Ep 199 – Bulking & Cutting

How does a bodybuilder transition between the different phases of competition prep? Join Dani & Ben for a deep dive on cutting and bulking.

📢 Highlights from this episode:

• The efficacy and challenges of reverse dieting

• Personal insight on bulking & cutting phases in bodybuilding

• Debating the necessity of intentional phases versus maintenance

• Exploring the evolution of training splits

👉 Tune in for an honest, relatable chat that goes beyond the highlight reels and into the heart of what it means to connect authentically.

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🔎 Related Phrases:

competition prep, reverse dieting, weight loss, weight gain

Transcript:

Dani:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Dani.

Ben:

I’m Ben.

Dani:

And this is episode 199. All right, so you can tell by what we’re wearing. You especially. I always look like this.

Ben:

Like, maybe I should have taken the flannel off that.

Dani:

We are recording this right after the other one. But I’m excited about this topic. But we’ll wait to get into it. We actually. So Ben is up here on, like, I don’t know, I guess here for Thanksgiving. Yeah, right.

Ben:

Yep, Thanksgiving. And I’ll be back for Christmas in a couple weeks.

Dani:

And we’re both driving down separately on Friday. Are you going Friday or are you gonna go down on Saturday?

Ben:

Probably Saturday.

Dani:

Athena is hosting a friendsgiving at her place in Jersey, so we’re both headed down for that, which Giacomo thinks I’m insane for going to.

Ben:

I don’t think you’re insane at all. I was really envious last year when I saw how much fun everyone was having. And, yeah, it just happened to work out this year that I needed to drive my car down and I was going to North Carolina anyway, so why not just stop in Jersey?

Dani:

Yeah, that’s awesome. I was not going down there anyway, but when we went to Alex and Alex’s wedding and we basically met most of the people that were going to be there, and I was like, oh, there’s all these vegan fitness people and they have a community.

And I was so jealous that they have, like, a relatively in person vegan fitness community, because we have an awesome vegan fitness community, Giacomo and I. But they’re everywhere. They’re not here. You were here and now you’re not here.

Ben:

We need to just relocate everyone to Boston.

Dani:

So when Athena said she was having it, I was like, I want to. I want to come this year. And yeah, I thought Jockma was gonna come with me, but he’s very, very busy, so he’s not coming. But I’m excited to go down there.

Ben:

It’s just different spending the holidays with people that you don’t have to explain yourself to constantly or get a lot of questions. Everyone kind of just gets it and you can joke and laugh about similar things without maybe family members getting offended or friends or feeling a certain way. I think it’s just nice to be surrounded by people who are like, yes, these people get it. Like, they feel the same way about things that I do.

Specifically thinking of the vegan thing right now, not necessarily like the fitness thing, because I think both can coexist around the holidays. Maybe you’re doing your own thing with your nutrition, whether that be because you’re vegan or because you have certain fitness goals or both. I would say for all my clients and for myself, I basically will just say just go enjoy the meal.

Dani:

That’s what I say too.

Ben:

Don’t think of this as like a nutrition day that you need to be super hyper fixated on. It should be about the meal experience and enjoying that with friends and family. And I think that that is sometimes easier when you feel like the people you’re having that meal with, it’s understood. And there’s not maybe a giant turkey on the table or something.

Dani:

Yeah, I feel like. So being your family is mostly plant based, right?

Ben:

Yeah. So we didn’t have a turkey or anything this year. It was just my immediate family. And actually this year we’ve had Thanksgivings that have been 90% vegan or 85%, but it was all vegan this year. So that was awesome.

Dani:

And my family is plant based also. So I don’t remember the last time I had to go to Thanksgiving where there was a turkey. I’m very grateful for that. And I understand that we are both very, very lucky because most people do not have that. Um, but I was vegan for a really long time before that, and I feel like people are already a bit defensive when there’s a vegan at the table. Not everybody, but a lot of people, they already want to, like, pick at you a little bit, but then you compound

that with the traditions of the holiday and you not participating in some of those traditions for a lot of people feels like some kind of a slap in the face and it can just make it. Yeah. A little bit more contentious. And I don’t know about you, I never want to have those conversations. I mean, I never want to have those conversations at dinner, period. But certainly not at the holidays.

Ben:

It’s supposed to be about enjoying friends and family, and I think it can just leave kind of a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth. Yeah, like, let’s save that for another party.

Dani:

It’s up there with religion and politics. Like, can we just not do this right now?

Ben:

Exactly.

Dani:

So, yeah, I’m. I’m pumped. I’m pumped to head down there and see a bunch of cool people and eat good food and hang out. Maybe I’ll bring some games. I am such a game person.

Ben:

That would be awesome. Especially the more the spicier, the juicier the game, the better.

Dani:

We got a few of those.

Ben:

Yeah, that’s good.

Dani:

I don’t want to upset Athena’s mom, but Athena’s mom, I think she’d be all for it probably. Her and Giacomo are like basically the same age, which is hilarious to me. And yeah, when I first saw Athena’s mom, I was like, no, no way. Like, she’s way too young to be your mom. Which can be taken as a. A compliment or an insult, depending on the person, but it’s like, crap. Again. One of those weird things about getting older is when you meet somebody that’s really close to your age and you’re.

It’s just very strange because sometimes they. They do look old and you’re like, no, but we’re the same age. You can’t be that old. And then you’re like, ah, we are. But hers was actually the opposite. I was like, no, she. We. We look like we’re the same. You can’t be Athena’s mom. Anyway, what are you doing for Christmas? You’re coming back up here?

Ben:

Yes. We had maybe thought about having Christmas on the Cape. Cape Cod, which we haven’t done before, but we decided against it. So we’ll be having just our immediate family again for Christmas. Low key.

Dani:

Awesome.

Ben:

Yeah, that’s kind, kind of how it’s been the past couple years. We have family kind of spread out more south down the east coast and then west coast. So it’s not always the easiest to get together. Some years we do, Some years we don’t. Like last year my aunt came for after Christmas to hang out with us after they spent Christmas at home. But yeah, it’ll just be the five of us, my two siblings and my parents and myself. What about you?

Dani:

I don’t know.

Ben:

Do you ever go to New York for Christmas?

Dani:

Yeah, we. Every other year. Every other. So one year we’ll spend Christmas with Jacko’s family. One year we’ll spend it here. And if we spend Christmas here, then we spend New Year’s there. So we still like do Christmas just at New Year’s down there. But this year is here and I don’t know what we’re going to do.

Christmas is usually kind of a weird holiday. The kids will probably come over in the morning. I. I don’t know. Thanksgiving seems to be the one that we kind of focus on and Christmas just always seems to be kind of wong together at the last minute. I don’t know.

