The easiest way to know if you should cut or bulk is to take note of your current body fat percentage. If you are a female with greater than 25% body fat or a male with more than 15% body fat, you should cut. Conversely, if you are a female at or below 20% body fat, or a male at or below 10% body fat, you should bulk.
For 10 pounds or less, start cutting 2-3 months ahead. For 20 pounds or more, start cutting 4-5 months ahead. Add 1-2 weeks for any major foreseeable obstacles. If such extended time is not on your side, I recommend at minimum six weeks for any cutting program.
If you want to gain muscle and strength as quickly as possible and you're at or below 10% (men) or 20% (women) body fat, then you should bulk. And if you want to lose fat as quickly as possible and you're at or above 15% (men) or 25% (women) body fat, then you should cut.
Summing It Up
If you're lean enough to bulk (10-15% body fat or less for a man, or 18-23% or less for a woman), you should probably bulk first. If you're above these ranges, you should cut first. And if you're a beginner who's somewhere in the middle, you should recomp.
Most experts think the appropriate body fat range for beginning a bulk or cut should be between 10-15% for men and 20-25% for women. This range is ideal as it provides enough energy to build muscle while allowing for visible definition. Once you hit the upper end of the range, start cutting.
If you are underweight, you should bulk. If you are overweight, you need to cut; however, the less training experience you have, the more likely it is that you will gain muscle simultaneously as you lean out (though you'll lose weight overall).
Competitive bodybuilders typically follow a cutting diet for 2–4 months . A person can decide the duration of a cutting diet according to their individual needs, but it is not a long-term diet. Bodybuilders usually go through a bulking phase before a cutting diet.
Losing weight means you could lose fat, water weight, or muscle mass. To lose weight and maintain muscle mass, you need to go into a caloric deficit and exercise regularly. Cardio, strength training, and especially compound movements are key to losing fat and building muscle.
But if you go straight from a cut to a bulk—adding, say, 1,000 calories to what you're eating now—the physique-minded lifter faces two problems. First, your body will hold on to any fat it can come by. Second, you'll actually be less efficient at making muscle.
30% body fat: More fat is present around the body at the 30% level including waist, back, thighs, and calves. The waist will appear slightly larger relative to the hips, and the man's stomach will most-likely be protruding noticeably over the waist.
How long should a bulk and cut last? It depends on how much muscle you want to gain and your current body composition. Folks often bulk anywhere from 1 month to over 6 months to get their desired results. Following up with a cut will typically be shorter, usually 2 to 4 months.
Most bodybuilders do not exceed cuts of 4 months but usually do at least 2 months. This is because you will need enough time to provide decent results but not overextend yourself with a long-term restrictive diet.
With mini-cuts, you aim to lose around 1-1.25% of your bodyweight per week – for a total of anywhere between 4 to 6 weeks. The idea with this is that you're able to quickly lose fat without the muscle loss and fatigue that would occur if you had extended it any longer.
Cutting is nothing more than lowering your fat percentage by adhering to a strict diet plan. This makes your muscle mass more visible. The difference between cutting and a regular diet is that with a regular diet you often lose muscle mass. Cutting is adjusting your diet so that the loss of muscle mass is minimal.
Thus, as long as your body has sufficient stimulus to build muscle mass, which it has if your training program is optimized, it has both the means and the will to build muscle mass while simultaneously losing fat. There you go, muscle growth during a cut.
For most people with overweight, cutting about 500 calories a day is a good place to start. If you can eat 500 fewer calories every day, you should lose about a pound (450 g) a week. Always talk with your health care provider to determine a healthy weight for you before starting a weight-loss diet.
'The cut phase is a period of time when the main goals are losing body fat, reducing body weight, getting leaner and preserving the muscle mass gained during the bulk period. Calorie intake is reduced and energy expenditure may be increased via cardio in order to create an energy deficit.
Mostly, losing weight is an internal process. You will first lose hard fat that surrounds your organs like liver, kidneys and then you will start to lose soft fat like waistline and thigh fat. The fat loss from around the organs makes you leaner and stronger.
Bulking will not lead to you losing your abs, they will still be there. But they may not be visible. But you won't lose them if anything they will probably get stronger. Once you begin to lose weight (known in bodybuilding as a cut) your abs may be even more defined then they were before you started bulking.
If you're bulking with the goal of gaining maximum muscle growth, chances are, you won't be able to keep your six-pack abs visible by the time you're finished with your bulking cycle. However, if you're on a lean bulk, you can still maintain a visible six-pack much longer.