Should You Bulk or Cut?

This is the age-old question and one we get heaps at Strength Lab. With good reason, as it can sometimes be tricky to work out for someone looking to ultimately improve their gains and lose body fat.

On one hand, you probably don’t think you have enough muscle to cut yet, but on the other hand, you don’t want to bulk as your body fat is already a little on the high side 🤔

The answer to this question is… it depends on:

✅ Whether you’re a noob lifter

✅ How high your body fat actually is

✅ How much muscle you have

If you’re a noob lifter, you can probably get away with being in a surplus or at maintenance because you have a much greater ability to build muscle and burn fat simultaneously.

For all other circumstances, I’d lean toward cutting for most people who are over 12% body fat unless you literally have no muscle, in which case you’d probably fall into the noob category.

Once you’re around 10%, proceed to bulk by doing a metabolic loading phase where you slowly increase calories, followed by a loading adaptation phase where you maintain high calorie levels to let your body adapt to the higher calorie intake to keep your body fat levels in check while gaining lean mass. ✌🏼