Uploaded December 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Path to your Goal Physique: thinkeatlift.com/path
My Full Training Program: thinkeatlift.com/ggp
Follow Makaih Beats:
soundcloud.com/buybeats
In this episode I'll share how my training is progressing and I'll give you some updates on my lean bulking experiment I talked about in episode 10.
What I'm showing you here is workout A from my two day split - chest, shoulders and triceps. This time my friend Ovidiu brought a steady cam so expect some great shots n this video.
Alright so my training is going pretty well. Over the last weeks I've been constantly setting PRs on all my indicator exercises. For example today I set a PR on Incline Bench Press in both my second and third sets.
If you're getting stronger in a medium rep range you can be sure you're also getting bigger.
Of course your strength will probably not go up linearly. When I first learned that to get bigger, you need to get stronger I was obsessed about setting PRs. In every workout I thought I needed to be stronger than I was last time and I considered reducing the weight on the bar as a sign of weakness.
Recently I realized that using lighter weights from time to time can be beneficial. To give you an example after I hit failure in my first set of incline about 3 workouts ago, in my next chest workout I was not feeling very strong. My warm-up sets felt heavy and I just didn't have the confidence that I'll be able to replicate my last performance.
So what I did is I lowered the weight by about 10% and worked in a higher rep range.
In the next chest workout I was back to my normal strength and since that I've been setting PRs every session. I am now confident that if I didn't take that lighter day when I felt exhausted I would have hit a plateau.
So when we're saying that you need to get stronger to get bigger, we don't necessarily mean every workout. Depending on your level of development, you might add weight every workout, you might stay at a given weight for 2-3 workouts or it might be 2-3 weeks before you can add weight in good form. But, if over some reasonable time frame, your training weights aren’t increasing, you won’t be growing.
Muscle will always follow strength gained in a medium rep range - not singles or dubles. The reason for that is because if you've made your neurological strength gains, your form is efficient and your bones and joints have adapted to lifting the only way your body will be able to produce more strength is by increasing the size of the muscle. If you're getting stronger and you're no longer a beginner, you are by default getting bigger. You have to be.
Now let's talk about my lean bulk experiment. So starting november 1st which was Muscling In episode 10, I started doing this:
3 weeks in a surplus and 1 week in a deficit. This is was to test if you can offset the fat gained in the 3 weeks of surplus during the one week of deficit.
Now obviously it's only been one month so I can only tell you what I've observed during one cycle.
In terms of body composition I haven't noticed much difference. My weight only increased by 1 pound or half a kilogram over the last month which is exactly what I wanted. My waist stayed the same at 78cm which is also as planned.
In terms of strength, I haven't noticed any difference during that one week in a deficit.
So far I'd say this is a great lean bulking strategy. If you're gaining weight I don't think you can avoid fat gain completely but this may help reduce fat gain.
What I would add is here is that in my opinion compromising the rate of muscle gain in favor of staying lean is a mistake. If you decide to use this strategy make sure that your weight is going up at the rate it's supposed to be depending on your training experience.
If you could have gained 10 pounds of muscle this year while accepting 10 pounds of fat gain but you only gained 5 pounds of muscle and only 2 pounds of fat that's worse. Building muscle is that time consuming part. Make sure that you actually gain muscle when you're lean bulking.
The Path to your Goal Physique: thinkeatlift.com/path
My Full Training Program: thinkeatlift.com/ggp
Follow Makaih Beats:
soundcloud.com/buybeats
In this episode I'll share how my training is progressing and I'll give you some updates on my lean bulking experiment I talked about in episode 10.
What I'm showing you here is workout A from my two day split - chest, shoulders and triceps. This time my friend Ovidiu brought a steady cam so expect some great shots n this video.
Alright so my training is going pretty well. Over the last weeks I've been constantly setting PRs on all my indicator exercises. For example today I set a PR on Incline Bench Press in both my second and third sets.
If you're getting stronger in a medium rep range you can be sure you're also getting bigger.
Of course your strength will probably not go up linearly. When I first learned that to get bigger, you need to get stronger I was obsessed about setting PRs. In every workout I thought I needed to be stronger than I was last time and I considered reducing the weight on the bar as a sign of weakness.
Recently I realized that using lighter weights from time to time can be beneficial. To give you an example after I hit failure in my first set of incline about 3 workouts ago, in my next chest workout I was not feeling very strong. My warm-up sets felt heavy and I just didn't have the confidence that I'll be able to replicate my last performance.
So what I did is I lowered the weight by about 10% and worked in a higher rep range.
In the next chest workout I was back to my normal strength and since that I've been setting PRs every session. I am now confident that if I didn't take that lighter day when I felt exhausted I would have hit a plateau.
So when we're saying that you need to get stronger to get bigger, we don't necessarily mean every workout. Depending on your level of development, you might add weight every workout, you might stay at a given weight for 2-3 workouts or it might be 2-3 weeks before you can add weight in good form. But, if over some reasonable time frame, your training weights aren’t increasing, you won’t be growing.
Muscle will always follow strength gained in a medium rep range - not singles or dubles. The reason for that is because if you've made your neurological strength gains, your form is efficient and your bones and joints have adapted to lifting the only way your body will be able to produce more strength is by increasing the size of the muscle. If you're getting stronger and you're no longer a beginner, you are by default getting bigger. You have to be.
Now let's talk about my lean bulk experiment. So starting november 1st which was Muscling In episode 10, I started doing this:
3 weeks in a surplus and 1 week in a deficit. This is was to test if you can offset the fat gained in the 3 weeks of surplus during the one week of deficit.
Now obviously it's only been one month so I can only tell you what I've observed during one cycle.
In terms of body composition I haven't noticed much difference. My weight only increased by 1 pound or half a kilogram over the last month which is exactly what I wanted. My waist stayed the same at 78cm which is also as planned.
In terms of strength, I haven't noticed any difference during that one week in a deficit.
So far I'd say this is a great lean bulking strategy. If you're gaining weight I don't think you can avoid fat gain completely but this may help reduce fat gain.
What I would add is here is that in my opinion compromising the rate of muscle gain in favor of staying lean is a mistake. If you decide to use this strategy make sure that your weight is going up at the rate it's supposed to be depending on your training experience.
If you could have gained 10 pounds of muscle this year while accepting 10 pounds of fat gain but you only gained 5 pounds of muscle and only 2 pounds of fat that's worse. Building muscle is that time consuming part. Make sure that you actually gain muscle when you're lean bulking.
