The Mythical "Recomp"

[RickBarker]

I just got caught up on this thread and i'd like to take a fresh jab at this question. I'm inline with Jordan that no this will not work. Why? Quite simple:

Increases in muscular body weight are driven primarily by training. In other words you cannot gain muscle mass unless you are accumulating more work over time. Back to our stress-recovery-adaptation cycle. if you do not continue to stress the body over time, muscle cannot be gained. Eventually we are unable to create more stress and/or recover more aka we hit our genetic ceilings. This is all theoretical and difficult to measure though. So just laying out the foundation for all this. Training = muscle mass

Now what happens when we don't eat enough to match the demands of our training? We cannot recover from the stress. So if you eat at surplus or maintenance one day, in a deficit the next and continue alternating this, the real question becomes: are you in a net surplus, deficit, or maintenance week-to-week. If the answer is deficit, you will find out quickly when you are unable to hit PRs (whether they be rep PRs, weight PRs, or volume PRs). So now we have the absence of an overload event. No overload = no gains.

So in short, in the absence of being an obese or extremely underweight novice the two are unlikely to happen simultaneously. What i will say is that the further you climb towards your genetic ceiling, the smaller the weight changes need to be on mass/cut phases IF your goal is to gain muscle. This is becuase the amount of lean tissue accrued each mass cycle is going to become smaller and smaller due to level of advancement (i.e an advanced male bodybuilder is likely gaining fractions of a lb of muscle per year and thus doesn't need to change his weight that much) If your goal is to lift as much as possible, these cycles may need to be bigger to allow for some extra "padding" (for lack of a better word) that allows us to lift more.

Robert-

I appreciate the fresh jab. You have added in the element of training to the discussion, which is helpful to think about.

Thanks for your time,

Rick

[whale]

I just got caught up on this thread and i'd like to take a fresh jab at this question. I'm inline with Jordan that no this will not work. Why? Quite simple:

Increases in muscular body weight are driven primarily by training. In other words you cannot gain muscle mass unless you are accumulating more work over time. Back to our stress-recovery-adaptation cycle. if you do not continue to stress the body over time, muscle cannot be gained. Eventually we are unable to create more stress and/or recover more aka we hit our genetic ceilings. This is all theoretical and difficult to measure though. So just laying out the foundation for all this. Training = muscle mass

Now what happens when we don't eat enough to match the demands of our training? We cannot recover from the stress. So if you eat at surplus or maintenance one day, in a deficit the next and continue alternating this, the real question becomes: are you in a net surplus, deficit, or maintenance week-to-week. If the answer is deficit, you will find out quickly when you are unable to hit PRs (whether they be rep PRs, weight PRs, or volume PRs). So now we have the absence of an overload event. No overload = no gains.

So in short, in the absence of being an obese or extremely underweight novice the two are unlikely to happen simultaneously. What i will say is that the further you climb towards your genetic ceiling, the smaller the weight changes need to be on mass/cut phases IF your goal is to gain muscle. This is becuase the amount of lean tissue accrued each mass cycle is going to become smaller and smaller due to level of advancement (i.e an advanced male bodybuilder is likely gaining fractions of a lb of muscle per year and thus doesn't need to change his weight that much) If your goal is to lift as much as possible, these cycles may need to be bigger to allow for some extra "padding" (for lack of a better word) that allows us to lift more.

Robert, nice to have you here

I agree with most of the stuff. However, I think appropriate programming is more important than calories for the overload event you described. This assumes there is no aggressive drop in body weight. Programming appropriately is not easy unless you're dealing with D1's which get away with nearly everything. Absurd amount of volume, absurd lack of volume - everything works. This is non related, but I think the more gifted athlete is, the more you can get away with silly bullshit.

The other important thing is that you can get away with suboptimal programming by gaining a bunch of weight. This is just d-duh but many people don't realize it, especially the ones that recommend gaining 10 pounds to "milk out" the LP and the ones that simply do not care about fat gain. These are my thoughts regarding training progression and nutrition.

