For the the guys ITT referring to that Lyle McDonald article, if you read the whole thing it actually concludes that the metabolic and hormonal benefits of the "leaning down before bulking" strategy are overstated: you are limited by your particular partitioning
genetics no matter what you do.
Quote:Quote:
...
So far, so good right; it sure seems like the leaner you are, the better your body composition changes will be during overfeeding? So get lean and then train and eat and you should gain piles of muscle back, right?
The Problem: Naturally Lean People vs. Dieted Down People
The problem with the above analysis, exciting as it sounds, is that there are significant differences between folks who are naturally lean (on whom the original overfeeding research was done) and subjects who have been dieted to leanness.
Let’s consider, for a second the likely physiology of those folks who stay naturally lean. Based on the Geneticcs Hypothesis (3), we’d expect them to have pretty good hormonal status in terms of thyroid levels, low or normal cortisol, maybe decent levels of testosterone, GH and IGF-1. They probably also show a normal nervous system output and an ability to increase fat oxidation when calories are raised as well.
We’d probably expect them to exhibit a spendthrift metabolism (6), one that cranks up in response to overfeeding to burn off excess calories. It wouldn’t be surprising if they were the ones who showed a great deal of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT, 7) which is what allows them to burn off excess calories without getting fat. All of this, almost certainly with other factors would all contribute to their general lack of fat gain during overfeeding. Of course, if fat gain is limited during overfeeding, that would tend to mean that any weight gain will tend to be LBM, as the P-ratio data described above indicates.
The problem is that the above physiological profile in no way describes individuals who have dieted down to a low body fat percentage. Rather, dieted individuals typically show a biology that is absolutely not geared towards anything except packing the body fat back on. Typically, the metabolic consequences of dieting include a lowered metabolism, decreased fat oxidation, decreased HSL activity, increased LPL activity impaired hormonal status (including lowered testosterone and raised cortisol), decreased thermogenesis from a reduction in both thyroid levels and nervous system output and a host of other metabolic defects. All of these serve to both slow fat loss during the diet and ensure rapid fat regain when food is reintroduced.
For example, in the classic starvation study (the Minnesota Semi-Starvation study) men were dieted for 6 solid months reaching 4-5% body fat at the end of the study. Then they were refed and body composition was tracked. By the theory being advocated, they should have gained lots of LBM and little fat during refeeding, they were clearly super lean to start out with. But this is absolutely not what happened.
As would be expected based on the metabolic adaptations to dieting, their bodies were mainly primed to replenish fat stores. Reductions in metabolic rate, fat oxidation and thermogenesis all contributed to a preferential gain of body fat and these systems didn’t reset themselves until all of the body fat lost had been regained (8). Quite in fact, signals from body fat (i.e. leptin and the rest) are the mechanism behind this physiology (9).
The bottom line is that, in dieted down individuals, the body is primed to gain body fat at the expense of LBM to replenish what was lost during the diet. Again, this is fundamentally different than looking at genetically lean individuals (for whom a low body fat percentage is their normal level) in terms of what happens when they are overfed.
And even without this research available, anybody who’s dieted to a low body fat percentage can attest to the above. Regardless of the theories being advocated by the individuals looking just at Forbes’ data on P-ratio, the end of the diet is a time when you gain body fat the most easily. Even a brief look at the real world should have pointed out why the theory was incorrect in the first place.
...
Summing up:
So there you have it, a look at the impact of initial body fat and how it impacts on changes in body composition. Contrary to current (mis) interpretations of the literature, individuals who have dieted down to low body fat levels don’t magically put on lots of LBM when they gain. Quite in fact, if anything, the opposite is true. After an extended diet, the body is primed for fat gain.
However, that doesn’t mean that dieting prior to a mass-gaining phase is a bad idea and getting reasonably lean prior to ‘bulking’ is probably the best strategy for the average natural bodybuilder.
If that's the case, then the main reason that's left is for aesthetic purposes.
In bodybuilding we're trying to do two things: 1) get lean, 2) get muscular. Out of the two I think that getting lean is the one to focus on first, for two reasons.
The first reason is that out of the two, getting lean is more important.
Gaining muscle gives you bonus points. Not being muscular is just normal or ordinary. Not being lean however actively makes you unattractive. Besides giving you a gut and thighs and destroying your v-taper, it blobs up your face, which is the worst, as the face is the most important part of looks, even more important than the body. Women are highly attracted to pronounced, dimorphic facial bone features indicative of a youthful and robust hormonal profile - protruding cheek bones, defined jaw, hollow cheeks, etc. - whether you have them showing in your natural state, or you dieted down to them "artificially".
There are a lot of skinny guys out there in the world dating cute young girls. I don't however see fat guys doing the same. It's a huge DLV. Can you name at least 5 male sex symbols who were >20% bf in their peak? I can't. Low body fat is key to male aesthetics. If you take a look at male models you'll see that they all tend to have visible bicep veins, adonis belts, and abs, even though in a shirt they might look like skinny twinks.
The second reason is that it's easier. It can take as little 3 months to reach a body fat you're happy with, while it can take 3 years to build a decent muscle base natty.
If you get lean first and "get it over with", you can commit yourself fully to the extended task of muscle building without interruption and you can have your facial aesthetics and your v-taper all throughout. If you start bulking at a high bf% you'll spend large stretches of time as a potato face, you'll be prone to go on excessive bulks and make the problem even worse because "hey, what the hell, I'm already fat", and you'll waste a lot of your life and precious gaining time spinning your wheels and yo-yo dieting trying to fix the problem that shouldn't have accrued in the first place by going on long, miserable cuts where you lose much of your strength anyway.
This has been my problem. I have a naturally slow metabolism and poor nutrient partitioning. I am a sedentary Indian skinny fat manlet. When I started lifting I was already probably 18-20% bf and I didn't know anything much about dieting (macros, calories in calories out, fat loss, maintenance, lean bulking, etc.); I only knew that you had to lift hard and eat everything in sight, like a bunch of fat roided up powerlifters said so. Seeing as how I'm neither on gear nor genetically gifted I ended up ballooning up to 28-30% bf, going from skinny fat to fat fat. To make matters worse, I still clung to the powerlifers' dangerous advice for some time after, cutting way too slowly, on calories that suited them not me, and not deep enough, going back to more fattening bulks in the pursuit of accelerated gains that never came about. I'm working on cleaning all this up once and for all right now.
I think it's better to only bench 150 lbs at 13% bf than to bench 250 lbs at 26% bf. I mean who cares if you bench that much when you're fat. In terms of visual appeal it goes: lean & natty muscle > lean & ordinary > fat & natty muscle > fat & ordinary. If you throw roids in then okay, lean & roid muscle > fat & roid muscle > lean & natty muscle > lean & ordinary > fat & natty muscle > fat & ordinary.
![[Image: AHI_434d50313339383930_1_200x200_JPG.JPG]](http://www.ah.nl.kpnis.nl/static/product/AHI_434d50313339383930_1_200x200_JPG.JPG)