Ben:

I had an idea this year. I should say next year. I had it this year, but it was a little bit too late. Where I enjoy the act of giving gifts and for, like, thinking of gifts for people. But I’ve gotten to the point where it’s like, if I need something, I kind of just buy it for myself. So it’s often hard for me to think of gifts for people to give me. And then if it’s like, if they get something that I don’t feel like I need or I want, then you feel bad about returning is this whole thing.

So I’ve been thinking of ways that you can still kind of honor the tradition without maybe having it be so focused on the commercial aspect of it. And I was talking with my family about maybe we all pitch in together and do a trip and have that be the thing. Like, then you’re all enjoying the experience together and it’s something that, you know, it’s a joint memory. Yeah, I feel like that can. So that’s something I’m thinking about for future years.

Dani:

Yeah, that’s. Giacomo and I, we haven’t done gifts for each other in many years, but this year we’re going to. Just. Because after a while, you kind of miss it. Like, maybe we can’t because. Because we don’t have big Christmas plans. It’s like Christmas morning with nothing to do. Could just be a little, like. So we’re gonna. We’re gonna do some gifts for each other this year, which should be fun, but I.

I don’t like stuff. Like, I don’t like a lot of stuff, which is funny because my house is so full of stuff. So we. We like to do experience gifts for each other a lot of times, like tickets to something or booking a massage for the others, like, stuff like that. And we’ve kind of gotten some of the other adults in our family in on similar stuff, but you can’t. It’s harder to do that for little kids. You gotta.

Ben:

Yes.

Dani:

You gotta get them gifts. So we’ve got little kids.

Ben:

Well, I can say when I was younger, I definitely appreciated that. Getting gifts.

Dani:

Yes. So, okay, so today’s topic is actually one that you thought about, so I’m going to let you lead this discussion. Where. Where do you want to. Where do you want to take this one?

Ben:

So I was kind of just thinking about how it would be neat to get your perspective on certain topics and how you’ve maybe changed your approach or changed your mind about them over the years. And there was one that came to mind that I think was kind of. Is kind of a hot topic right now and is always a hot topic, which is, should you go through intentional Phases of bulking, muscle gaining phase, building phase, improvement, season, off season, whatever you want to call it.

There’s so many words for it. People like their own. Yeah, everyone has their own word. Like versus dieting phases, fat loss phases, cutting phases. Bulking and cutting is kind of like the. The bodybuilding term for it, but.

Dani:

But for some reason it’s very scary.

Ben:

Some people don’t like that. You know, like bulking, you’re like, oh, I don’t want to get too bulky. Or like cutting, like, oh, that sounds a little harsh.

Dani:

So for purposes, for the purposes of this podcast, we will refer to it as bulking and cutting. Yes, but any kind of building, muscle.

Ben:

Building phase, fat loss phase, whatever it is. Yeah, I think those two are more at the core of what each phase, the purpose of each phase is at. But yeah, bulking, cutting is just a lot easier than saying muscle fat loss every single time. So there’s that. I think there’s been an ongoing debate. I mean, it’s been going on for a long time. Should can you just kind of eat at maintenance versus going through these intentional phases? And I think there’s what the research says and then

there’s also from anecdote and what have people done over the years and what has historically been done. And, you know, what do you see? Because I think to an extent, success leaves clues. And so it’s picking up on certain, though, so. So there was that topic, and there was also some other topics that I thought of. So training splits. That’s one that people are always asking, what’s the best training split? Is it upper, lower? Is it push, full legs? Is it full body? Is it?

Dani:

That question drives me nuts.

Ben:

Yes. So we’ll talk about that. And maybe some of the, you know, what you’ve tried over the years and maybe what you gravitate towards or what your favorite is. We could also talk about how we program things for clients, I suppose. And then protein intake was another one that I thought of that. I think people have gone back and forth and I think there is a consensus.

But then at the same time, you’ve got people pushing back, people saying, oh, well, you know, these bodybuilders are going higher, or these people, you know, are saying, you actually don’t need to go that high. You can go a lot lower. And so maybe talking about what you’ve done there, or maybe, you know, what did protein look like for you 20 years ago versus now? And is that different or has it largely remained the same? I know the boca burgers are the same.

But yeah, just some of these different topics that I think it would be neat to hear your perspective on that I think it would kind of illustrate maybe your journey. And I know you’ve had a couple coaches over the years and we could touch on maybe some certain things that you learned from them that was transformative for your journey. So I don’t know exactly where I want to start with this, but do you have any?

Dani:

Yeah, that was so much. I’m trying to think of stuff that I’ve really changed my like, really changed my stance on over the years. And I could think of a few things that if I could go back and like slap me 20 years ago, I probably would do that. Largely. Reverse dieting was probably the biggest one that I was a huge proponent of. And actually last night I was trying to transcribe all these podcasts and put them up on the website.

It’s kind of a long story, but I’m downloading every single episode and blah, blah, blah. And then I see see one on the back end of the podcast and it’s episode four maybe, and it’s reverse dieting. But it doesn’t exist on the podcast anymore because I took it down because that’s how much I disagreed with what I said in it.

In that episode I talked about how reverse dieting, AKA the process of adding calories, mainly carbs and fats, very slowly at the end of not just a diet, but a contest prep specifically, was the way to come out of contest prep while gaining as little fat as possible and increasing your metabolism as much as possible.

Ben:

And I mean that’s what people were saying at the time though. So I think that is very illustrative of the fact that what the consensus is is often what we come to adopt, even if maybe we have certain experience. And I think why certain approaches come at a time is like three DMJ came out with the recovery diet because they just saw time and time again, that’s it. Reverse diet doesn’t work.

Dani:

It may work, it might work, we’ll never know cuz no one can do it. Like that’s the thing is like maybe, maybe it does work. I, I couldn’t tell you because with the probably, probably hundreds, definitely over a hundred people that I have prepped through competition season, I have not seen one person successfully reverse diet the way it was intended, adding 50 calories at a time.

Can you imagine? Exactly the only time I’ve seen somebody be able to, and that includes me by the way, failed miserably at this Every single time I tried to do it. So that was up until, like, 2016 or 2017. I just kept trying, like, I’m gonna get it. This is gonna be the time. I’m gonna get it. No, it was not the time. The only time I’ve seen it successfully work is if somebody is ready, like, they’re stage ready.

They’re. They’re lean enough prior to the show. And then we can reverse diet up into the shows. Yes, but the carrot that’s dangled of the shows that you still have to do is the thing that keeps you on track. You are still in prep. Even if you’re adding food, once that, like, prep part is taken away, it’s impossible. I think it’s impossible. So that’s why I changed my mind on that.

And everybody was feeling so much like a failure trying to do this and not being able to do it. So I changed it for myself, I changed it for my clients. And then three DMJ came out with the recovery diet, which I thought was great because it put parameters on it, you know, and they had obviously put a lot of thought into it. So I had just been. I mean, I guess what I was doing was kind of a recovery diet, but the thought process was different. It was like, I just got to get your calories up to

something that you can actually do and not feel like a failure because you all. Everybody already feels like a failure after prep. It’s the worst feeling on earth. It’s hard to explain, but I think you and Alice actually did a really good job explaining it on that podcast you did a little bit ago. Maybe feeling like a failure is too strong of a word, but feeling down and off, and because you just spent.