I really like the thing you explained in last paragraph and that's what I was trying to communicate to Jordan. Basically novices can get away with a larger surplus without getting fat while really advanced people should stay on a smaller surplus because there's not much muscle to be gained.

The whole thread was about how much bulking/cutting cycles should last. IMO, it doesn't matter as long your training is in line with your weight gain/loss. Though, I wouldn't use days to measure my cutting/bulking cycles. That would be equivalent to saying I'm 1852 milimeters tall. That amount of resolution is not necessary nor practical.

I see calories as training volume. You can either bump it up slowly over time and continue progress or you can use the intentional overreaching and a deload. So if we graph those two, first one would be a straight line going up and the latter would be a wave that is also going up. Same thing with calories. I think more people like the bulking/cutting approach as it gives you feedback more quickly and also gives justification to people that like binge eating on a bulk. It also gives you more space for your program to be sub optimal.

As a side note, I don't think one approach is better than another and I also don't think fat gain is a bad unhealthy thing.

[Robert Santana]

Robert-

I appreciate the fresh jab. You have added in the element of training to the discussion, which is helpful to think about.

Thanks for your time,

Rick

You are very welcome :-)

[Robert Santana]

Robert, nice to have you here

I agree with most of the stuff. However, I think appropriate programming is more important than calories for the overload event you described. This assumes there is no aggressive drop in body weight. Programming appropriately is not easy unless you're dealing with D1's which get away with nearly everything. Absurd amount of volume, absurd lack of volume - everything works. This is non related, but I think the more gifted athlete is, the more you can get away with silly bullshit.

Programming is absolutely the single most important variable to muscle and strength development. The recovery aspect is important but not to the point where every fine detail is going to derail your progress. For example, sleeping 7.5 hours per day instead of 8 and eating 2800 calories instead of 3000 isn't going to cause an extreme disruption in the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle. Sleeping 4 hours every several nights or weeks straight and following a 1200 calorie diet (when you tend to maintain at around 3K) will almost certainly create problems. So yes programming is far more important than calories but only when calories, especially carbs and protein, are set within a reasonable range to not induce symptoms of undereating.

The other important thing is that you can get away with suboptimal programming by gaining a bunch of weight. This is just d-duh but many people don't realize it, especially the ones that recommend gaining 10 pounds to "milk out" the LP and the ones that simply do not care about fat gain. These are my thoughts regarding training progression and nutrition.

I really like the thing you explained in last paragraph and that's what I was trying to communicate to Jordan. Basically novices can get away with a larger surplus without getting fat while really advanced people should stay on a smaller surplus because there's not much muscle to be gained.

If the goal is to build muscle mass yes. If the goal is to lift as much as possible, additional fat gain may be beneficial for some individuals.

The whole thread was about how much bulking/cutting cycles should last. IMO, it doesn't matter as long your training is in line with your weight gain/loss. Though, I wouldn't use days to measure my cutting/bulking cycles. That would be equivalent to saying I'm 1852 milimeters tall. That amount of resolution is not necessary nor practical.

This is precisely what i meant above :-). Big picture homie

I see calories as training volume. You can either bump it up slowly over time and continue progress or you can use the intentional overreaching and a deload. So if we graph those two, first one would be a straight line going up and the latter would be a wave that is also going up. Same thing with calories. I think more people like the bulking/cutting approach as it gives you feedback more quickly and also gives justification to people that like binge eating on a bulk. It also gives you more space for your program to be sub optimal.

As a side note, I don't think one approach is better than another and I also don't think fat gain is a bad unhealthy thing.

The approach is going to ultimately come down to the individual. Lots of folks like the rapid feedback and the ability to eat more food and more flavorful food and don't really care about being heavier. Others would rather restrict and stay leaner so long as they can continue progressing. Comes back to goals and preferences!

[timelinex]

Robert,

It's good to see you taking up this opportunity! My wife and I might give you another visit within a few weeks (Kyle & Alisa). Anyways....

