a calorie surplus and
that's a huge weapon for gains.
It's a big weapon right after training
and then a high protein diet. The next
thing I ask people is like, are you
eating enough? Are you eating to gain?
which is calorie surplus.
But you can't bulk forever because
you're always going to add some measure
of fat and muscle and eventually you
just get too get way too fat. So the
typical idea is bulking for like 16 to
20 weeks nice and slow and then cutting
for like 6 to 8 weeks, maybe a
maintenance phase in there and repeating
the process.
That has worked for a long time for many
people and it's likely to work on
theoretical grounds for a few different
reasons. The bulking adds muscle and
fat. The cutting reduces away the fat
and pretty much only the fat if you cut
moderately. And that means you keep all
the muscle and then you just repeat that
process and you make long-term gains.
Okay, sounds good.
But there's another idea that opposes
bulk cutting and it's called gain
taining. And it's like a real idea like
real sports scientists like uh Eric
Helms um Dr. Eric Helms uh really like
it and it's got a lot of good things
going for it.
gaintaining it looks like this. You want
to be in a body fat that's conducive to
not crazy muscle loss when you lose fat
and conducive to good muscle gains when
you're trying to to actually gain
muscle. So something around 12 to 15%
body fat or so. Chill at that body
weight. Train hard. Eat enough protein.
Don't try to push a calorie surplus.
Just hit a maintenance on average and
you're going to be likely to lose fat
and gain muscle at the same time. And
that's all true. Why does gaintaining
work at all? Why is it likely to work
for you? Because no one hits um pretty
much almost nobody hits true maintenance
daily. Every day you're going to be a
little little bit of a surplus or a
little bit of a deficit. And so you're
kind of doing these like zigzag mini
bulks and cuts anyway, which is kind of
sweet cuz you like gain some muscle and
some fat, lose some fat, gain some
muscle and some fat, lose some fat, and
eventually it's like these mini bulks
and cuts built in.
Also, it's super low stress. So you
don't have to stuff yourself and
pre-plan a bunch of stuff. Just shooting
for maintenance is just awesome and it's
got that built-in pulsatility. You
actually want that. So you're good to
go. So the rule of gaining is just eat
enough protein. Watch your body weight
to make sure it's not falling or rising
too much at any one point and you're
good to go.
But bulking and cutting have a big
theoretical advantage in the long term
over gaining.
Gaintaining has a big built-in
assumption compared to bulking and
cutting. The assumption of gaintaining
is that building muscle and losing fat
are roughly as easy slash difficult as
one another.
But the reality is different. The
reality is that fat loss without muscle
loss,
especially in 10 to 15% body fat males
or 20 to 25% body fat females. And sure,
above body fat, for sure that's true.
Fat loss without muscle loss for people
who aren't extremely lean is actually
really easy. It happens all the time in
study after study after study. You can
lose a ton of fat without losing any
muscle unless you're getting ultra
shredded at the end.
On the other hand, even in that body fat
range, muscle gain is hard. Very, very
hard. And fat loss can happen in mere
weeks. I mean, you can lose a pound of
actual fat per week. Scott, can you gain
a pound of muscle per week in most
cases?
>> Yeah, dude. Totally.
>> I mean, Scott can. He just never does,
but if he tried, he would.
>> I'm just not trying. That's what the
thing is. I don't want to make everyone
look bad.
>> Yeah. Like all of us, same idea. And so,
it turns out that you can lose a
shitload of fat without losing much
muscle. But the same isn't true the
other way around. You can't just gain a
ton of muscle without gaining a ton of
fat. you actually just can't gain a ton
of muscle per week no matter what you do
with your fat store.
So fat loss takes way less time than
muscle growth.
So if you push your weight gain a bit
extra over the long term for extra
muscle growth, you get all the extra
muscle, but you can just get rid of the
fat super easily.
Some things are just not compatible to
do at the same time. Like if you're
trying to like hang out with friends and
you know party but then you're also
trying to go out to eat after figuring
out the right restaurant might be
something you like take a break do it
real quick figure out what restaurant
and then go because trying to vibe with
your friends and look for restaurants
and they're swatting your phone out of
your hand it's just super annoying. So
some sometimes maybe you do one thing
and then the other. Now here's where
this new study comes in. So far and
there's some good data for this but so
far too much of this has been theory
bulking and cutting versus gaintaining.
Oh, it's just too theoretical.
There was a study just published by
Salvador Vargas Molina and colleagues I
[music] Bobby
where's Jar probably out there if that's
a [music] female Salvador maybe not
anyway I don't know Latinos insert joke
here [sighs and gasps]
they looked into this directly with
their recent study at two groups one
group
did a 10% calorie deficit and the other
did maintenance both trained and ate
well for 10 weeks where they trained
hard for 10 straight weeks. So, one had
a deficit, one had maintenance,
everything else was the same. [gasps]
The maintenance group gained like 2 lb
of muscle and lost about 3 lbs of fat,
which is really good. Proving again
illustrating maybe rather than proving
that gaining is absolutely viable.
But the deficit group
lost 6 lb of fat, double the fat of the
maintenance group. And check this out,
the deficit group still gained the same
2 lb of muscle that the maintenance
group did. So if you're in the deficit
group, in the cutting group, you're 3 lb
of fat less than the folks that compare
to you in the maintenance group, and you
have the same amount of muscle. And now
you can bulk for like 6 weeks at half a
pound per week and gain even more muscle
and end up at the same body fat with
that much more muscle gain.