Ben:

The past 6, 912 months of your life being so perfect, you know, and it’s like your. Your mind is constantly on one thing, which is need to get leaner, need to get most of the time for. For most divisions, or even if it’s not. It’s just like, you have to have a certain vigilance around your habits, and you kind of have to, to an extent, try to maintain some of that as you’re coming out of your season, but you’re going the opposite direction.

So something I heard Helms actually talk about on a podcast the other day was, I think the reason that reverse diet, like, call even calling it that a reverse, like, oh, I’m going in reverse. Like, I’m going backwards. Like, even the terminology versus recovery, like, what. What is the.

The words that we use are very powerful. So if we’re saying it in reverse, it’s almost like, oh, like I’m going the other way. I’m going the other direction where recovery is like, okay. The purpose is for me to recover is to actually gain some weight back and get back to a good place.

Dani:

That was the mindset shift right there for me as an athlete, but also as a coach. Before, I was just trying to help, help somebody not fall apart mentally basically the best way that I could. But to shift that to the. One of the. One of the reasons you feel so shitty right now is because you have no body fat on your body. So now our goal is to put on body fat quickly.

That’s a tough pill to swallow. That’s a really tough pill to swallow. But once I just realized, like, you know what, they’re right, I never start to feel even a little bit better until I weigh this much, like, ever. They’re right. So changing the mindset for myself and then really, really explaining it beforehand to clients going through prep, like, just so you know, when this is over, we are going to deliberately gain 10 pounds of fat, for example, depending on the person.

Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s way more than that really helped, I think, just shift the way people felt about it and still hard. Like, it’s still really hard, both physically and mentally. But that change made a really big difference to getting people back to their baseline faster and also knowing what to expect of their body. Because the point of reverse dieting was to put on as little body fat as possible.

So when inevitably that did not happen, you just feel like, well, I guess I just didn’t do it. So you’re pissed at your body, you’re unhappy with how it looks. If you expect to gain X amount of body fat in a certain amount of time, you may still not be like thrilled with it when you see it in the mirror, but at least you’re like, it’s kind of what I expected.

Ben:

And you know at a certain point that once you’ve recovered and you spent enough time out of that environment, you were just arguably very successful in your goal of fat loss. And you can. It’ll always be there on the table again once you kind of have that self efficacy. So it’s not like you gain it back and you’re like, what am I gonna do?

Dani:

This is what I am forever now.

Ben:

Yeah. And it’s not necessarily the case of somebody who maybe does it on their own. They lose a chunk of weight and of course prep is not sustainable, but maybe you can take some of those habits and just turn the dial back. Whereas maybe somebody who got there just lifestyle, they take maybe a more extreme approach and they’re able to maintain those habits and lose the weight, but then they don’t know how to live that lifestyle in order to maintain, they go back the other way.

And this, this loss of like, oh my God, like I, you know, I did the weight loss, but I gained it back. And I don’t know why that happened or what I’m doing wrong. Whereas in a prep scenario, okay, you know why you’re gaining the weight back. You’re doing it intentionally. Even if it’s a little bit difficult to deal with, you know, eventually you can do that again. It’s not going to be an issue after a certain amount of time.

Dani:

Yeah. And I’ve done that with certain clients to, you know, we go into a build, which I’m happy to talk about that in a bit also. We go into a build, but kind of before we do that, I need to prove to them that they can drop body fat when we decide to. Like, because there’s always this question of like, well, if I put on this weight, can I take it off?

I don’t know. So sometimes we’ll go through a phase where it’s like, watch, we’re going to lose six pounds in this amount of time. Roughly. Let’s go. We do it and it’s like, see, we can pull that trigger whenever we want to. Now let’s build.

Ben:

You know what that reminds me of? The P ratio thing. Did you like getting lean first because your gains are going to be leaner as opposed to like starting a bulk when you’re maybe not as lean as you could be still relatively lean? Have. Has that ever been something that’s crossed your mind that you tried to do?

Dani:

Oh, it certainly crossed my mind. Like, but my body doesn’t want to be lean. Like, there are people out there, their bodies like being lean. Mine does not like it. So even if it’s something I wanted to try, I don’t think I could. But I can tell you this. If I could go back 20. Yeah, if I could go back 20 years and do one thing differently. So when I started lifting weights, when I started my fitness journey, let’s say I was about 180 pounds, because the first 30 pounds just came off me.

When I went vegan, I was not exercising, but I was 180 pounds, 5 foot 7. That’s overweight for my height. If I could go back and do one thing Differently, I would not have tried to just drop down. Like, I would not have tried to lose weight from 180. I would have just gotten strong there.

Ben:

Same thing. Same thing with me. Yeah. Yeah.

Dani:

It’s one of the only big regrets that I have is, like, I was so focused on just getting thin then, and I did get thin. I got to be like, 125 pounds or something like that. But I looked like a. Like a stick. Like a strong wind could have blown me over at that point. I looked like a lollipop or a bobblehead, as many people told me. If I had just stayed and gotten strong at 180 and then maybe drop down to 140, I think. I think I’d look different today.

Ben:

Yeah, I think there’s the same first two years of lifting for me. I started out just because I was like, I don’t like this little, like, belly thing that I’ve got going on, even though I don’t have that much muscle. So I’m just going to. And I was very, like, when I set my mind to something, I would do it.

So I was very militant about it. And I just like, meal plan three months, and I just, like, drop whatever, 30 pounds. But I was very lean, but it was like, this is not exactly what I signed up for what I wanted. And then I got used to looking that way. I’m like, oh, I don’t want to go the other way.

Dani:

Right.

Ben:

I like being.

Dani:

Exactly.

Ben:

And I was also in college, and people were making comments on it, so there is that identity aspect to it as well, which is difficult to let go. And I think that does segue nicely into the topic of, like, intentional gaining or building phases and fat loss phases. And I think presently two camps that people kind of sit in from where. From. What I would see is one school of thought is you can make good gains at maintenance, and you can kind of just sit, you know, find a body fat percentage

where you feel comfortable, where you feel good at, where you feel like your training is good, your lifestyle is conducive to your goals, etc, like, it’s not. Yeah, maybe you can make gains when you’re 12 body fat for a male, but that doesn’t afford you a lot of, like, life flexibility. So, okay, maybe I need to go up to more, like to 15 and then make gains there, and I feel good there, and I train good versus, okay, I, you know, maybe 12 to 20% is this range that I’m comfortable being in.

