The Definitive Guide on How to Bulk and Gain Lean Muscle Mass

Wanna know how to strip away all the hard work someone has worked for at the gym with just one sentence?

By saying something like, “I don’t want to lift weights or work out because I don’t want to get too big like those bodybuilders”.

I hear this over and over again. It’s almost become the national anthem being repeated by people who don’t know any better.

People say that as if it were that easy… as if all you have to do is start lifting weights and the muscle growth predictably comes along with it.

There’s a lot more that goes into it.

If you’ve ever gone to the gym religiously to get those 6-pack abs, to get that firm butt, or to get those toned legs but NOTHING seemed to change…it’s because something was missing from the equation.

And I’m going to teach you exactly what that is so you can tweak it for yourself and finally start making gains and being one step closer to having your goal body.

If you stick with this blog post till the end, what you’ll have is the knowledge you need to start the transformation of your body without the need of anyone’s help. You’ll know exactly how to bulk and how gain lean muscle mass.

How comforting is that? Let’s dive in.

What does bulking mean?

Despite its name, bulking does not mean you’ll become bulky or stocky.

Bulking is not something you become. Bulking is a process that one utilizes in order to build muscle over a lengthy period of time.

The process is actually very simple. To bulk, you only need 3 things:

1. A Caloric Surplus – to be in a caloric surplus, your caloric intake must exceed the amount of calories you burn each day. In other words, after you take into account all the calories you’ve burned from walking, moving around, going about your daily chores, and exercise…the amount of calories eaten must be greater than the calories you burned throughout the day.
2. Weightlifting – this goes hand in hand with bulking and is NOT optional. Without any form of weight training, your muscles will not be put under any resistance. Therefore, without any weightlifting, you won’t be creating the micro-tears in your muscles that are needed in order to build muscle.
3. Progressive Overload – to make any sort of gains, the amount of weight that you lift on your exercises needs to be going up progressively over time. For example, if you squat 165lbs and you never squat any more than this, you will eventually stall and stop making muscle gains all together.

I’ll explain exactly how to create a caloric surplus and how big your caloric surplus needs to be, but first you need to under stand two of the most important and fundamental terms in fitness: BMR and TDEE.

What does BMR and TDEE mean?

BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate and is the amount of calories your body would burn if all you did was rest in bed all day long.

But as you may know, we don’t just lay in bed all day. We get up to go about our daily activities, we walk, and some of us even exercise. And all of these things burn calories.

When you add up all the calories burned from your daily activities with your BMR, you arrive at your TDEE.

TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure and it is the TOTAL amount of calories you burn per day when you account for everything.

Your TDEE is also referred to as your “maintenance” or “maintenance calories”.

Why?

Because say your maintenance is 2800 calories… If you made your daily calorie goal to eat 2800 calories every day for the rest of your life, you would stay the same weight forever. You would essentially be “maintaining” your weight.

And it just so happens that some interesting things can happen if we tweak this daily calorie goal relative to your maintenance calories.

We can actually control our weight gain or weight loss just by tweaking our daily calorie goal! It’s quite simple actually…

Assume we’re following the same example as above with your TDEE being 2800 calories. If you make your daily calorie goal higher than your TDEE of 2800, then that will put you in a caloric surplus which will cause you to gain weight over time if you keep eating above your TDEE.

Conversely, if you make your daily calorie goal lower than your TDEE of 2800, then that will put you in a caloric deficit which will cause you to lose weight over time if you keep eating below your TDEE.

That right there is the most powerful thing you’ll ever learn in fitness. That’s how simple it is to change your weight.

But since this post is about bulking, we’re going to focus only on the surplus side of things.

And as I mentioned above, one of the three things you need to in order to go on a proper bulk is a caloric surplus.

However, I highly advise against just eating above your maintenance without a care because if your surplus is too large, you’ll end up gaining a lot more fat than muscle.

The key is to create a surplus of the just the right size for you…

How do you calculate your TDEE?

Simply head over to our TDEE Calculator and it’ll do it for you!

How big should my caloric surplus be?

First, let’s get one well-known fact out of the way: with muscle gain comes fat gain, so expect it. And the amount of fat gain will mostly depend on how big your caloric surplus is.

But for the most part, don’t worry too much about fat gained during a bulk since the purpose of a cut is to retain the muscle you gained during your bulk and also strip the fat you gained during your bulk, leaving you with a good looking body.

In general, if your caloric surplus is small and your daily calorie goal is about 100 – 200 calories above your maintenance, the amount of fat gain during your bulk will be low. But the downside to this is that your muscle gains will come at a slow pace as well which could potentially extend your bulk cycle to 6+ months.

The reason for this is because 100 – 200 calories is small surplus, so you wouldn’t be giving your body enough calories to build muscle at a faster rate than you would if your surplus were larger.

Now that’s not to say you can’t gain the same amount of muscle as you would on a higher surplus. It just means that the muscle you could gain within 3 months with a larger surplus might take you 5 months on a smaller surplus.

