3 Different Ways To Bulk Up & The Pros And Cons Of Each

Bulking up a way of describing a period of training and diet in which a person aims to gain as much size as possible. Mostly, lean muscle mass is the goal, but there may be instances in which some fat gains are acceptable or even desirable. How you go about bulking will greatly influence your results, so it’s important you first decide what you want the end result to be so you pursue the best bulking up method for your purposes. I’ll describe 3 different ways you can bulk, including the pros and cons of each so you will be well informed about each method and can easily choose which one to follow.

Dirty Bulk

Those who choose to go the route of the dirty bulk will be less concerned with macronutrients and healthy food choices and more concerned with overall calories. People who go on a dirty bulk often tend to have very flexible diets so while they may gauge calories roughly, they often won’t count calories.

Dirty bulking is best recommended for those who wish to either put on a lot of size quickly – and aren’t overly concerned about fat gains at this time.

The Pros:

• You put on maximum size in minimum time – it’s just much of it will be from fat gains (which may even be desirable if you need more weight quickly for sports, etc.)
• It’s flexible so you needn’t worry about meal plans.
• You get to eat your favorite foods.
• You don’t have the constant worry about getting fat; you accept it as temporary or even desirable for your goals.
• You get to focus on a singular goal at the present time: More size and weight.

The Cons:

• You still need to understand sugary foods aren’t useful and you need good nutrients like protein, healthy fats and complex carbs.
• You still need to have some idea of how many calories you need to make progress, and if you wish to minimize fat gains from your dirty bulk, you may need to count calories and certainly need to monitor weight and fat levels with calipers, scales, and tape measures, and adjust your diet accordingly.
• It’s a recipe for big fat gains if you aren’t carefully monitoring your fat levels and overdo it.
• It’s inaccurate and inconsistent; you can’t correctly gauge the number of calories and other nutrients.
• You can sometimes find yourself wondering if you’ve eaten enough, eating extra to  cover the imagined shortfall, and actually end up overeating by quite a margin.

Clean Bulk

Those who go on a clean bulk want much more precision in their diet. They want the optimal number of calories for muscle growth, but not enough for substantial fat gains.  They want a balanced macronutrient breakdown and to make their lives easier to achieve all of this, will usually resort to a strict diet plan.

The Pros:

• You get maximum muscle and minimum fat.
• You know where you are with your meals and can rest easy knowing you’re optimizing your muscle gains vs. fat gains.
• Adjusting the overall calories or macronutrients of a strict diet is easy.
• Time spent losing fat when bulking is over will be minimal.

The Cons:

• You need to be prepared and organized; many people are not.
• You can sometimes get bored of your diet and crave other foods.
• Eating the better nutritional foods can sometimes cost a lot more.

Low Carb Bulk

‘Low carbers’ as they are known are people who get most of their nutrients from protein and fats, and try to keep their carbohydrate levels low. Carbohydrates are the prime source of fuel the body looks to burn first, and in the absence of carbohydrates, it looks for protein and finally fat. Now, if you preserve muscle mass (protein) by training and consuming sufficiently high protein, the body begins to burn dietary fat for energy instead. And, if you take in an overall calorie deficit, it will burn body fat to make up the shortfall. That’s why low carbers are often very lean and attest to the fact you can burn fat and build muscle at the same time.

The Pros:

• You can burn body fat and gain muscle at the same time.
• You don’t send your body’s blood sugars and insulin on a rollercoaster by taking in too many carbs; many people feel this helps stave off diabetes type 2 and related ailments.

The Cons:

• You need to carb up once in a while (once a week, usually) to boost your body’s metabolism or your fat loss will stall.
• Less choice in foods.
• Getting sufficient calories can be more difficult when you are leaving out one major nutrient.
• Gauging progress can be less clear and take time before clear changes are to be observed; for instance, if you are gaining muscle size but simultaneously losing fat, a tape measure may show no change or a change appearing to be against your goals of bulking by showing a loss in size – but is that really the case? You have to be sure of what you want, you’re doing and if it’s really working.

Of course, you can choose to do low carb bulking in a dirty or clean format; many people choose either. Many of the same pros and cons will still apply.