I’m gonna. I’ll be at 12% I’m gonna gain, you know, do a gaining phase up to 20% and then go back down to 12. And maybe there’s some, like, mini diets in there where I go from 12 to 16, back to 14, up to 18, back to 16, up to 20.

Dani:

Would you call that kind of that main gaining thing, like. Or would you call that, like, bulking and cutting what you’re describing?

Ben:

Well, I would say the first scenario where you kind of just find a body fat feel good at describing. Yeah, yeah. Y would be the kind of main gaining and. Or gain taining, whatever you want to call it. And the second one would be more of those intentional bulking and cutting phases. And I’ve experimented with. With both, and I can kind of give my perspective or where I currently.

Dani:

Yeah, I’m curious to hear your perspective.

Ben:

When I first was considering doing more intentional cycles, the first thing I ever did was a fat loss phase of diet. And then I tried the bulking thing, but I still didn’t have that great understanding of, like, calorie balance. So I was doing a lot of physical activity. And then I went to not doing that much, but I was eating the same amount. And so I gained a lot faster than I wanted to.

And then I was like, oh, shoot, I don’t like, kind of how this turned out. I feel like I didn’t really gain much muscle. I just put on a lot of fat. So then dieted again back to maybe I’d gained a couple pounds of muscle, so I was a little bit heavier than what I was before, but still very lean with not much muscle. And so I was kind of scared at that point.

Oh, I don’t want to do it again where I’m going to put on body fat. And, you know, the bulking thing didn’t really work out for me, so I kind of just stayed in that place for like a year or so, trying to kind of like, main gain. And at the same time, I was kind of getting a little frustrated. Like, I was. I don’t know how I didn’t put two and two together, but in the gym, like, not seeing as much progress as I did in the first couple months, you know, newbie gains and everything.

And so I was like, I don’t want to even track my lifts anymore. It’s discouraging. So I’m just gonna, like, I’ll still go in there. Well, I’ll still go in and train. And I had somewhat of a structure, but I wasn’t writing down my lifts and not being as mature Because I would get like upset whenever I wouldn’t be able to progress. And somehow I wasn’t putting two together that, oh, you’re staying too lean and you’re trying to main gain at this body fat.

So I think, you know, after that I figured out, okay, if I’m going to do a bulk, I need to be a little bit more intentional about not gaining as fast. And I still did it faster than I wanted to, but it was better than the first time that I tried it. So I went from like 150 up to 180 in like five months. So that’s, that’s pretty quick. But I put on a lot of muscle on that and so I was like, oh, okay.

So I did it better this time. And then I did a diet, I think down to like low 160s. And then I did it again up to 190. So I went up a little bit higher that time and that was even better. It took longer instead of five months to gain 30 pounds, it was maybe like 10 months to gain that amount of weight. And the dieting phases became more seamless over time.

And so I got better at the skill of gaining at an appropriate rate and losing. And I saw a lot of progress that way. So that was. That worked really well for me. And so I think my bias also from just seeing the way that people have done it over time, there has been a lot of, like, people will do these bulking, cutting phases until they get older. And then at a certain point, you just don’t want to anymore for your health and just like, yeah, I just not about this anymore.

And so people will often be like, you know, no more bulking and cutting. I’m just going to kind of do the main gaining gain thing, especially because your gains are slower as you progress into your lifting. So you can’t expect to put on, you know, five, six pounds of muscle a year. Like maybe you could when you were first starting out. So, okay, if I’m only going to be gaining one or two pounds a year, I don’t want to gain ten pounds just to gain one or two pounds of muscle.

So there’s almost this argument of like, oh, should you be in a surplus because it’s so hard to gain muscle at this point, or should you? You don’t really need to because you’re only gaining so much muscle anyway. So it’s this interesting dynamic or debate that people have. And I think kind of where I’m at right now is I still am at the point where I feel like I have a lot of untapped muscle mass that I can kind of tap into. So I think going through intentional bulking and cutting phases is

something that I am a fan of and I. I do with a lot of my clients. However, for myself, like, I can just talk about literally what I’m doing right now. Like, coming out of my prep, I put on a lot of weight in a short period of time. So what I’m doing right now is kind of just settling at the weight where I’m at, because I feel like I’m good training performance is good. I’m still gaining back a lot of strength in the gym.

Dani:

Like you could recomp here.

Ben:

Yes, exactly. So I think that’s the thing. Like, if you’re at a higher body fat percentage, if you’re newer to training, some of these scenarios, if you’re really like, if you. Some research has shown higher protein intakes higher than what’s usually recommended these. You know, a couple of things can. If you’re coming back from training after not training for a while.

So you had a layoff from training muscle. Muscle memory, muscle regain is definitely a thing. So I think wrapping things up for myself. When I first started, I tried the main gaining thing, but I was too lean to do it. Then I tried the bulking, cutting thing, and that has worked really well for me. And now literally just at the point that I’m at right now, I’m back to kind of doing that re comping main gaining thing because I have plenty of body fat to pull from and I feel very good at this

body fat level. I don’t need to gain any more weight, at least not intentionally. If it goes up a little bit over time, that’s fine. And I think eventually I’ll get to a point where, okay, it’s been enough time away from my prep where I feel usually I get to the point where I’m like, I’m ready to diet, I want to diet, I want to take. I’m sick of 10 or 15 pounds. Yeah, exactly. Of body weight. And so eventually I’ll do that and then I’ll kind of go back to those cycles of gaining pretty slowly

and then pulling off the body fat. Because I think being in a surplus is really helpful for your training over extended period of time. However, I think if you. Yeah, if you’re at a higher body fat percentage, you probably can do more of like a main gaining or a recomp. And I’ve seen lots of people do that as well. So I don’t think there’s necessarily one best way of doing it. But that’s my thoughts and what I’ve seen so far.

Dani:

Yeah, so I agree with you. I see the two camps like I see them giving their opinions on YouTube a lot of the time and I don’t think either of them are wrong. I actually feel very similar to everything that you just described. I don’t know if my opinion on this has changed necessarily or just that I’ve had a lot more experience with myself and with clients to just have a little bit more nuance or individual individualization with it.

But I’ll give the sort of general idea here. I think that somebody first getting into fitness. This is funny. You’re taking your shirt off and I am wearing like long underwear and a hat. I think when someone’s first getting into fitness, they shouldn’t diet. Like if they’re first getting into lifting, don’t diet. Like everybody does it. I know it, I did it.

You did it. Like everybody does it because they’re pumped. They’re pumped on this idea that they’re going to start lifting and they’re going to follow this new healthy lifestyle which most of the time equates to a caloric deficit when they start their like meal prep and clean eating. But I feel like it’s really, it’s really a shame, it’s such a shame that so many people go right into this diet because I think that they could gain or body recomposition as long as they’re at a healthy

is weight, which is like a pretty big range. They could probably body recomp for a while in the beginning and get really great results that way. But there will come a point where that’s going to slow down significantly and that is where I think you do your bulk and your cut cycles. And which one you do first, that’s the biggest question, right?

