How Long to Maintain Before Cutting?

i like that sort of bulk phase.

bulk - maintain by recomp, clean eating - then begin bulk again - no need for a cut till ten yrs later - done.

I think that the more you

  1. Gain a substantial amount of muscle when you’re bulking and keep it and
  2. The more you maintain your weight or slightly decrease while keeping muscle mass and improving body comp as a transition before a fat loss/cutting phase
    the better the results will be regarding muscle mass.
    On the other side, being on a caloric deficit or fat loss phase for a long time will be detrimental.

jehovas, I was thinking on eating on mainteinance cals for about 2 months before starting a cutting phase. I would suggest planning all that 20 weeks out from honeymoon, which gets me to think you still have some time for keeping in the mass phase you are.

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
BONEZ217 wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
Maintain?
If your not playing a sport what are you maintaining for?

First of all the OP is not a pro BBer looking to gain 100lbs over his natural limit, nor is he looking to drop to 2.5% bodyfat. Pro BBers also take advantage of anabolics when bulking and cutting. That changes the method of fat loss completely. So using a pro BBer is completely irrelevant to this situation.
[/quote]
Exactllly!!! A pro bodybuildiers cut cycle is ridiculous, they lose so much weight in a short amount of time that thier bodies practically have to lose muscle.

Some of them go as far as losing 60 to 100lbs in less than 6 months.

The average cut that most people on here desire does not require them to lose muscle. They do end up losing it because they focus too much on cardio and drastically reduce the weight lifting. If he’s at 200lbs and 19% bodyfat, he can lose 5% at a good rate without going below maintence and still gain muscle. Which begs the question why are you gunning for maintenance?

Where not talking about some random person where talking about Jh. who is 5’8 203 19%. Who claimed to make about an 8lb gain with no fat, if you keep gaining muscle and no fat your body fat% WILL go down. So again why are you looking to maintain?

Bodybuilders retire all the time and after years of being at certiain weights some still lose a ton of weight, some gain and some stay the same, appetite appears to be the deciding factor of what a person weighs, not how long they were at that weight.

[quote]
The only way to actually prove any of this would be to hear from people who have tried both methods. Anyone with a relevant experience feel free to chime in.

Your analogy to pro BBers in this situation still astounds me. [/quote]

JH
This is no knock on maintenance if your totally satisfied with your body, but if your looking to make improvements what’s the point? Improve your diet, improve you workout, improve recovery.

I know some of you big guys get tired of repeating yourselves over and over again, so I’m linking the discussion on set points from the T-Cell. It totally changed my view on bulking for the best. Thanks guys.
http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/blog_sports_training_performance_bodybuilding_alpha/set_points

Another thing worth mentioning is how lean you’re talking about getting.

I mean, if you gained say 70lbs over the course of a year by training like a lunatic and eating like a horse and went from 12% bodyfat to 20% bodyfat then you’d lose a lot less muscle if you started dropping fat straight away if you aimed for 12-14% bodyfat and then maintained for a while than if you went straight for 7-8% bodyfat.

Obviously it’s a physical and psychological balancing act… if you let yourself get too fat when adding muscle then you’re going to be more likely to want to start dropping significant amounts of fat when you stop trying to gain. And as much as we’d all like striated pecs, a rippling six pack and a tissue paper scrotum (or is that last one just me?), 12-14% is a lot easier to deal with psychologically than 20% bodyfat, and it’s also far more realistic and achievable of a goal to reach if you start trying to lose fat immediately than 7-8%.

Obviously the bigger you get then the more difficult even this becomes, as has already been mentioned, I just wanted to get this other factor that hasn’t been mentioned yet out there for discussion.

16 weeks seems good, like someone has mentioned. I’m doing the reverse - cutting then bulking - but I’m gonna wait 12-16 weeks.

However, I don’t think maintenance has to equal stagnation. In those 16 weeks, I’m gonna try to recomp further by working out for strength, eating carbs on workout days, and doing HIIT/steady state to offset the increased carb/calorie intake. I’m sure you can have your cake, AND eat it too, to a certain extent ;). Posters are quick to jump down the throats of guys who wanna get jacked and swole, but a lot of the more experienced guys on the boards have recomped succesfully in the past.