On the other hand, if your caloric surplus is large and your daily calorie goal is 600+ calories above your maintenance, the amount of fat gain during your bulk will be high. However, your muscle gains will come at a much faster rate.

But there’s a limit to how much muscle the body can put on so don’t think that you can quadruple your caloric surplus to quadruple your gains.

So then how large should your surplus be?

That depends on you. If you don’t mind a nice, steady gain and you want to stay relatively lean throughout your entire bulk cycle, then eat at a surplus of 100 – 200 calories.

Or you can choose the standard route (which is the one I personally recommend) of eating at a 300 – 500 surplus. Eating at a surplus of this size brings a nice balance and rate of muscle/fat gain.

A third choice would be to eat at a surplus larger than 500 calories. You could experiment and try this as well. In the end, it will come down to your personal preference.

Determining your macros

The next crucial step in creating your bulking plan is to calculate your bulking macros (aka macronutrients).

But before we go into how to calculate them, it’s important for you to know what they are and why it’s important to calculate them.

There are 3 different types of macros: proteins, fats, and carbs. And every food you eat falls into one of these three categories.

The recommended amount of proteins, fats, and carbs that you should eat per day depends on your age, gender, height, weight, and activity levels. So everyone will have different macro recommendations.

Protein is essential for gaining muscle mass. Calculating the right amount of protein you need per day prevents you from eating too little protein and eating more protein than is necessary.

Eating more protein than necessary isn’t bad or anything, but each gram of protein has 4 calories so it would be better to save those 4 calories for more carbs. Yummmm.

Fats are essential for regulating your hormones and making sure your body functions properly.

Lastly, carbs are used by your body as a fuel source energize you throughout your day and your workouts.

Calculating your bulking macros makes sure you have the perfect ratio of all three macros working synergistically to give you the best outcome.

So how do you calculate your macros?

Did I mention that our TDEE calculator is also a macro calculator?!

Check it out and see for yourself here.

What’s the difference between a clean bulk and a dirty bulk?

In the fitness world, you’ll often hear the terms “clean bulk” and “dirty bulk” being thrown around.

The words “clean” and “dirty” actually have nothing to do with the types of food eaten during a bulk.

What “clean” and “dirty” are actually referring to is the size or magnitude of the surplus you create during your bulk.

A clean bulk is a bulk cycle with a small to moderate sized caloric surplus.

A dirty bulk is a bulk cycle with a large caloric surplus.

Should I be bulking or cutting?

Throughout your fitness journey, you’ll have to go in cycles of cutting then bulking then cutting and then bulking and so on…

Bulking to gain lean muscle mass and cutting to strip away the fat. And this is just the natural process since it’s not physically possible to cut and bulk at the same time. As a result, it’s not possible to gain muscle and lose weight at the same time.

But to determine whether you should start bulking or not depends on your current state.

If you’re currently a bit pudgy and you carry a good amount of fat, then you should be starting cutting cycle and strip away the fat before you begin a bulking cycle.

Because if you start bulking when you’re already caring a decent amount of fat, then you’re just going to be adding on to that fat by going on a bulk and will make your cutting cycle that much longer when you decide to go on one.

If you’re starting off lean in the 10% – 12% body fat percentage, then bulking is the way to go as there’s really not much fat to lose when you’re at that body fat percentage.

How do I know when you stop bulking?

There’s really no set rule of when someone should stop bulking. It’s something you just decide.

But if you need some guidance, here are two indicators that you should stop bulking and start cutting:

1. When you’re happy and satisfied with the amount of muscle mass you’ve put on
2. When you can’t deal with getting any fatter

Once you’ve hit any of these two indicators, you would simply switch to a cutting cycle.

How do I track my calories and macros?

To track your calorie intake and your macros, simply download the MyFitnessPal app or any calorie taker app of your choice.

With MyFitnessPal:

1. Set your daily calorie goal

2. Start tracking the foods you eat

You can track a certain food item by…

a) searching the food item by name

b) if it’s something you have to weigh, search the food item by its name and enter the amount of servings you’ll be eating (You’ll want to get a food scale!)

c) Scanning the food item’s bar code

The last pieces of the puzzle

No bulk is complete without lifting weights. So you’re gonna need a weightlifting routine.

But don’t worry, finding one that suits you is super easy and I’ve outlined exactly how to do so in our blog post on How to Find the Perfect Workout Routine for You.

Lastly…for your muscles to grow you need to apply progressive overload. What this means is that you need to make sure you’re increasing the weight on your lifts over time. Otherwise your gains will eventually come to a halt.

So keep a log of how much weight you’re lifting on every exercise!

To recap everything, here’s what you need to do to begin your bulk cycle:

1. Calculate your TDEE, Macros, and your Bulking calories (all of these are provided by our TDEE calculator)
2. Get yourself a workout routine and begin lifting
3. Start tracking your calories and macros

Have any questions? Did I leave anything out? Feel free to let me know in the comment section below. I read all of them!

Cheers,

-John