Which one should I do? Depends. Depends entirely on the person. I don’t even think it matters that much. But you can do that several times. You can do them. You can do kind of like quick little mini cuts followed by these longer bulks or builds. I would actually recommend, especially in the beginning to not do that, to dedicate yourself to a long build. And I don’t want to say a long cut, that sounds terrible, but like a, a sustainable pace cut over, you know, 12 weeks, 15 weeks,

something like that. And you can do that a few times and when then basically eventually you graduate back into gain taining, which I find to be true in a lot of elements of fitness. Like you Start here, you go here. And then you end up kind of meme about that. But it’s, it’s true.

Ben:

You know what I’m talking about with like there’s like the idiot on the left side and like the Jedi Master on the right side. And there’s like the nerd in the middle. Have you, have you seen a movie like that looks like a, a graph where it’s like the left. It will be just be like, eat a lot of protein or something. Or like eat, eat protein. And then like the middle one will be like, well, this meta analysis found that.

Dani:

Right?

Ben:

And then that’s it. The right side will be like, eat protein.

Dani:

Yeah, So I have not seen that meme, but that’s it. That’s exactly what I’m talking. Like I would mainly have somebody start lifting on full body and then eventually go in all these different body parts. Let’s try all of this stuff. And eventually you come back to full body splits. Like that’s, that’s another example of just how I’ve seen that play out.

But you kind of gotta earn that gain Taining when you’re older. And it could be for a lot of different reasons. It could be because you’re not really interested in bodybuilding type of stuff anymore. It could be just because you’re, you’re there, like you’re happy with where you’re at and you still want to maintain this healthy fitness lifestyle, but you don’t really need to be changing that much anymore.

You’re just like happy to mostly maintain cool. Like, there’s a lot of reasons why somebody might end up getting to that place. But I feel like people that try to skip the, the bulks and the cuts are really doing themselves a disservice because I can’t tell you how many people I see that are just like forever intermediate because they won’t, they just won’t.

Usually it’s because they won’t go into the build. Everybody’s game with the cut, but usually they will not commit to the caloric surplus because it’s uncomfortable to grow. And therefore they don’t even come close to like their muscle building potential.

Ben:

I like what you said about committing to it for a period of time too, because people will be like, I’m doing a build and they’ll do it for like four or eight weeks. And then things start to get maybe a little uncomfortable. Clothes are fitting a little tighter. And of course, if you do it in a measured way, it’s not going to be drastic. It’s Going to be slowly over time, but the second you start to maybe notice, like, oh, I’m getting a little softer here, here, here, people freak out and

they immediately want to go into a cut. And I think that there’s really something to the momentum that you can build being even at maintenance, but ideally in a slight surplus for extended period of time, months, 6, 8, 10, 12 months even. And it doesn’t have to be drastic weight gain, you can gain 8 or 10 pounds over frame, which breaks down to like less than a pound a month.

Dani:

And statistically, Americans are going to gain that in a year anyway.

Ben:

Exactly. And I’m sure you’ve probably seen this with yourself, that you have some periods of time where progress seems to be a little bit slower. And sometimes you just get on this, you get on this run with it. You get on kind of like a growth spurt where it’s like, okay, these years maybe like, we’re a little slower progress, but this has been a really good year of progress.

And I think a lot of like, the more that you can stack the deck in your favor, being at least at maintenance, but maybe in a slight surplus and setting things up to have that environment for an extended period of time, that’s where you get those growth sprites, is when you can stay in that environment for a long time.

Dani:

Absolutely. Exactly what you just said. People start to get uncomfortable and they pull the rug out from under themselves. It’s like the window that you mentioned of like body fat percentages, like, I can cut down to this and I can get up to this in terms of body fat percentage. It should be a much bigger window than I think a lot of people are allowing themselves.

You know, they’re giving themselves like a little 5% window or sometimes even less than that. I mean, who’s to say exactly what it is? But their, their window of comfort is small. And if you can’t get comfortable being a little bit uncomfortable, you’re not gonna touch that potential. And you might be fine with that. Like, there are a lot of people that are like, yeah, I’m not getting up to that weight.

And if that means that I never get close to the muscle building potential, then so be it. That’s fine. You know, I kind of thought that when I was watching Maddie on stage, standing on stage at my weight currently, and I think she’s shorter than me. I’m not sure she’s one. She says she’s 140 on stage. Okay, that’s bananas. That’s crazy. You know, I was like, okay, so if I was 140 on stage, I’d probably have to walk around at like 170.

I don’t think I want to do that. Like 150, 155 maybe, like I could push it to that and that would be uncomfortable, but like 170. So that’s like a concession that I make. I. Not that I think I could be Maddie, but like I probably never have as much muscle as Maddie because I, I can’t do. I’m not going to do that.

Ben:

There’s a good point you brought up about the ranges as well. I think I really wanted the range for me where I made my best progress to be in like that 10 to 15% range. But then over time the I spent closer to that 15% and beyond that, I realized, wow, like, okay, I thought training felt good here. That’s the thing with the main gaining. That’s tricky as well.

Dani:

It’s like you don’t know until you know.

Ben:

You might think you feel good at like, yeah, 13, 14%. But I realized that my best progress is usually in like 15 to 20 and maybe even getting into the low 20s where it’s like, I don’t love the way I’m looking right now, but I’m really strong in the gym and I’m making very good progress. And that for me is what keeps me. And it is the focus on getting stronger in the gym and the progressive overload. Because that’s another conversation I find myself having with clients all the time is like,

how do I know that I’m making progress? Because you can’t see it. Like on a dieting phase, you get that feedback almost every single week. Looking leaner. Here, here, here, here. Building phase is so slow and so drawn out. It can be. It’s hard to get people to commit to that and to really stick it and see it through until that next cut where then you see all the progress.

Dani:

So you have to have so much faith through the process.

Ben:

And I always say like, okay, if your gym performance is going up and you’re getting stronger across your rep ranges and you’re not altering your technique in any way and you know, you’re keeping things consistent and you’re getting stronger, you’re adding reps, you’re adding weight, it’s in like, you know, it’s pretty impossible.

Dani:

Almost impossible.

Ben:

Yeah. That you wouldn’t be putting on muscle. And so I think that is the most sure fire way that I can get someone into the buy in is like, okay, if we’re at least at maintenance, probably in like a slight surplus, you’re getting stronger in the gym. You’re building muscle. Like, there’s just no way around it.

Dani:

So one of the things that I’ve come up against is sometimes a client is in a build and they’re getting stronger and they’re getting stronger and then they get hurt and then they have to recover from an injury of a shoulder or a knee or whatever, and they can’t, they can’t train, they cannot keep progressing on what they were progressing.