I think the primary sticking point for most people is why they are told that they can lose weight & gain muscle while a novice but they are supposed to believe that the process magically stops. I understand why it might seem confusing if you don't understand that actual reasons 'why'.

I will try adding an explanation from a different point of view so maybe this point of view will help them understand it. It's based on things Mike Israetel has said or alluded to. I hope you don't mind the input. I tried to stay away from being to exact or technical and just spoke in generalities...

Just a few fundamentals out of the way:

1. Growing muscle requires progressive overload. Doing a little more today than you did yesterday. Whether it's weight or volume.

2. While in a net calorie surplus, there is a minimum you can do to gain muscle.

3. While in a net calorie surplus, there is also a maximum you can do to gain muscle. The more you do that you can recover from, the more that technically you will grow. But any more than the maximum and you won't recover enough and might start losing muscle/strength overall because you are breaking down more muscle from your workouts than your body can fix in time.

4. When you are losing weight, that minimum you have to do goes up since you are fighting catabolic signals of weight loss and the maximum you can do goes down as your recovery is compromised.

Onto the why.....

When you are a novice, the difference between the minimum you need to do to gain and the maximum you can recover from is huge. For the minimum I will quote Rip, "A novice can bicycle and have his squat go up". So doing 3x5 squats meets that minimum for sure, whether you are losing or gaining. As far as the maximum goes, you are very far from being able to do a realistic maximum recovery wise. Your Neural efficiency is so poor that even alot of volume isn't close to your maximum (even if you get really sore.). Kinda why Women can do so much more volume. So progressing your 3x5 squat of relatively light weights will not out tax your maximum, EVEN if you are losing weight. You are far from your maximum. The reason you don't wnt to try and do an insane amount of volume is it's mostly a waste. There is a point of limited returns and you will suffer much more from technique breakdown and other mechanisms than you will gain from doing more than 3x5.

Here is where the issue comes in. Your body adapts to training and you need more and more (whether in intensity or volume.) That adaption raises your "minimum". Keep in mind though that while your maximum rises, it doesn't rise nearly as fast as your minimum. In other words, your minimum and maximum get closer and closer to each other. At a particular point in your career, your minimum required work to gain muscle is more than your maximum recoverable work when in a caloric deficit. Thats it. You can no longer gain muscle and lose fat. So how do you gain muscle at this point? Only 1 natural thing significantly changes your recovery ability from baseline. Eating in a surplus! That raises your maximum substantially and viola you can gain muscle again! Keep in mind that you can gain strength in a coloric deficit because you are working on a completely different system (neural efficiency and maybe technique). Those things aren't as based on calories. But strength does NOT necessarily mean muscle.

Another interesting tidbit is that this goes on throughout your entire career. Very advance trainees get to a point that EVEN AT A SURPLUS, the amount of work they need to do to keep growing is more than they can recover from! That's what the whole 'genetic ceiling' thing is about. The only remaining 'game changer' possibility they have is drugs. That raises their recovering ability and they are like a novice/intermediate all over again...

Lastly, maintenance calories is kind of in between. You can probably maintain weight and gain muscle throughout your intermediate phase, but you are tip toeing a fine line. If thats your only goal you are not being very efficient at gaining muscle. I think alot of the coaches still recommend this to alot of skinny/fat intermediates though. I can't speak for them, but I think they want you to become more proficient at your lifts and improve your strength. In the meantime a minor recomp will be happening and even though it is slow, its just a side bonus.

I hope this different point of view helps some people "get" what is going on.

[Robert Santana]

Robert,

It's good to see you taking up this opportunity! My wife and I might give you another visit within a few weeks (Kyle & Alisa). Anyways....

I think the primary sticking point for most people is why they are told that they can lose weight & gain muscle while a novice but they are supposed to believe that the process magically stops. I understand why it might seem confusing if you don't understand that actual reasons 'why'.

I will try adding an explanation from a different point of view so maybe this point of view will help them understand it. It's based on things Mike Israetel has said or alluded to. I hope you don't mind the input. I tried to stay away from being to exact or technical and just spoke in generalities...

