The thing is... most aren't going to make gains and stay lean at the same time. Because even if you reduce how much weight you are gaining, you still will not make those gains into 100% muscle somehow, no matter what you do. A caloric surplus will always result in fat gain of some amount. A caloric surplus is necessary to gain muscle, therefore fat gain of some amount will always accompany muscle gains.
Dude, seriously, who cares about being lean year round anyway? When I finally stopped being all worried about not being fat is when I finally started making big gains. And guess what... a lot of the guys who I used to lift with, who didn't want to get fat are a fraction of my size now. I've known a lot of weight lifters and bodybuilders over the years. Do you know how many spun their wheels and made almost no progress due to wanting to minimize fat gain? Most of them. It's the classic example of ****arounditis. They start to bulk, then get freaked out by the fat gain and start cutting without any kind of adjustment period between bulking and cutting, start to get smaller and freak out because they think they are losing their muscles, and switch back to bulking again. The net result is that they typically end up never being especially big and never being especially lean either.
As I said, my best gains ever (aside from my noob gains the first year I started HST) were when I quit worrying about becoming a fat hog, and ate my way up over 20% bodyfat. My waist went from size 32 to a 38, which is the absolute fattest I have ever been. And when I finally cut down, I was almost 20 lbs heavier than before I started the bulk while at roughly the same bodyfat percentage. I bulked for about 9 months and cut in 4 months, so the whole process took about a year. 20 lbs of muscle gain in a year? Compare that to the year prior when I tried to stay lean and ended the year only 5 lbs heavier and not significantly leaner or fatter than the prior year? Hell yes I will take those kinds of results.
My point is... when you bulk, it is your chance to put on muscle. Fat is not permanent. You can always cut the fat later. People get scared that somehow the fat will stay forever. You know how to diet, it is not that hard to trim away the fat. It might take up to six months if you got especially fat, but there is no reason you can't just cut the fat later on, right?
Leangains works but as blade pointed out, a lot of the dudes doing leangains end up looking stringy, their muscles don't typically have a "full" look to them. I've done leangains during a cut and it worked great and I recommend IF to people all the time because of the ease of sticking to the diet. But even Martin himself has said that it is simply a means to an end. I don't do IF anymore because I can follow whatever diet and it is difficult to fit around my work and home schedule, so what's the point? When I can lose fat doing pretty much any diet, it is much easier to just trim back the calories. IF works better for people (in my opinion) who have a hard time with self-discipline because the feasting every night makes them feel like they are not dieting. For people who have self control and can stick to any diet, it is not necessary.
All that said, I do still keep the majority of my calories post-workout when I am on a diet, and I do cycle macros around my workouts when on a diet.
Don't get caught up on labels like "hard gainer" - do you know how small I was when I started out? I weighed around 140 lbs. I thought I was a hard gainer. A classic ectomorph. Eight years later, I've hit 250 while still under 15% bodyfat. Hard gainer, ectomorph... those terms are myths.
Dude, seriously, who cares about being lean year round anyway? When I finally stopped being all worried about not being fat is when I finally started making big gains. And guess what... a lot of the guys who I used to lift with, who didn't want to get fat are a fraction of my size now. I've known a lot of weight lifters and bodybuilders over the years. Do you know how many spun their wheels and made almost no progress due to wanting to minimize fat gain? Most of them. It's the classic example of ****arounditis. They start to bulk, then get freaked out by the fat gain and start cutting without any kind of adjustment period between bulking and cutting, start to get smaller and freak out because they think they are losing their muscles, and switch back to bulking again. The net result is that they typically end up never being especially big and never being especially lean either.
As I said, my best gains ever (aside from my noob gains the first year I started HST) were when I quit worrying about becoming a fat hog, and ate my way up over 20% bodyfat. My waist went from size 32 to a 38, which is the absolute fattest I have ever been. And when I finally cut down, I was almost 20 lbs heavier than before I started the bulk while at roughly the same bodyfat percentage. I bulked for about 9 months and cut in 4 months, so the whole process took about a year. 20 lbs of muscle gain in a year? Compare that to the year prior when I tried to stay lean and ended the year only 5 lbs heavier and not significantly leaner or fatter than the prior year? Hell yes I will take those kinds of results.
My point is... when you bulk, it is your chance to put on muscle. Fat is not permanent. You can always cut the fat later. People get scared that somehow the fat will stay forever. You know how to diet, it is not that hard to trim away the fat. It might take up to six months if you got especially fat, but there is no reason you can't just cut the fat later on, right?
Leangains works but as blade pointed out, a lot of the dudes doing leangains end up looking stringy, their muscles don't typically have a "full" look to them. I've done leangains during a cut and it worked great and I recommend IF to people all the time because of the ease of sticking to the diet. But even Martin himself has said that it is simply a means to an end. I don't do IF anymore because I can follow whatever diet and it is difficult to fit around my work and home schedule, so what's the point? When I can lose fat doing pretty much any diet, it is much easier to just trim back the calories. IF works better for people (in my opinion) who have a hard time with self-discipline because the feasting every night makes them feel like they are not dieting. For people who have self control and can stick to any diet, it is not necessary.
All that said, I do still keep the majority of my calories post-workout when I am on a diet, and I do cycle macros around my workouts when on a diet.
Don't get caught up on labels like "hard gainer" - do you know how small I was when I started out? I weighed around 140 lbs. I thought I was a hard gainer. A classic ectomorph. Eight years later, I've hit 250 while still under 15% bodyfat. Hard gainer, ectomorph... those terms are myths.
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It might be that the only way to get rid of that stubborn fat & visceral stuff is to run the leangains IF thing once, and then go on eating normal (no fasting) & maintain my macros. Coz even if I cut my carbs, weight would drop due to losing some water, true, but fat would still be around - tried that for 6 weeks. BTW Martin tends to keep his nutrition 20% pre- and 80% post workout. This is in contrast to IF where only 10 g BCAA are permitted pre-workout on a 16 hour fast.