And there’s this anxiety of like, okay, well now I’m in a surplus and I’m gaining weight and I can’t even push the weight that I was just pushing. And that can sometimes be a reason someone wants to like, you know, 180 and get out of this build. I usually just say, well, we’re just going to focus on other body parts right now.

Ben:

Sure.

Dani:

But I can understand why that would be tricky for some people.

Ben:

I think it’s the reality, though. It’s like injuries are going to happen if you’re training with a degree of intensity and you can’t spend all your time like in a deficit or at maintenance. I think if, yeah, if an injury comes up, you can, you can consider it maybe going to maintenance and then focusing on just maintaining until the injury gets better. But, you know, you might even heal.

Dani:

Faster with the surplus.

Ben:

That’s what I was going to say. The slice therapist is probably going to help that. And most of the time you can at least train around it or find a way, like just to give an example. So I’ve been having some kind of like pec tendon overuse stuff. And so the way that I’ve been going about that is, okay, I’m just going to hit that muscle with less frequency, less volume, less of a focus on maybe like positions that don’t feel as good.

So like either a super contracted position, like you think about a pack deck, or like that really deep stretch, I’m just gonna maybe train more in the mid range and you know, okay, maybe I’m not gonna be able to have that same degree of frequency volume, like all these things that’s gonna lead to stimulus, but it’s gonna be a very, at the very least enough to maintain. And I can still probably get a little bit stronger. And so I’ve been, I’ve been doing that and slowly it’s getting

better and better. And so it’s. Maybe it’s not ideal or optimal or what you love to do, but injuries are going to happen. And it’s good not to make a mountain out of a molehill and catastrophize it and say, oh, I can’t train at all or you know, my progress is ruined.

Like there’s always something you can do, some exercise or something that you can focus on even if you actually can’t train that muscle. Like you said, prioritizing other muscle groups maybe and trying to get excited about that.

Dani:

That’s one of my favorite things about bodybuilding is there’s no one exercise you have to do. So if you can’t do something, we can do something else. Two things that you said that I just thought of. One, back to the. Committing to. Committing to the build. Committing to the build. I can’t remember what the research paper is and I might be misquoting it a bit, but I, I’m pretty sure that there’s some research out there to suggest that if you build muscle and then immediately go into a

cut, you are more likely to lose that muscle during the cut versus if you build muscle, stay there for a little while and then do the cut, it’s almost like your body is like, oh, this muscle is actually ours. We’re gonna keep this muscle, it’s been around for a while. And then do the cut, you’re more likely to keep more of that muscle. So these like super yo yo building cuts, you could be gaining and losing the same couple pounds of muscle and fat every time you do it versus build.

Stay there for a little bit. I think, I think it was like three months or something is what they said. Like stay there for a bit, then do the cut and you will hopefully have better results. But I think people just panic at the, that top of the top of a build.

Ben:

I think even if there isn’t research that directly shows that, just anecdotally that’s something that I’ve seen bodybuilders do a ton of times. Like they talk about like holding that, that peak weight and I think there’s something to that because that peak weight, not for everyone, but for a lot of people is probably going to be where their best training performance is. Having some body fat on you helps just like cushion things just feel more stable, they feel more cushy, you

just feel stronger. Of course there’s somewhat of a leverage component to that, but it’s not everything. There’s other aspects to it too. So I think like you said, you don’t want to just, okay, I’m gonna do a 12 week build and then I’m gonna do a, a, you know, a four week diet and you’re constantly kind of interrupting this process.

Dani:

The four one I keep seeing people try to do like literally building for four weeks and cutting for a week.

Ben:

Yeah, it’s like, it’s like, okay, can we just multiply that by like 6? So you build for 24 weeks and then you diet for 6 weeks. Like that is so much better because you’re not constantly going back and forth. Like you, you build that momentum that is so big. And yeah, holding that, like you said, holding that kind of peak body weight. Yeah. There might be something to like there’s this concept of preparatory hypertrophy where you kind of lay the groundwork through the training, but it

can take maybe a couple weeks for it to actually actualize that hypertrophy. So there’s sometimes stories of why you hear people talking about like at least on the enhanced side, like a post show rebound, because maybe you’re driving the signal for hypertrophy during your prep, but you don’t have the food or the drugs to support that. Maybe. But then once you come out of your prep, okay, now that we’re providing more fuel and you could see this probably not in like a contest going

back kind of the natural side. Maybe not like a contest prep scenario, but maybe you are coming down from that peak off season weight after sitting there for a little while and then you kind of go, you know, that actually is probably a time that you could reverse diet is not, not very lean, but like slowly reversing your calories from maintenance.

Dani:

That’s actually something I wanted to say is like, if somebody is dieting just to like a, you know, for them it’s their goal weight, but maybe it’s not super shredded.

Ben:

Maybe the mid to low end of that like range that we talked about.

Dani:

Then reverse dieting can usually work. So that’s the caveat for the thing before.

Ben:

And then, yeah, maybe you’re gaining some kind of muscle that you were preparing for during that, that cut. Like you were signaling the hypertrophy, but it wasn’t able to manifest because you didn’t have the environment for it.

Dani:

Yeah, yeah. The other thing you mentioned was like, I related to this so much. You were like, I so wanted that range to be this. Yeah, I think everybody does. Like everybody has. No, no, no. I will be in this range. This is where my peak performance will be. And I’ve seen 3DMJ say it a million times. The place where your body performs the best is probably not going to be the place where you think your body looks the best?

For myself, my best gym performance, I am probably, like, 26, 27 body fat or so to get the best performance. And that is, like, a scary high number for a lot of women to hear, because we hear, like, 15 to 18 is, like, super athletic. Like, 15 is stage ready for a lot of women. Honestly, this is tangential, but it.

Ben:

It grinds my gears when I hear people talking about, like, they’re like, oh, like, I got my female client to, like, like, 5% body fat. I’m like. I’m like, that doesn’t exist. Like, okay, that was enough.

Dani:

Yeah, no, it’s true. It’s true. But I. I think that the general population doesn’t actually know what these percentages look like.

Ben:

I know, but coaches and competitors, like, that’s another.

Dani:

Those people.

Ben:

Yeah, that’s another thing.

Dani:

But, yeah, I’d say probably like, 27. I mean, maybe it even goes a little bit higher than that. I would say, if I had to guess right now, I’m probably, like, 23ish, maybe 24ish percent body fat right now, which is a lot higher than I think most people would guess. Just by nature of what I do for work, my height and weight, they would probably assume it was closer to 20, but it’s.

It’s not. It’s probably closer to 25. And my body performs very well here. And I know for a fact that if I gained 10 more pounds, my body would do even better in the gym. So, you know, you make. You make certain concessions depending on where you are at in your life right now, because there may come a point where things kind of slow down around me a little bit, and I’m like, all right, I can.

