# Cut/Bulk cycles



## Caesar (Jan 27, 2006)

I was wondering about the pros and cons of short, alternating cycles of bulking and cutting. For instance, bulking for three weeks, then cutting for one and repeat. It seems like most people on these boards use very prolonged phases of dieting, and minimize the switching between cutting and bulking. Personally, i have trouble with that, because i dont like to add much fat when i bulk, and don't have good enough discipline to do a long cut without having more cheat days than i should. Also, if it's not a bad thing to use shorter cycles, what would be the mimimum amount of time to spend on each. Something like 5 days of bulking and 2 days of cutting seems ridiculous, but would it actually work? Thanks for the help.


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## myCATpowerlifts (Jan 27, 2006)

First off you would never cut for one week....That's just retarded.
More like bulk 8 weeks cut 6...etc


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## FenderBender (Jan 27, 2006)

I change my workout often, 3 weeks strength/growth, 3 weeks cutting/functional.    This works well for me cause I'm an injured old fart, and don't need to get any bigger and I maintain 270 7-8% bodyfat year round.

That said I keep my diet very tight all the time, cause I find it much easier than crash dieting for many weeks.  Cutting for one week would seem like torture to me....takes about 5-6 days  to get used to the diet so as soon as your over the hump its over and then start again a few weeks later.

Better off to just control your cheats and cycle calories/carbs a few days if you feel "bloated" during a bulk phase.


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## squanto (Jan 27, 2006)

bah, cutting for a week could work. if you were disciplined and knew how many calories you needed, i dont see any reason why that wouldn't work. ive heard people say they get better results using shorter cycles anyway.


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## GreenMan (Jan 27, 2006)

myCATpowerlifts said:
			
		

> First off you would never cut for one week....That's just retarded.
> More like bulk 8 weeks cut 6...etc



And why would that be ?

What's wrong with cuting for a week, bulking for a week if that works for you..


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## Emma-Leigh (Jan 27, 2006)

GreenMan said:
			
		

> And why would that be ?
> 
> What's wrong with cuting for a week, bulking for a week if that works for you..


because the impact you would make with 1 week would not be significant.

You would simply be spinning your wheels.

1 week of dieting = getting rid of glycogen stores and water and **if you are lucky* maybe 0.5 pounds of fat as well (and, if you were unlucky, or if you were stupid and dieted too hard, then it would also be 0.5 of lean mass too)... 

Similarly, 1 week of bulking would result in insignificant muscle gains (even if you were to pig out on 3 x maintainence your body will have an anabolic limit on adding muscle and all that would happen is mucho lardiness).


Slow and steady is much more optimal.


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## GreenMan (Jan 28, 2006)

Emma-Leigh said:
			
		

> because the impact you would make with 1 week would not be significant.
> 
> You would simply be spinning your wheels.
> 
> ...



Hi Emma,

I think we have coming from different perspectives on the bulking & cutting.  If we take the 'traditional bodybuilder' definitions, bulking is eating calories _way_ above maintenence & training hard & heavy, hoping that some of the weight gain is muscle, and cutting is a severe restriction on calories with loads of cardio.

Using such protocols, what you described will undoubtedly happen.

Being a bit of an old-timer, I don't have the metabolism to support such shenanigans.  My normal training involves quite a bit of cardio work, and I tweak my daily carb intake so that my glycogen levels are kept in a nice balance - not muscle-destroyingly low & not spilling over into lard. 

A diet of around 2,500 cals with a p:f:c of 30:25:45 does this for me.  I could cut fats lower, but the majority of the fat in my diet comes from fish (big salmon eater) nuts & oats (which are 8% fat)

A cutting cycle for me is to drop down to 2,000 cals, with all the 500 missing calories coming from fat & carb.  

I don't believe this restriction eats into my glycogen levels, and this belief is supported by an electronic bodyfat measuring gadget which works on impedance (it basically measures your fluid levels & uses that to infer a bodyfat level).  1g of glycogen binds 4g of water, and a guy my size probably stores a kilo of glycogen in total.  So if my glycogen levels dropped by a significant amount, say 250g, I would lose a kilo of water (about 2% of my total body water).  This loss would be reflected on the scales as a loss, and on the bodyfat measure (paradoxically) as a gain, because the lower water levels would lead to an artificially high bodyfat calculation.  This should happen in the first couple of days.

Neither of these observables happen when I go onto MY cutting routine - from which I infer that it doesn't eat into my muscle glycogen by any significant amount.

A bulking cycle for me involves going up 500 cals by adding another 25g protien, 75 - 100g carb and an inevitable extra bit of fat.  If my glycogen was depleted, my body would use the extra carbs to top-up, and I should quicky gain water-weight & drop in bf calcuated from my gadget.  Again neither happens.

Another evidence is that once a week, I habitually spend an hour on an elliptical x-trainer once a week, which burns around 800 cals.  I'd guess glycogen fuels half of that, so that's 100g of glycogen.   The lower glycogen gets, the more the body hangs on to it, so I would assume that if a cutting cycle ate into my glycogen by any significant amount, I would expect to notice the last quarter hour getting harder.  This is not the case.

In the past, I have in the three week 'bulk', three week 'cut' to great effect.  As you say, slow & steady is the key, but I find a degree of cycling works wonders in keeping the body's adaptive response fresh.  I cannot see any reason why a weekly alternation of the two wouldn't work - some swear by the carb cycling diet which uses an extreme version of this on a 3 *day* cycle.


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## myCATpowerlifts (Jan 28, 2006)

FenderBender said:
			
		

> I change my workout often, 3 weeks strength/growth, 3 weeks cutting/functional.    This works well for me cause I'm an injured old fart, and don't need to get any bigger and I maintain *270 7-8% bodyfat year round*.
> 
> That said I keep my diet very tight all the time, cause I find it much easier than crash dieting for many weeks.  Cutting for one week would seem like torture to me....takes about 5-6 days  to get used to the diet so as soon as your over the hump its over and then start again a few weeks later.
> 
> Better off to just control your cheats and cycle calories/carbs a few days if you feel "bloated" during a bulk phase.




Hi ronnie, good luck next year winning Olympia #9!!


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## Tha Don (Jan 28, 2006)

myCATpowerlifts said:
			
		

> First off you would never cut for one week....That's just retarded.
> More like bulk 8 weeks cut 6...etc


i agree 1 week is a bit short, but 3 weeks if fine, i always make my best progress when cutting in the first 3 weeks, after that the losses seem to slow right down, bulking i'd agree its best to do it for a bit longer as your body can only add LBM so fast, and you need to give you body time to allow the muscle and strength gains to manifest, thus becoming more keepable when dieting comes around


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