The only "correct way" to gain muscle as a natural lifter | Lean Bulking VS Dirty Bulking

Hey friends.

Many of you asked me about the difference between dirty bulking and lean bulking. And which method works best to gain muscle as a natural lifter.

When it comes to "bulking", there are two camps of people. One who swear by "dirty bulking" - these are the old school kind. The "Eat big to get big" bros.

The other group is more rational, they do not get swayed by the "old school advice" and instead follow a lean bulking approach. So the question is - what exactly is the difference between lean bulking and dirty bulking, and what is the correct way to bulk for a natural lifter.

Bulking Vs Body Recomposition:

Well, when you want to increase the amount of muscle mass on your body, your body needs to produce more muscle tissue. This fresh tissue cannot be synthesized by magic. The body needs energy for this process due to mass-energy equivalence; fundamentals of physics. (Remember E=mc²?)

One way that the body can get energy is by utilising your stored body fat. The energy generated by burning body fat stores is then used to fuel muscle growth. As a result your muscle mass increases while body fat decreases. This process is called body recomposition, for which there is a full video I did which you can watch here.

But while body recomposition is a powerful tool to utilise for improving your fitness and gaining muscle, it only works well when there is a significant amount of bodyfat to use - mostly in overweight and obese trainees.

Also, as you lose body fat there will come a point where your physique becomes lean and there is no longer sufficient fat stored to fuel effective muscle growth.  I would say this is when you reach under 15% body fat as men, and 22% as women.

In skinny or lean people, since a certain level of body fat is required for good health, the body naturally wants to preserve these fat stores and will resist sacrificing them to furnish energy for muscle gain. It doesn't make sense to the body.

And that is the key point to note here; in recomposition you can’t actually gain mass. The Body is breaking down one type of mass (fat tissue) for energy to produce another type of mass (Muscle tissue).

Your body composition is getting improved for sure - you are improving the quality of your mass, but the net body weight will either stay around the same mark or decrease, simply because you will have a lot more fat to lose than the amount of muscle you can gain.

Example - If you were a 70 kg out-of-shape, fat or skinny fat person, then a 6-8 month of body recomposition (aka smart cutting) will lead to some muscle gain while losing all that fat, but your net weight is likely going to be below 70 Kgs (early 60s, or even late 50s from my experience with coaching 2100+ people.)

After a successful body recomposition phase, you are past the beginner stage of your fitness journey. You are no longer the out of shape "overweight" or "skinny fat" person. You are now in the best shape of your life till date - lean and strong.

But "lean" also means that your body fat storage is not high enough to facilitate further muscle building. Hence, the time has come to start providing your body "energy surplus" from your diet.

My point is - body recomposition alone will not lead you all the way to your "ideal physique" where you have fulfilled your natural genetic potential. Body Recomposition will drop you at the closest point of "good fitness" that is achievable from your starting point. After that, it is really upto you as to what you desire to "build" on top of the foundation laid. (that's literally the true meaning of natural Body Building)

And to build on top of the basic foundation, you will need a calorie surplus in your diet. Without this energy surplus, mass can not be synthesised out of thin air. This means eating more food and being in a calorie surplus.

This process of consciously eating in calorie surplus is what is known as Bulking - and now we understand why it is necessary if you want to put on significant muscle mass.

The simplest definition of Bulking is increasing the amount of mass on your body.

Another advantage of Bulking is that a calorie surplus creates an anabolic environment within the body; which promotes the fastest and most effective rate of muscle growth. Think about it from an evolutionary perspective; when the body receives a consistent calorie surplus - it means that food resources are abundant. There are enough calories available so that a metabolically active tissue like muscle can be grown and maintained.
‍
So the body receives the green light to increase muscle protein synthesis and use this extra energy - some of it for muscle growth, and some to store as fat for future needs.

The split or ratio of how this energy is used is called nutrient partitioning i.e. how much energy is used for muscle growth and how much is stored as fat depends on a number of factors. Such as your genetics for muscle growth, the intensity of your training, your hormone levels, your nutrition - protein intake, your sleep, stress in your life.. etc. So the question is how do you know how much of a calorie surplus to use?