Just a few fundamentals out of the way:

1. Growing muscle requires progressive overload. Doing a little more today than you did yesterday. Whether it's weight or volume.

2. While in a net calorie surplus, there is a minimum you can do to gain muscle.

3. While in a net calorie surplus, there is also a maximum you can do to gain muscle. The more you do that you can recover from, the more that technically you will grow. But any more than the maximum and you won't recover enough and might start losing muscle/strength overall because you are breaking down more muscle from your workouts than your body can fix in time.

4. When you are losing weight, that minimum you have to do goes up since you are fighting catabolic signals of weight loss and the maximum you can do goes down as your recovery is compromised.

Onto the why.....

When you are a novice, the difference between the minimum you need to do to gain and the maximum you can recover from is huge. For the minimum I will quote Rip, "A novice can bicycle and have his squat go up". So doing 3x5 squats meets that minimum for sure, whether you are losing or gaining. As far as the maximum goes, you are very far from being able to do a realistic maximum recovery wise. Your Neural efficiency is so poor that even alot of volume isn't close to your maximum (even if you get really sore.). Kinda why Women can do so much more volume. So progressing your 3x5 squat of relatively light weights will not out tax your maximum, EVEN if you are losing weight. You are far from your maximum. The reason you don't wnt to try and do an insane amount of volume is it's mostly a waste. There is a point of limited returns and you will suffer much more from technique breakdown and other mechanisms than you will gain from doing more than 3x5.

Here is where the issue comes in. Your body adapts to training and you need more and more (whether in intensity or volume.) That adaption raises your "minimum". Keep in mind though that while your maximum rises, it doesn't rise nearly as fast as your minimum. In other words, your minimum and maximum get closer and closer to each other. At a particular point in your career, your minimum required work to gain muscle is more than your maximum recoverable work when in a caloric deficit. Thats it. You can no longer gain muscle and lose fat. So how do you gain muscle at this point? Only 1 natural thing significantly changes your recovery ability from baseline. Eating in a surplus! That raises your maximum substantially and viola you can gain muscle again! Keep in mind that you can gain strength in a coloric deficit because you are working on a completely different system (neural efficiency and maybe technique). Those things aren't as based on calories. But strength does NOT necessarily mean muscle.

Another interesting tidbit is that this goes on throughout your entire career. Very advance trainees get to a point that EVEN AT A SURPLUS, the amount of work they need to do to keep growing is more than they can recover from! That's what the whole 'genetic ceiling' thing is about. The only remaining 'game changer' possibility they have is drugs. That raises their recovering ability and they are like a novice/intermediate all over again...

Lastly, maintenance calories is kind of in between. You can probably maintain weight and gain muscle throughout your intermediate phase, but you are tip toeing a fine line. If thats your only goal you are not being very efficient at gaining muscle. I think alot of the coaches still recommend this to alot of skinny/fat intermediates though. I can't speak for them, but I think they want you to become more proficient at your lifts and improve your strength. In the meantime a minor recomp will be happening and even though it is slow, its just a side bonus.

I hope this different point of view helps some people "get" what is going on.

Nice to hear from you Kyle! Looking forward to having you under the bar again :-).

I agree with 99.9% of this and its essentially what I've been trying to communicate. The 0.1% that i disagree with is strength expression in a caloric deficit. It's simply not going to happen effectively because expressing maximal strength requires sufficient ATP and phosphocreatine, which won't be available if you aren't eating enough. Just watch people who try to cut into a meet. Lifts tend to go down, with warm up weight looking like a 1RM. Different system yes but at the end of the day whether you are expressing strength or developing it you need sufficient fuel for this to be possible and it becomes more important as that range between maximum and minimum required stress starts to narrow out.

[whale]

At a particular point in your career, your minimum required work to gain muscle is more than your maximum recoverable work when in a caloric deficit. Thats it. You can no longer gain muscle and lose fat. So how do you gain muscle at this point? Only 1 natural thing significantly changes your recovery ability from baseline. Eating in a surplus! That raises your maximum substantially and viola you can gain muscle again! Keep in mind that you can gain strength in a coloric deficit because you are working on a completely different system (neural efficiency and maybe technique). Those things aren't as based on calories. But strength does NOT necessarily mean muscle.

