Bulking Sanity Check Please (with numbers)

Unknown

Okay, so I finally got around to plotting my calculated LBM as measured by cheap calipers against my weight gain.



Do these numbers seem reasonable? The dotted lines are 21 day rolling averages; the points are measurements taken from the scale and the calipers.

It's a three site measurement so I don't expect it's 100% accurate, but I would hope the upward trend is at least reasonable. If I extend the graph backwards it shows my LBM more or less holding steady as I was cutting calories and keeping protein up so, again, that seems reasonable. If the measurement is inaccurate I think the inaccuracy is consistent.

The big green square is the start of the bulk.

Unknown

Seems pretty good so far. Are your lifting numbers going up? Was this bulk following a cut, or did you just start one from maintenance?

Unknown

It was following a cut, where I kind of saw that a few more pounds weren't going to unearth any incredible muscles.

So I switched to a bulk.

All lifts are not increasingly consistently, but I am seeing slow progress here and there. I just came off of a deload week too; I never really felt like my lower back was recovering fully and I just kept hitting it.

I can do more dips and pull-ups than before so... I'll say yes, but slowly.

Unknown

Keep in mind, you have just a month of data here, and bulking is a slow process compared to the relatively quick results one sees on a cut. If you did it right, you stopped your cut at 10-12% bf and it should take you a year or longer to get up to +20% (where the P-ratio kicks in hard and makes it difficult to gain lean mass as fast as you can at a lower bf%).

As long as you keep a log of your lifts, and follow basic overloading principles, you should be a-ok. Remember to make your cal bumps small when you take them also; 100 cals, never more than once every 4 weeks. Should keep the fat gains relatively low and let you bulk longer before you need to cut back down again.