This is where the people usually divide into one of the two camps - dirty bulking and lean bulking.

Dirty Bulking

The logic of dirty bulking is quite simple. We need surplus calories to increase body mass and grow muscle. And calorie surplus is anabolic - therefore, a larger calorie surplus is better. High protein diet, with a lot of extra calories will make you grow faster and gain muscle as rapidly as possible. Seems to be logical (and fun..).

This process is called Dirty Bulking, and it means using a large calorie surplus of usually more than 500 extra calories per day.

But honestly, from what I have seen in practice - people who adopt the dirty bulking mindset do not track their calorie intake at all. After all the aim is to add as large a surplus as possible and grow quickly. 500 or 700 or 900 - who cares. ("Stop being a p*ssy and eat.")

And when one follows this process, it seems to work. Body mass increases quickly, clothes start to get tighter, weight on the scale goes up, you can see your size increasing and strength goes up quite fast. It’s also relatively easy to follow in terms of diet - as you have given yourself maximum flexibility and leeway.

You can see examples of this done by pro bodybuilders. They are known for the large quantities of food they eat with 5 or 6 meals per day during their bulking season. Similarly for desi pehelwans - they often report drinking litres of full-cream milk, eating stacks of chapatis with lots of ghee - to pack on size. To some extent, this approach works - it makes you bigger and stronger faster. The desi pehelwans also pack on a good chunk of body fat along with muscle and strength.

But is this the correct way to do things? Let's have a look at what science and data suggests-

A 2013 Study from the European Journal of Sports Science looked at the effect of calorie surplus on mass gain in elite athletes. The athletes were divided into 2 groups; One group had an average calorie intake of roughly 2960 calories per day, while the other group had an average calorie intake of roughly 3600 calories per day. After a 12-week diet and training period, the results showed that the higher-calorie group had gained more body mass (roughly 4% increase) than the lower-calorie group (roughly 1.5% increase). But, the higher-calorie group had a much greater increase in fat mass - 15% increase in BF mass, as compared to only 3% in the lower-calorie group. Interestingly, there was no real difference in lean mass gained between the 2 groups. Meaning, the higher calorie surplus group had gained more fat while not gaining any more muscle than the lower calorie group.

And this is the problem with Dirty Bulking. With an uncontrolled surplus, you can increase your overall body mass very quickly - sure. But past a certain point, extra calories can’t accelerate the gain of "quality mass"- which is lean muscle tissue on your body. You get bigger fast, but the majority of the size and weight gained comes from storing body fat, not from growing muscle. Instead of packing steel on your frame, you are packing cotton.

The reason for this is that the body has a natural limit to how much muscle it can naturally synthesise in a 24 hour period. Once you have provided your body with the training stimulus, protein and calories needed to synthesise this amount of muscle, any extra calories above this requirement are all stored as fat. In a month, if you do everything optimally, the body is typically able to synthesize 2 lb or roughly 1 Kg of muscle at most; so any surplus calories beyond those required to build 1 kg of muscle will only lead to fat gain. And this 1 kg per month figure also only applies in the absolute best case scenario, when you are in your novice gains period and the body grows muscle at the fastest possible rate. Here is the detailed video I did on this natural limit of muscle synthesis.

Once this extra fat has been gained, it then also needs to be lost. Forget fitness, excess body fat is the single biggest risk for health & lifestyle disorders like diabetes, blood pressure, heart problems..to name a few. Plus, you also need to Cut excess fat if you want to have an aesthetic physique or to create room for another bulk. The more fat you have packed on during a bulk, the longer it will take to lose it all during the cut.

So, instead of saving time - actually a Dirty Bulk wastes your valuable time and energy. It means you have to spend more time later in losing the extra fat which was gained unnecessarily, without actually having gotten any real benefit in terms of extra muscle gain.

Lean Bulking

So it’s important to understand that Bulking is not just about gaining mass - it is about gaining quality mass. Lean Mass.

And, if our aim is to gain quality mass, ie. maximise muscle gain while minimising fat gain, then Dirty Bulking is a bad idea. Instead one needs to follow Lean Bulking. Mostly people adopt the lean bulking protocols after having learned the lesson the hard way going through a dirty bulk first.

