How to gain muscle without bulking? (some pics inside)

[tekramsremraf]

Transformed from somewhat out of shape to in good shape. I was on the border of getting fat. But now I'm on the border of too skinny and people are telling me to stop cutting and start bulking. But bulking involves increasing food intake, and I dont want to increase the fat which is inevitable with bulking. I want to gain muscle without gaining too much fat. I'm going to try to experiment with this idea by eating maintenance amount of calories (rather than the amount for cutting), but still keeping up with some level of cardio while adding a lot of weights, a lot of protein.

Anyone have success decreasing body fat while gaining muscle?

Disclaimer, yes I realize a body fat scale is not always accurate so 12% might not be the right BF. Just wanted to say this upfront before everyone starts to point this out!

 

[lump]

i agree with your disclaimer 12%? visually i would say that is much closer to 15-18% in the after pic.

i have one of those body fat scales and i can confirm that they are unrepeatable and crap. the pinch test is the best measure. according to my scale i can read anywhere from 5% to 15% in the same day.

But GOOD WORK by the way - visually made a big difference and that's what really matters. lost a bunch of fat and probably got stronger and wearing smaller clothes. a triple win.

 

[tekramsremraf]

The way i figure it, is if it was in accurate when i weighed myself at the end, it was inaccurate to begin with. And since both times, I weighed myself first thing in the morning, I figure things are relatively normalized. Didn't eat for hours.

 

[Goldfish]

You won't need to do cardio to keep yourself from gaining fat. Cardiovascular training is first and foremost for your cardiovascular system. Doing it for THAT purpose is good, but body composition is primarily controlled by nutrition, followed by strength stimulation.

It is possible to bulk without gaining fat, it just requires a little more self-control, and may mean that improvements in strength and muscle mass come a little bit slower.

EDIT: I just checked over this and realised I needed to clarify something here: the following advice is primarily for body recomposition, which is what you appear to be asking about (whether or not that actually is your goal is another matter). Bulking will require a caloric surplus, and can be achieved with limited (and sometimes negligeable) fat gains. Body recomposition is maintaining body weight, while adjusting bodyfat and fat-free mass percentages.

I would try eating at maintenance level with plenty of protein, rest, and quality resistance training. If you check the stickies, there's some good programming recommendations to keep it simple and efficient. If your nutrition, recovery and exercise are all good, it is realistically possible for you to gain muscle while losing fat. Just realise that the increase in muscle won't make you bigger or heavier at maintenance nutrition, therefore there IS a limit to how much muscle you can gain this way. Your weight might change by a couple pounds, but it should stay fairly much the same (145-150lb). If you're satisfied with being this weight, and about 10% body fat in the longterm, then that's fine. If you get to a point where you realise that at your current weight you can't build anymore muscle, and you want to increase your muscle mass, then start increasing the daily calories by about 200kcal, and increase again by this amount every couple weeks until you start seeing results.

I just want to make this clear one more time: There is only so much muscle you can build while staying the same weight. If we assume that you are in fact 12% BF at 147lb (about 17.5lb fat), then you can maybe replace 5lb fat with 5lb muscle making you about 8.5%BF...and don't be surprised if it takes 5 months or more for this to happen. If that gets you to a physique that you're happy with, then that's excellent news. But you will never get more muscle than your total weight allows for, and the lower your BF% (especially anything <10%), the harder it is to build any muscle at all.

 

[malkore]

Eating at maintenance and doing a lot of cardio isn't going to let you build much muscle. You NEED excess calories to really pack on the weight.
the trick to bulking without packing on a lot of fat is carefully tailoring your caloric surplus, and eating clean.

a bulk doesn't necessarily mean 'eat a whole pizza'. you can easily bulk on meat and potatoes, whole grain pasta and oatmeal (plus veggies, eggs, cottage cheese, etc).

Just watch the body fat and if you seem too soft too quickly, scale back the calories 100 per day until you seem stabilized.

I wouldn't try to gain more than a half pound a week...that's 2lbs of muscle a month.

 

[Proteinboy]

exactly what malkore said. throwing in a barbell complex or an infrequent session of 400 meter dashes isnt a bad idea either if your trying to keep fat off.
maybe 1 complex per week if you are trying to gain size slowly.
the main focus should be on strength training and slightly over maintenance calories. you may gain weight at a nearly unnoticable rate, just be patient. over the course of 6 months, you should have gained at least a pound or two. but its probably a very high percentage of muscle mass. i have been experimenting on a slow bulk for the past 6 months. i gained around 3-4 pounds and it is very clean. i prefer this much more than gaining the traditional 2-5lbs per month.

all the above is concerning a trainee who is past the novice stage, however.
if you were a novice, i would be telling you to EAT, and let the novice effect take its full potential!