# 5 days cut, 5 days bulk: effective?



## Witchblade (Dec 18, 2007)

I'm looking for information on the effectiveness of short cutting and bulking phases, say 5 days, compared to longer phases where you have a longer transitional period. I imagine you lose more weight, both muscle and fat, with the short phases, as you cut your calories down a lot very suddenly and bump them back up very fast too. 

Articles, personal experiences etc. welcome. Jodi and Iain's opinion welcome in particular.


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## tucker01 (Dec 18, 2007)

What are you trying to achieve by doing this?


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## Witchblade (Dec 18, 2007)

Cutting and bulking at the 'same' time. Or staying lean while putting on mass. I'm on a regular cut ATM though, slowly dropping calories. I've read some articles about short phases being more effective, but I'm a bit sceptical about it.


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## tucker01 (Dec 18, 2007)

I have never seen anything that short of a period.  What would the defecit and surplus be like.  I am skeptical on the progress made.

Personally I think 3-4 week periods work better.


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## Witchblade (Dec 18, 2007)

I think in the article they said 500 above and 500 below maintenance, so that's a 1000 calorie jump.

What kind of transitional period would you use for a 4 week bulk 4 week cut program? One week maintenance, none?


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## Nate K (Dec 18, 2007)

a few day maintenance


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## juggernaut (Dec 18, 2007)

honestly, WB. I dont really see all the effort into getting some if at all minimal gains. This sounds like a M&F ragazine article. Can you show us the source? I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, it just sounds...bizarre?


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## Witchblade (Dec 18, 2007)

It's not a single source, I've read about it multiple times. I don't have the articles at hand, hence the thread, but I know there was an article about it at ironmagazine.com (main site) and I believe someone mentioned it in an interview at T-Nation. The reasoning was something like: short phases eliminate the need for refeeds and other cycling methods, make it impossible for your body to rapidly adapt and stagnate and the vigorous changes in calories would somehow create a very responsive hormonal environment at every transition.

My counterarguments would be that your body actually needs time to adjust else you're burning too much muscle and putting on too much fat in the cutting and bulking phases respectively.


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## P-funk (Dec 19, 2007)

i think you would have to do the phases for longer in order for adaptations to calorie changes to take place and illicit the gains that you want to see.


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## juggernaut (Dec 19, 2007)

that's what i was thining


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## DiGiTaL (Dec 19, 2007)

Wouldn't this be like maintaining weight?. You lose the weight, then gain it back.


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## Jodi (Dec 24, 2007)

P-funk said:


> i think you would have to do the phases for longer in order for adaptations to calorie changes to take place and illicit the gains that you want to see.


Yeah I agree!  I've done 2 week cuts though, maintenance or bulk for 2 weeks then back to 2 week cuts but I think 5 days is way too few days to adapt.


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## XFatMan (Dec 25, 2007)

Jodi said:


> Yeah I agree!  I've done 2 week cuts though, maintenance or bulk for 2 weeks then back to 2 week cuts but I think 5 days is way too few days to adapt.



And what's your experience / opinion, does it work? Would be cool to try, I guess.


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## juggernaut (Dec 31, 2007)

hey jodi, that was a great game against the Giants the other day.


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## cider303 (Jan 1, 2008)

i think you are better off stretching it to the 2 weeks like jodi said. i personnally respond better to 3 weeks of a certain stimulus so i would even suggest 3/3/3


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## first4muscle (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi mate

i personally have never heard of anyone cutting or bulking for such short periods of time and imo would doubt its effectiveness. Im sure there would also be some health concerns also as not allowing the body to adapt to one program over a lengthier period of time


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