Top 5 Bulking Mistakes

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I have a hard time thinking of anyone who dislikes bulking. You get to eat more, throw around more iron, and just feel better and stronger. But that doesn’t mean there still aren’t a lot of mistakes being made out there when it comes to bulking.

In this post, I’ll be talking about the top 5 bulking mistakes I see out there and what to do about them. I’ve committed many of them myself, so don’t worry if you’re guilty of some of these. You’re in good company!

1. Not eating enough

For a lot of people, finally getting abs and seeing great muscle definition is their biggest accomplishment ever since seeing the Rocky movies as a kid.

So once they get those abs, they don’t want to lose them and will go out of their way to lean bulk and be extra careful. Waking up to all those cuts in the mirror is fun, and let’s face it — diets aren’t — so people will restrict calories when it comes time to bulk, even though they know they’ll be better off with that extra muscle.

And guess what…they don’t grow.

On one hand, it’s important to still be conscious of your calorie intake when bulking so that you don’t end up looking like the Michelin Man, but if you take that too far, you’ll only be shooting yourself in the foot and going nowhere despite your hard work.

Assuming you are lean enough, the fact of the matter is that you are going to need a decent calorie surplus in order to make some solid gains. See here for my article: Do you need a calorie surplus to build muscle?

I know it might seem scary and you feel like you are going to blow up into a balloon by being in a surplus, but you’ve just got to trust me on this.

Assuming you stick to my recommendations of only gaining 0.25-0.5% of your bodyweight per week (advanced–>beginner), you won’t be gaining much bodyfat at all.

If it helps, here’s a little fun fact for you. When you are in a calorie surplus and training hard, that surplus isn’t your “real surplus”. The energy balance equation can change:

Adding more training volume to your previous workouts at maintenance calories will increase energy needs
Adding calories will also increase your TEF (Thermic Effect of Food)
Building muscle requires a lot of energy
When you increase calories to a surplus, many people will increase their NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis; things like figdeting, moving around more, etc.) that burns calories.

Your energy needs will increase by being in that surplus, so the “true” surplus isn’t as high as you think, leaving less extra calories to go towards fat.

And at the end of the day, even if you do gain SOME fat that makes your cuts a little blurrier, cutting is much faster than bulking. It may take you 6 months to gain 6 pounds of muscle and only 6 weeks to lose 6 pounds of fat.

2. Eating too much

On the other side, you’ve got people who use bulking as an excuse to eat anything and everything in sight. Whereas some people who are finished cutting use that as motivation to not eat as much, others who couldn’t wait to finish cutting use bulking as a way to justify eating a ton of junk that they felt deprived of during their diet.

This is also a problem, because you can only gain so much muscle at a time. Any extra calories above and beyond what you need to support muscle growth will just go to fat.

In this study by Garthe et al, adding more calories to the surplus didn’t lead to more and more gains – they just gained more fat.

It’s fun to be in a calorie surplus and get access to eating all sorts of great things, but you’ve also got to temper yourself and make sure you are still only gaining that 0.25-0.5% bodyweight per week.

If you don’t, you’ll find yourself gaining bodyfat at a disproportionate rate to muscle, which can lead to cutting even sooner and reducing the amount of time you have to focus on quality training and growth.

3. Eating too much/too little protein

Protein is every bodybuilder’s favorite macro.

It may be important for building muscle, but more is not better.

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis by Morton et al found that maximum benefit for muscle growth is seen at 1.6g protein/kilogram bodyweight (0.7g/lb).

There’s nothing wrong with going higher than this, but protein does tend to be the most expensive macronutrient for most people’s diets, and too much can start to be a burden or displace other factors in the diet.

On the other hand, you’ve got people who for whatever reason forget to hit their protein intake. Maybe they don’t enjoy meat, they’re vegan/vegetarian, or somehow it gets lost in the mix amidst all the pasta, rice, and other sources used to hit their calorie surplus.

Regardless of the reason, ensure you are getting at least 1.6g/kg or 0.7g/lb per day from predominantly high quality sources, and you should be good to go.

4. Changing their food choices too much

A big issue that I see from people going from cutting diets to bulking diets is that they’ll trade all the “clean” foods that made up their fat loss diet for lots of processed foods, less fruits and vegetables, and junk.

As a result, they may start to generate some micronutrient deficiencies, not feel as full or satisfied after a meal despite the higher calories, or start to overeat due to the fact that they’re not as full from their meals.

I strongly dislike this approach.

You should have a core set of nutritious foods that you enjoy and make up your diet no matter what phase of your physique development you’re in. The only thing that changes are the amounts.

You might reduce some of the more filling fruits and vegetables that were a staple during your diet in lieu of more energy dense foods, but that doesn’t mean you eliminate them altogether.

When bulking, you can certainly incorporate more “junk” food if it fits your plan, but don’t make that ALL you have just because it’s an easy source of calories.

As a general rule, 80% of your diet or more should be from wholesome nutritious sources. The rest? You only get one life.

5. Not tracking progress

Last but not least, there’s not tracking progress.

People have a tendency to get really lazy when it comes to bulking.

They stop weighing themselves regularly, take progress for granted, and lose that fire to optimize their programs based on the results they’re seeing.

Make no mistake: the best physiques are made during long gaining phases — not the relatively short periods of cutting to show off all that hard work.

If you aren’t tracking your weight or taking progress pictures, how can you know whether you’re at the right calorie intake for you?

If you aren’t tracking what you’re doing in the gym, how can you know if you have the right training program or whether you could benefit from increased calories? How can you know whether you’re truly making progress or just spinning your wheels?

You can’t. So track. Don’t get lazy or too comfortable just because it’s a bulk.