I could do this. I could dedicate myself to a build, because you really do have to dedicate yourself to it in terms of you can’t just wing it. And I think a lot of people think you can just wing the build because it’s more fun. Like, you get to eat more food. But there is actually a good amount of structure that needs to be put into that for it to be optimal. Like, making sure you really are eating all the food that you think you’re eating and not having days where. Because a lot of people are

like, no, no, I’m eating so much food. But then they’ll randomly have a day where they eat, like, 800 calories because they’re kind of sick of food and they don’t realize it yet, or they’re not pushing the training the way they need to be pushing the training to get the stimulus they need to get the results that they want. So there’s a lot. I think this is why builds get such a bulks in general. I think this is why they get such a bad rap, is because there’s so many sloppy, sloppy bulks.

Ben:

People don’t take them so seriously. Like, it’s like, oh, when I’m gonna cut, I’m on it. I’m on it with everything. And that’s why people say bulking, cutting doesn’t work because then they would go back to the bulky. It’s like, I’m eating everything again, no strike structure. Yeah, but it’s like if you learn to do a build where you keep that same structure you’re eating, maybe like, you know, your three to five meals every single day, they’re probably pretty similar day to day.

You’re getting your protein and you’re getting your sleep, you’re managing your stress, you’re training hard, you’re being as consistent as you would with a cut, but you have more flexibility because you have more calories.

Dani:

Yeah. Probably have more energy.

Ben:

So, you know, if you’re able to take your builds as seriously as you do your dieting phases, then it’s going to be a lot more successful and you’re going to get more bought into it. And I think then those habits carry over. It’s a lot more seamless of a transition going into a diet after that because, oh, I’m pretty much just doing the same thing.

I’m maybe just swapping out a couple foods here or there, eating a little bit less, and then it becomes more of a lifestyle. It doesn’t feel like this drastic. Oh, I’m dieting or I’m doing a build. Like it’s, it’s, you know, maybe you change a couple things here or there’s. But you can, you can make it pretty seamless.

Dani:

Yeah, that’s. I think that that’s a really, really important part. And I think we all kind of feel it a little bit when we go into a build. It does feel like a little bit of the pressure is off because you have more wiggle room. But how far can you or should you actually take that flexibility?

You know, a lot of people are like, I have so many more macros and I can fit so many more beers into it now. It’s like, that’s probably not going to be great for your bulk for the long term. Or they just, they have more energy so they don’t prioritize sleep the same way.

Ben:

Yeah.

Dani:

That they did before, and it just doesn’t have the same payoff. Also, there is no. There is no bulk without fat gain, which I think is a myth that the fitness industry likes to perpetuate, that you can just do these lean builds or.

Ben:

Yeah, that’s what.

Dani:

That’s how I hear it. Put a lot like a lean build, like, you can do stuff very well and hopefully minimize the amount of fat gain, or you can do stuff really sloppy and you’ll probably have more fat gain. But there. There’s no two ways about it. Like, you’re gonna put on body fat while you’re building and.

Ben:

Sorry, did you.

Dani:

No, no, no. That’s just tough.

Ben:

Yeah. And I think psychologically it’s almost similar to the idea of like, reverse dieting out of a prep. When you go into a build, having the expectation that I need to be so on top of things that I’m getting no body fat and it’s all going to be muscle. If you actually wanted to do that, you would have to be so precise to the extent you couldn’t basically probably need.

It’s practically. Yeah, it’s. It’s practically impossible. So nobody can maintain. I mean, very few people can maintain that level of precision. Even if you thought you were. You’re gonna walk a little bit more or less. Some days you’re going to fidget a little bit more or less. Some days you can’t keep your eyes activity perfectly stable. So I think you need to give yourself enough of a buffer to know that you’re actually in a surplus.

And so there’s going to be some degree of inaccuracy there, but you just have to accept that. And you can use the, you know, things like the scale to show, okay, am I gaining at a rate that isn’t appropriate? Cool. And it doesn’t have to be like, so micromanaged to the point where you’re constantly worrying about it. You can look at monthly trends. It doesn’t have to be weekly, you know, so. So precise with everything all the time.

Dani:

Yeah, definitely. That’s a tricky one, too, because some months it could look like you gained five or six pounds in a month, but it just happened to be that particular day you weighed in heavier. Right. But the other days it’s much lower. So, yeah, I’m a big fan of looking at trends, which can be tricky because not everybody wants to step on the scale that often.

Ben:

Yep.

Dani:

And I get that. But also, it just gives us less data to see.

Ben:

I recently bought one of the Giacomo Inspire Me the scale that he has that doesn’t show, but you can still track it, like, when you step on the scale. Yeah, I think that’s really cool.

Dani:

Yeah.

Ben:

Because even myself, like, sometimes I don’t. I don’t want to necessarily be so fixed. Even if I would like to have that data, I don’t want to be so fixated on that. I don’t. When I’m building, I don’t necessarily want to think about that. And so I think still being able to take the data, because then when you do need to check it to make a decision, you can be removed emotionally from that immediate moment.

Like, okay, let me see what the past three weeks have been, and then make a decision. As opposed to every single day, you’re like, you step, oh, it’s lower today. I’m gonna eat more. Or like, oh, it’s higher now. I’m gonna eat less. And you’re just, like, going all over the place with everything.

Dani:

I talk about this a lot with my clients. Like, the scale today does not necessarily reflect what you did yesterday or the scale this week during your check in does not necessarily reflect how much you did or did not adhere this week. I’ve had clients where they had, like, a terrible week and drank every day and ate a whole bunch of.

The scale is down, and they’re like, got away with that. And I’m like, let’s see what it says next week or in two. There seems can be a lag for certain things anyway, so I feel like I’ve said everything I have to say about bulks and cuts.

Ben:

There was one thing that I wanted to touch on which you mentioned was going back to that idea of, yeah, where you perform the best might not be where you like the way you look the best. I will say for myself that I’ve come to appreciate how I look at higher body fat percentages over time. And I think that’s because as you build more muscle, the way that.

Yes. The way that it disperses, it just makes you look more muscular, really is how it is. You fill out your clothes, better things. Things fit better. You might need to get new clothes, but that’s not a bad thing. And that’s a conversation I have with clients all the time. They’re like, oh, like, I’m. I’m having to get new clothing, and I don’t necessarily like this or a sad thing, but I’m like, if your waist size is the same and you’re getting, you know, you need to get new jeans or new,

you know, shirts, because Everything’s fitting differently. That’s a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t need to always, you know, be a certain size or a certain weight or whatever. So I think over time, I’ve appreciated, like, having more muscle, being at these higher body fat percentages.

I just look like in clothing, I like the way that I look better. Much better. Like, I like the way clothes fit me now 100 more than the way that they looked in prep, where they hang off me like. Like, I don’t know, like dresses, basically.

Dani:

People don’t understand that at the end of a natural bodybuilding prep, in clothes, you look like you don’t even work out at all. Like, nobody looks like.

