Bulk up or lean muscle ??

arknor said:
mine seem fine £25 salter ones

18% body fat I think lol...
usually hoovering around 58-62% hydration which I think is totally normal.
only about 1 stone over weight though maybe a bit more.

I'm not fat/chubby but I'm not exactly skinny either so I'd guess that's roughly correct, the body fat slowly rises as my weight does and slowly goes down as expected.
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well mine is completely off haha. I'm about 13% bodyfat at the minute. not too bothered as I'm using calipers most of the time.

icecold said:
I think I know what you're trying to say, but that's not how I'd describe it at all! :D

Bioelectrical impedance is a very unreliable method for gauging body fat. If you can control all of your hydration variables (not as stated by the scales...) at best you can measure trends.
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haha yeah I struggled to make proper sentences. I was running after the baby at the same time and it took me about 20min to write that sentence
 
I've always been very slim (not horribly skinny, just slim) but have recently decided to train for strength.

I am going for a lean, athletic look though - more like that of a 400m runner than a bodybuilder. I don't want huge muscles, just lean, strong ones. Sp practicality and usefulness > aesthetics

I play Squash, so having large arms would be detriment to my technique.

I've always knew how to eat a balanced diet and have always been athletic...but having never trained in my life I have no strength at all.
My wife lifts more weights than me at the minute yet she's really slim too. So my plan is to get as strong as possible, without really increasing the visual size of the muscles too much.


Totally new to it all though but I have plenty to read on here to get started - along with following fitness blender as I find them to be very good and exactly what I want to achieve.
 
That's great... but you do realise you completely over-estimate your ability to "get huge."

Most people do, in fact.

Weight training will inevitably involve body morphology changes simply becaise in order for muscles to work better they get bigger (more energy stored locally, bigger vasculature, etc.).

However, training for six months will not turn you into Arnie; not even training for 3-5 years will. Following a well-structured strength programme will make your body slightly thicker, but not enormously so. If you want proof of this, google "Tom Martin powerlifter" and see what comes up.

I suggest you do two things:

1) Look up the 'stronglifts' routine;
2) Look through the threads on the OP of the gymrats thread (here). This will tell you pretty much everything you need to get started and then loads more.

Good luck and feel free to post specific questions in that thread. :)
 
Rudeboy1 said:
Hi guys,

I'm generally quite a skinny guy and I just wondered what's the difference between gaining lean muscle and bulking up? Which would be the best for me to do?

Thanks :)
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One would involve basically eating as much as possible, putting on as much muscle as possible, then "cutting" the fat.... The other would involve gaining musle more slowly with less calories and less fat gain.
 
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Your body shape will change, you will get stronger, you will get stronger tendons etc. Eventually you will put on more muscle, but it would take you literally 3-4 years of heavy weight lifting and diet to go from "skinny" to quite big, bodybuilders are either genetically big or use steroids, so if you are skinny to not expect to get big unless you use steroids or do it for 5-10 years. Maybe 1 stone of muscle a year with good diet and training. If you want to do it properly then 5x5 is probably the best program, or lots of weighted push ups and pull ups if you don't go to the gym. Loads of info on the internet on what to do, just look at the right places, eg. stronglifts, paleo diet etc. Not mens health etc.
 
That's true like, I think when you start from being quite slim, you see big changes quickly and it can put you off a bit. But obviously the more you train, the smaller the improvements will be.

Same with losing weight really - and many other things in life.