I often call lean bulking as "enlightened bulking", you have reached a level of understanding where you are not in hurry. You are not trying to outsmart the laws of nature, and have understood that your job is basically just allowing the nature to work. You can't push nature to work faster and cater to your whims.

Lean bulking is when you use a small, consistent calorie surplus over a period of many months and gain body mass gradually. Typically this means only adding 10-15% extra calories to your maintenance calories. By using this conservative approach, you give the body the signal required to start growing muscle and the energy it needs to produce muscle.

The calories should be just enough so that the maximum rate of muscle synthesis is enabled. This way you can benefit from the anabolic effects of calorie surplus, while minimising fat gain.

Often when a hypertroph member transitions from cutting (or recomp) to bulking - I advice them to maintain a mindset similar to what developed in their cutting phase. And that is - you still have to follow your calorie budget and maintain discipline.

There may be some flexibility in your diet because your budget has increased slightly. Your daily pocket money has increased, but there is still a limit to it and you need to keep your spend within that limit. "Pair utne hi pasaro jitni chaadar hai" still holds true!

And for long term fitness, this is the only true mindset. To always be conscious of a calorie budget, to always have a sense of portion control, to always be a skilfull eater. To always maintain a healthy relationship with food.

Dirty Bulk mindset ruins this healthy relationship. And very slyly leads to developing of illogical belief systems like - "I am not on a diet currently" or "I think it's time to start a diet".

Read that again. Absurd talk right? We are always on a diet as long as we are eating food, the only difference is whether we are mindfully or mindlessly.

So in lean bulking paradigm - due to this controlled mindset, body mass, size and strength will go up in a much more gradual manner - but you can be confident that every kilo of mass gained here will be of a higher quality, with a greater ratio of muscle to fat. Of course, it is impossible not to gain fat when you are in a calorie surplus, but through a Lean Bulk we can limit this fat gain and therefore avoid negative health consequences.

Another advantage of a Lean Bulk is that, since the rate of fat gain is slower, you can sustain your Bulking process for a longer period of time. In a Dirty Bulk, fat is gained quickly and you will soon reach an unhealthy level of body fat and have to stop the Bulk, start Cutting Fat for health reasons.

This could also mean that you didn’t have enough time to gain a good amount of Muscle. On the other hand, during a Lean Bulk, fat gain is minimised and the process can be continued for many months before the trainee reaches an unhealthy body fat zone.

Longer, slower bulk means more overall muscle gained. I often recommend that your first proper bulk should last at least 12 months, and 18 months is even better. This is the time to make profit.

This is actually a way more efficient use of time and energy than Dirty Bulking. Just like the cliched saying - Slow and Steady wins the Race. 

Furthermore after you are done with a successful lean bulk - and you start cutting, since less fat has been added - it takes less time to lose it and then restart a fresh Bulking cycle to "build" on the top of new levels unlocked in life. Natural Bodybuilding is a process of continuous self-growth, these are infinite games. You don't arrive, you only improve. You be yourself, but you keep upgrading yourself.

But then why do pehelwans and pro bodybuilders use dirty bulks?

In the case of pehelwans and *desi akhada wrestlers*, the aim is for them to get as strong as possible. Extra body mass, including extra fat, actually increases strength; weight moves weight. So having a higher bodyfat level can actually be advantageous for their sport. But this higher bodyfat level also comes with health risks such as obesity-related lifestyle diseases.

And in the case of pro bodybuilders, first of all they carry a huge amount of muscle mass on their body - much more than is possible for any natural lifter; they need a lot of calories just to maintain this muscle. Second, they use heavy doses of anabolic steroids and other drugs for their physique.

These drugs greatly improve their muscle synthesis and nutrient partitioning; - their Muscle Protein Synthesis rates, their testosterone levels are in a different galaxy, to copy them as a natural in terms of training or nutrition would be foolish. Their bodily needs for maintenance becomes to the tune of 4000-5000 Cals - to they have no other option but to eat big.
‍
They can use a greater amount of calories for muscle gain than a natural bodybuilder, while gaining much less fat. This too comes with many health risks and consequences in the long term. Therefore, these nutrition practices do not apply to Natural Lifters.