Ep. 246 - Why BULKING is NOT the Answer

“Gotta eat big to get big brother!” “It’s the off-season man, I’m on that SEE-food diet, heheh ya feel me?!!” It’s been like this for decades in the muscle building world, and there’s a ton of anecdotes that you gotta eat enough to grow. Certainly, we can’t build muscle out of thin air. But given the modern understanding that body recomposition - at least in novice and early stage intermediate lifters who aren’t too lean - is actually quite normal, how much do you really have to eat? In this episode Omar interviews Eric Helms who just published a study on this very topic with surprising results. Is it really true that eating at maintenance is just as good as a small and large surplus for strength and muscle gain? Tune in to find out. 00:00 …It happened (intro to a power episode) The Truth About Getting Lean: It's Not JUST About Calories (ft. Eric Helms) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnTHQafSh7A  https://raskolapparel.com/ 8:38 The weight gain study: breaking down the methods Effect of Small and Large Energy Surpluses on Strength, Muscle, and Skinfold Thickness https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372871560_Effect_of_Small_and_Large_Energy_Surpluses_on_Strength_Muscle_and_Skinfold_Thickness (link and title will be updated upon publication) 19:06 The findings and its interpretation 28:40 Applications for coaches Schoenfeld 2017 Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27433992/  Baz-Valle 2022 A Systematic Review of The Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35291645/ Iron Culture Ep. 229- Is Failure More Important Than Volume For Hypertrophy (ft. Dr. Zourdos & Zac Robinson) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C_48z5Cplg Robinson 2023 https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/server/preprint/view/295  40:40 Skinfold thickness vs muscle thickness changes Garthe Effect of nutritional intervention on body composition and performance in elite athletes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23679146/  48:53 Assessing an individual’s genetic potential Rozenek 2002 Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following resistance training https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12094125/  Smith 2021 Predicting Adaptations to Resistance Training Plus Overfeeding Using Bayesian Regression: A Preliminary Investigation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33919267/ 58:53 Adjusting your training and Eric’s reflections 1:05:39 Conclusions from the study and closing out (we are interdimensional) 

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Iron Culture was started by Eric Helms and Omar Isuf as a means of exploring the world of physical culture and attempting to distill a unified philosophy of lifting and to help listeners find greater meaning from the iron. The lifting community has become fractured over the last ~70 years and this Podcast will attempt to explore the fundamental threads that unite these different tribes. The Podcast focuses on dispensing practical, useful information to the listener, bouncing from history, to philosophy, to contemporary lifting culture issues, to science. This can range from teaching the audience about lifting, programming, nutrition, supplements/PEDs and the history of lifting culture. The format includes casual conversations between the two hosts on a variety of topics, discussions with a panel of experts and interviews with authoritative figures in the lifting community.