The big insight here is from other
studies
and this one
especially from other studies for this
particular point. We know that you gain
a bit more muscle when you're bulking.
Not a ton but a bit more.
And we also know from this study for
sure, you lose way more fat while
cutting in a reasonable deficit than you
do in a maintenance situation. You just
don't lose any muscle. And in this
study, people actually gained it. And
they do this in a bunch of the studies
as well. So what this shows us is the
imposition of maintenance, taking away
the calorie surplus and the calorie
deficit powers [gasps]
ends up blunting both muscle growth and
fat loss. you just get less of
everything. So if you do bulking and
cutting, you get more bulking and then
more cutting and in the end because the
cutting doesn't lose the muscle. You
gain more muscle and you lose more fat
in the same window of time that with
maintaining
with gaining rather the gaining does
happen. Muscle does accrete but not as
much of it as you would think. And the
fat loss is also not as impressive.
That means that smooth, slow bulks, half
a pound of weight gain per week at a
time can make big changes to your
musculature. And then you do a low-key
cut that add maybe for 4 to 8 weeks of
fat loss. You lose none of the muscle
that you gained. As a matter of fact,
you might gain even a little bit more
muscle and then voila, you repeat the
process over and over again. Now bulking
and cutting almost certainly works
better than gaintaining but gaining
still works. Literally in this study
people lost fat and gain muscle at the
same time. Meadow Henselman's says this
all the time all a lot of people way
more than you think can make very
notable changes and recomposition and
lose muscle and gain fat. Good gut lose
fat and gain muscle at the same time.
Plenty of people can do that other thing
too if you just stop training and eat
like shit. So, if you like to do it or
it temporarily fits your lifestyle, like
you're on vacation, you're still going
to train hard, but they can't track
calories really, then just yolo and
you're probably good to go. You're going
to lose some fat, gain some muscle, or
at least going to gain some muscle. And
beginners and folks not mentally in a
space to be bulking, gaintaining is your
best friend. If you like, let's say, you
are kind of pretty fluffy, pretty fat,
and you sort of want to gain some
muscle. You don't want to do a ton of
fat loss dieting yet, but you don't want
to bulk up anymore. man gaining is
unbelievable, especially as a beginner.
So, don't toss it out.
But there is a difference here, big
difference between something being
effective and something that is
attempted to be optimized. Now, you guys
are smart people that view this channel.
You usually don't make this mistake, but
other folks make it all the time. The
difference between effective versus
ineffective versus maximally effective.
Let me give you guys an analogy.
>> [gasps]
>> Just because a Corvette
made by Chevrolet, an American company,
is faster than a Chevy Malibu,
doesn't mean that a Malibu literally
can't get you to the store to get what
you need from the store.
It just the Corvette just gets you there
faster. The Malibu will still get you
there. So, gaining works. It's the Chevy
Malibu in our analogy.
But bulking and cutting works faster.
It's the Corvette. Hey Scott, I got
1,400 horsepower under this here. Highly
modded vet ZR5.
Sir, they don't make a ZR5. They do
here. Godamn it. [screaming]
America brother
>> shot his roof off of the Corvette.
Scott, I saw a thing where they had um
one of the new ZR whatever Corvettes go
up against a topline Lambo and it just
smoked the Lambo, but it costs like
$800,000 less.
>> Crazy voodoo magic on that thing, man.
>> The dude C8 Corvette is my god. I I
every time I see one, I'm like, I why
why can't that be me in there? And then
I realize I don't fit into a C8
Corvette.
So if you want the best results long
term, both empirically and
theoretically, bulking and cutting still
wins.
So if it's worth it for you to do
structured dieting, do it because it's
still better. Even though gate training
does work, just not as well. So all this
wrapped up, big take-home points for
you. Muscle gain is harder than fat loss
and takes way longer.
Fat loss without muscle loss is easy
unless you are contest lean.
And fat loss can be done rapidly without
muscle loss risk.
So for most of the time, for the most
long-term muscle gain, you want to gain
about half a pound a week for anywhere
between 12 and 20 weeks on average. It
can be more, it can be less.
And that adds about 6 to 10 lbs total to
your body. No big deal. It's not crazy.
Then you want to maintain for maybe 2
weeks just an active rest or as many as
2 months or even longer to just gain
strength and maybe even do a little of
uh gaining,
rest up a little bit, and then hit
somewhere between 4 to 8 weeks and about
a pound per week of fat loss. You're
going to lose all of the fat pretty much
that you gain during the bulk. You're
going to lose probably none of the
muscle and you might even gain a little
bit. Especially if you monitor your
strength using like the RP hypertrophy
app and if you use the RP diet coach app
for the dieting, it also helps. I'm
completely honest. We sell these things
for a reason because they work. [gasps]
If you look at your RP hypertrophy app
and you make sure that you're not losing
strength week to week to week, you are
almost certainly not losing any muscle.
And the net result with this protocol is
going to be pure muscle gain in the long
term. every six months or whatever when
you recycle this plan, you're just up a
few pounds of muscle every single time.
There is a lower stress option. You can
absolutely maintain when you like and
you will still make progress. It's just
going to be slower.
But with the RP diet coach app and RP
hypertrophy app, by god, the progress
can be slightly better still. They don't
bullshit you here at RP. I mean, I do.
The rest of RP doesn't.
Anyway,
next time I see you, you had better
either bulking or cutting because if
you're gaining, oh boy, then I'll still
be super nice to you and say that that
was also an effective strategy, just
slower. See you guys next time. [music]
>> [music]