oldbutfit’s BodyBlog

First of all you have to be clear in your own mind about what it is for.To me the idea is to give the body a chance to add the maximum amount possible of muscle in a given period of time.So you load yourself with carbs which will in turn be stored in the muscles themselves and elsewhere(mainly liver)as glycogen.Glycogen is the main fuel for strengh increase i.e you can then lift heavier and hence making your muscle cells(fibres) grow bigger.The process is called  HYPERTROPHY.

      The next thing to understand is that after a certain age(usually 35-40) muscle cells begin to die off and by the time one is ,say,60 the no of one’s muscle cells may be as low as 60%(this varies) of those of a 25 yr old.

What am I trying to say?I’m saying that at best a muscular 60 yr old man can only hope to have only approx 60-70% of the lean muscle mass of a muscular 25 yr old.

OK,now…The oldie bulks up,lifts heavy and gets bigger.So what’s the problem? Sadly he doesn’t realise that whatever he does nature will NOT let him have more than 60-70% of the muscle cells of the younger guy.So the bigger he is the more fat he will have piled on cos excess carbs(glycogen)is converted into fat and NOT the muscle that he had hoped for.

Then comes the cutting cycle. This will be VERY difficult for the oldie because of slower metabolism.At the end of the cutting cycle he will find he only has A LITTLE MORE (that’s all) lean muscle mass than he had before the bulking phase. Is it worth the blood sweats and tears ?That is up to you to choose !

My own personal view is therefore if you want to maximally increase your lean muscle mass it’s better to "bulk up" only a little,say,to 10% the body fat reading.In this scenario you will have sufficient glycogen to fuel your lifting heavy which then causes muscle cells to increase size (i.e hypertrophy) until they reach their oldie’s limit. Once that is reached you can then cut down without tears.

REMEMBER YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY INCREASE THE NUMBER OF YOUR(REDUCED)MUSCLE CELLS YOU CAN ONLY MAKE THE EXISTING ONES BIGGER.

Conclusion:- Conventional bulking / cutting creates false hopes for the oldie who finds,after just about killing himself doing it ,that he is only a little bigger in terms of lean muscle mass. IS IT WORTH IT ?