Article on "The Truth About Bulking"

[Lifting N Tx]

Saw this article by Christian Thibaudeau cited by someone on another board.

Basically he is arguing that a slow bulk is more effective than a fast bulk and then cut cycle (for people not on gear). To some degree what he says is just common sense. Also, he seems to have his nose up in the air a little in his criticism of those that he accuses of just wanting to eat a lot.

Interesting that he comes up with 2-3 lbs. weight gain per month as optimal, given the amount of muscle that the body can add per month without AAS. That's about 1/2 to 2/3 of the rule of thumb amounts that I've seen people recommend. He argues with getting down to 10% bodyfat and staying close to that, while slow bulking.

He also mentions that partitioning is more biased toward muscle at lower body fat %s, but I wonder what evidence there is for that. Anecdotally people seem to say the opposite, that it's easier to add muscle or drop fat with minimal muscle loss at higher body fat percentages.

Anyone have hard data on any of this, or thoughts about the article?

 

[dkm1987]

<div>
(Lifting N Tx @ Oct. 31 2006,16:46)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">He also mentions that partitioning is more biased toward muscle at lower body fat %s, but I wonder what evidence there is for that. Anecdotally people seem to say the opposite, that it's easier to add muscle or drop fat with minimal muscle loss at higher body fat percentages.

Anyone have hard data on any of this, or thoughts about the article?</div>
First I'll say I didn't read the article, as I generally don't read articles but anyway.

Partitioning towards lean tissue in lean persons is partially true, it depends on whether or not they are dieted down or naturally lean, and how fat they were to begin with.

The bodies first response is to regain fat and in some of the classical experiments it was seen that even though the fat stores (post starvation) were fully recovered, lean tissue mass had only recovered by about 50%.

Bottom line though is that exercise is one of the greatest partitioning agents we have and how a sedentary versus active persons P-ratios change is dramatically different.

 

[Totentanz]

CT is a hypocrit. He writes that whole article about how bulking/cutting is evil and won't work, but... you can be quite certain that he didn't get big by slow bulking. Nope, he got huge and fat, then cut down.