I suppose unless you want yo be huge, you never will be...even if you train a lot. Maybe it's just a starting off excuse people like me use!! :p

For me, it's took me this long because my diet growing up was awful. So before training, I spent 3 years adjusting my diet and getting into a really good routine with that. That alone got me up from 9.5 stone to 11.5 stone. (i'm 5ft 11"). I feel so much better now
 
I went from 9.5 stone to 13 stone in 3-4 years, then i got lazy and went back to 10.5 stone, still got most of the strength of when I was 13 stone though, started again recently and I am putting weight on in no time because when you already had it you get "muscle memory" and it comes back in no time, have easily put on 3-4lb of muscle in about 2-3 weeks. I would go for either 5x5 or 6-12 reps, doing bodyweight exercises wont make you bigger unless you add weight, eg. a dumbell between your legs for pull ups and a dumbell in a backpack for push ups. Eat about 500 extra calories a day and you will not get too fat, should mostly go to muscle if you do the exercises properly.
 
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Bulking up is considered when you are consuming more calories than you are burning. Depending on the diet, you may also gain a lot of unwanted fat though.

Gaining lean muscle can be done by a good diet and weight training.

As for diet, try aim to something along these lines:

Meal1
60g oats (dry weight) with water,1 scoop whey protein, handful blueberries, 125g chicken
breast + 1 whole egg
Meal 2
200g white fish, 200 butternut squash (cooked weight), 100g broccoli, 1 cup spinach,
balsamic vinegar
Meal 3
180g Chicken breast (cooked weight), 175g brown rice, 1/2 med avocado
Meal 4
180g turkey breast, 200g brown rice, 100g broccoli
Meal 5
150g Grilled Salmon (cooked weight), 50g red peppers, green salad
Meal 6
Small pot of low fat quark (250g) , 1 tbsp low cal hot choc powder + 10 almonds
or 2 scoops of 100% Scitec casein + 10 almonds
Plus
Post workout: 2 scoops whey protein, 1 banana

Otherwise if you really hate cooking, use these guys

http://www.bodyplusnutrition.com/

Buy the muscle gain meals, try eat 3 of them a day with a healthy breakfast and make sure you get a post shake after a gym session, then also have another meal in the evening depending on your macros.
 
uv said:
Might be my sarcasm detector is broken, but this is a joke, right?

That's way over 8,000 kcal, and I'm not sure the OP is training for Sumo wrestling.
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I should be doing work so I'm not going to sit and work it all out but that's not an 8,000kcal diet if you work under the assumption that the rice and things are listed by cooked weight as there's no way you'd want to be eating the cooked equivalent of 200g of dry brown rice it would be a mountain!
 
tom_e said:
I should be doing work so I'm not going to sit and work it all out but that's not an 8,000kcal diet if you work under the assumption that the rice and things are listed by cooked weight as there's no way you'd want to be eating the cooked equivalent of 200g of dry brown rice it would be a mountain!
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Removing the rice entirely, the rest is still ~7k. Cooked or not, that's nearly a kilo of meat/fish topped up with shakes, fruit and oats. Nobody could look at that diet and assume it's for a "lean bulk".
 
tom_e said:
I should be doing work so I'm not going to sit and work it all out but that's not an 8,000kcal diet if you work under the assumption that the rice and things are listed by cooked weight as there's no way you'd want to be eating the cooked equivalent of 200g of dry brown rice it would be a mountain!
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8k calories lmao.

That diet works out at around 3000. I've ran it myself for 12 weeks.

Yes of course it is cooked weight.
 
Meals 1 - 4 are around the 650 calorie mark - 2600

Meal 5 is just Salmon and veg 312 - 2912

Meal 6 is only around 150 cals - 3062

Shake depends on what you use. If you are weight training 5 days a week then yes that will be fine for a lean bulk. It's all clean foods and as stated he is a skinny guy.

If you want to run the maths yourself go ahead, but don't try and fault it when you have completely balls it up yourself.
 
Simmz said:
Yes of course it is cooked weight.
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Of course. Because it's completely normal to weigh food after it's cooked. Why on earth would you want to portion your food *before* you cook it?

You've been here 11 years and don't know how to edit your post rather than post 3 times in a row?
 
Who said anything about portioning the food before it is cooked though... not sure where you have got that theory from.

The only thing in that diet that isn't cooked weight is the oats.
 
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