Written by Geoffrey Verity Schofield
If you are carrying a lot of excess bodyfat, yes. Otherwise, no.
What constitutes “a lot of excess bodyfat”? I’d say anything above ~22% or so for a man.
If you are under 15% bodyfat, are starting to lift weights, and want to gain muscle, you really do want to be in a caloric surplus. Trying to cut down any leaner will just be wasting your time. This is more true to leaner you try to go. I see many men make this mistake, and sacrifice gains they could have made.
If you’re in the 15–22% range, a lot is personal preference.
- You can cut (though I rarely advise this), trying to get down to ~12–15% bodyfat before doing one of the below.
- You can recomp, maintaining roughly the same bodyweight while gaining muscle and losing fat.
- You can “maingain”, trying to gain only muscle while putting on zero or very minimal fat.
- You can “lean bulk”, trying to gain mostly muscle while a bit of fat but not much.
- You can “full on bulk” just focusing on strength and size while ignoring fat gain altogether.
I usually recommend anywhere from 2–4 depending on goals.
Bodyfat percentage example:
If you are beyond around 22% bodyfat, it’s best to not bulk unless there’s a very specific and unusual reason, like you’re an aspiring football lineman or something. You can use the below graphic as a very general guideline (the 5–9% isn’t accurate but the rest are OK).
You don’t have to get lean to build muscle, but beyond a certain point excess body fat impacts the training and recovery in a negative way, not to mention health and aesthetics, so I tend to cap “bulks” at around 20–22% or so.
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