Another interesting tidbit is that this goes on throughout your entire career. Very advance trainees get to a point that EVEN AT A SURPLUS, the amount of work they need to do to keep growing is more than they can recover from! That's what the whole 'genetic ceiling' thing is about.

I mostly agree with you.

Tolerating more work is not solely a calorie thing.

I also don't believe in the "genetic ceiling", people just get older.

It's important to state how big the deficit is. I don't think you can build muscle and lose fat, as a more advanced lifter, on a diet that lets you measure your weight loss on a weight scale on a weekly basis. And this could very well be explained by the minimum work and maximum work you and Israetel talk about. With limited recovery resources like that you just can't withstand the training volume you are doing. Same thing happens when people lose their gains when they stop taking steroids. Steroids have enabled them to do bunch of work. When they no longer have supraphysiological levels of testosterone in them, they simply cannot tolerate the work they did before and they lose their gains.

If we take 6ft 220lbs fluffy guy who decides not to change his body weight, I think he can train, progress and be on maintenance calories his whole life. Those maintenance calories will go up as he does more work, recovers from more work and walks around with more muscle mass. Unfortunately, by the time he gets lean and muscular, he will likely get old and everything goes to shit when you get old.

Just watch people who try to cut into a meet. Lifts tend to go down, with warm up weight looking like a 1RM. Different system yes but at the end of the day whether you are expressing strength or developing it you need sufficient fuel for this to be possible and it becomes more important as that range between maximum and minimum required stress starts to narrow out.

I think this is the problem only on aggressive cuts. Weight should be established 1-2 weeks before the meet.

[Jennifer Williams]

If I can ask, given the two most recent posts, since I seem to be working in a perfect caloric balance, that is my macros (160 c, 118 p, and 50 f) maintaining almost an exact 118 everyday, does the above posts mean that I would not gain strength or muscle? While I am on the novice program I have been lifting for years (Crossfit for 6), so I’m sure I’m not making any easy gains anymore.

[David Mitchell]

...whether you are expressing strength or developing it you need sufficient fuel for this to be possible...

Is there a Goldilocks zone regarding surplus? A point (points) of diminishing returns for the average, intermediate Joe?

[Robert Santana]

I mostly agree with you.

Tolerating more work is not solely a calorie thing.

I also don't believe in the "genetic ceiling", people just get older.

It's important to state how big the deficit is. I don't think you can build muscle and lose fat, as a more advanced lifter, on a diet that lets you measure your weight loss on a weight scale on a weekly basis. And this could very well be explained by the minimum work and maximum work you and Israetel talk about. With limited recovery resources like that you just can't withstand the training volume you are doing. Same thing happens when people lose their gains when they stop taking steroids. Steroids have enabled them to do bunch of work. When they no longer have supraphysiological levels of testosterone in them, they simply cannot tolerate the work they did before and they lose their gains.

If we take 6ft 220lbs fluffy guy who decides not to change his body weight, I think he can train, progress and be on maintenance calories his whole life. Those maintenance calories will go up as he does more work, recovers from more work and walks around with more muscle mass. Unfortunately, by the time he gets lean and muscular, he will likely get old and everything goes to shit when you get old.


I think this is the problem only on aggressive cuts. Weight should be established 1-2 weeks before the meet.

I think we are communicating the same thing with different lingo. Kinda like we do in person lol. In the absence of severe restriction mild caloric fluctuations won't generally do much to mess up training. The thing you want to remember too is that some people cannot lose fat without going into severe restriction. Goes back to my chat at the SSCA. One guy can cut out cream and sugar from his coffee and drop a weight class without much effort and another guy same height and weight may have to starve to achieve the same result. Same applies to the training concepts we are talking about. In short, individual results may vary #biologicalvariability