Ben:

Questions from family members. Are you still working out? You’re still doing that thing.

Dani:

You get the, like, real sunken face. There’s nothing really. I mean, it looks great on stage. It looks not great in real life. So I agree with you. I do think it’s a little bit harder for women.

Ben:

I would agree with that.

Dani:

Just because we are just expected. Our whole lives were taught to shrink, like, that’s it. Take up as little space as humanly possible. So, first of all, the act of building in and of itself as a female, I think is a really, like, brave, rebellious thing to do. So I’m always, like, so pumped when a woman like that I work with really commits to this, because I know that’s not easy. But also, I feel like men’s clothes are just made better.

They’re. The structure of them makes more sense. I made a whole, like, long video about women’s clothing sizes and how. I’ll explain it briefly here. If someone is a size 0 and someone is a size 3XL, that garment might be the exact same proportions. It’s just bigger, which is not how people actually change. And that makes buying clothes, like, infuriating. There’s more to it than that. But, yeah, I. I think that.

Ben:

It.

Dani:

Was less before, and now I think it’s trending back in that direction, that women are just kind of expected to be, like, skinny. So anytime you’re deliberately getting bigger, it just can sometimes feel like you want to crawl out of your own skin a little bit, which is why I’m a huge proponent of comfortable clothing.

Ben:

Yes.

Dani:

Like, I have a lot of sensory issues, so I think that’s probably part of it. But if something is cutting into me, I.

Ben:

Oversized everything. That’s just my solution. But no, thank you for that perspective. That’s important for that to be said. And I will say that I always appreciate content creators who are female in the fitness space who do show the intentional weight gain, the builds. And, like, this is how I went from where I was at before to, like, now, like, this very muscular physique that I think is becoming more common for women to aspire to.

And I think that fitness and lifting weights has become more of, like, a mainstream trendy thing for both men and for women. I think that’s a really awesome thing because it’s encouraging everyone to get into the gym and lift heavy and get stronger and not just males who are grunting and doing that whole thing.

Like, it’s not. Yeah, it’s less of a. It’s less. You know, it’s more of a place for everyone these days. And it’s not this weird thing if you, like, see a woman lifting, like, a lot of weight in the gym. Like, it’s. It’s. It’s cool. Like, right? People think that’s cool, at least.

Dani:

Yeah. When I started lifting, there was one other woman on the weight room floor. Now, like, most of the time, it’s like, it’s pretty even, actually. But I’m curious. This is, like, a side topic.

Ben:

Maybe.

Dani:

Maybe this could be a whole separate podcast. Maybe. I don’t know if we could stretch it into a whole podcast, but, like, body trends. I feel like women’s bodies go through a lot more trends of what women are aspiring to look like, and I don’t feel like men’s kind of do. Like, I feel like the. The aspirational men’s physique today might be more muscular on the whole. In fact, I’m certain it is than it was like, 20 years ago, but it’s still, you know, big shoulders, big arms.

Ben:

Yeah, sure.

Dani:

Always, like, that hasn’t really changed that much, but I think about, like, 20 years ago, like, you wanted a flat ass. Like, that’s what people. That’s what women wanted 20 years ago. And obviously, we saw the direction. The other direction that went in which, you know, people walking around looking like a tooth on their lower half.

But it’s kind of shifted. Right? Like, right now the trend is shifting back to just, like, skinny, I think because of the rise of Ozempic. It’s really fascinating, but I’m just. I was just curious if you see that.

Ben:

You’re probably more tapped into this than I am. I’m not. I’m not super clued in.

Dani:

Yeah. So I’m guessing men’s aspirational physiques don’t change that much.

Ben:

Probably not, no. I mean, you always. Yeah, that is, I think, I think C Bum can can be thanked for that one. I mean there’s always like the archetypes of like, you know, the, the kind of like the skateboarder, like skinnier guy and then there’s like the bigger musket. But I don’t know, I. Yeah, it’s just not something I think about too often. Yeah.

Dani:

Interesting. What’s the best training split?

Ben:

That question, the age old question. I think most of the time the answer I’ll give to somebody is depends which is the answer you get for a lot of stuff. I would say for people who come to me who are beginners, who’ve never listed lifted weights before or are very new to it. Full body is usually what I’m doing for somebody because they can get into the gym maybe three days per week. Could be a Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And they’re just learning movement patterns.

Dani:

And they’re not super sore.

Ben:

No.

Dani:

From destroying any one muscle group.

Ben:

Yes. They’re learning how to get their intensity up. They’re learning how to execute these exercises in a safe way that feels comfortable and then slowly pushing that boundary of what is comfortable and what is not. Because some people can go into the gym and train to failure. On day one. That was me barbell coming down on my chest the first day I stepped in the gym.

But I think that was because I had a little bit of an athletic background and I like pushing myself and so that was something that I was, I guess I grew up with. But that’s not the case for a lot of people. And so that is a skill that you learn. So I would say beginners. Yeah, it’s a lot of full body three times per week. I’ve done full body myself and there’s lots of successful ways to set it up.

The most other common splits I would say is some sort of upper lower split. And these can be four times a week. I mean some people will do like upper lower, upper Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then they’ll switch the order the following week. Or you could do another common ways like, like upper lower Monday, Tuesday rest, Wednesday, upper lower Thursday, Friday rest on the weekends.

At the extreme, you could maybe do upper lower three times a week with six training days and one rest day. That’s really hard. It’s kind of like doing push pull legs twice in a week. Yeah, it’s really difficult. Probably you want to split it up with at least a rest day in between each cycle of that. So then there’s like, okay, is it, are you following A seven day calendar with the training split.

Is your lifestyle set up to be very much like it needs to be the same every week or is it different? Do you have a flexible lifestyle where, hey, I can do push, pull, legs off, repeat and that’s four days. And so it just goes in a cycle like that and you can maybe insert any rest days in as you needed. Um, and then there’s obviously what is known as the body part split or the bro split, which is you just go in and you train one muscle group and you just hammer it that time.

So I’d say I’ve seen enough people be successful with every single training split that it’s really hard to say what is the best one. It depends on your goals, what muscles you want to bring up or prioritize your training age, training experience. But I would like to hear from you, what training split have you maybe enjoyed the most, if there is one, and seen the most success with. If you could put it to that.

Dani:

Yeah, I mean I, I know the answer. For me personally, I’ve done everything that you just said and more, way, way more Arnold split.

Ben:

There’s a lot of different, so many different ones.

Dani:

But, but the one, it’s not even just a split. It’s also the way the actual workout was structured. But the one that I come back to a lot is lower body twice a week, back and delts twice a week and chest and arms once a week, which is going to be very different than most guys who are not going to hit chest and arms once a week. Obviously using chest and arms a bit in the delt stay and the back day.

But as a figure competitor, like I can run, I could run that particular program I’m thinking of for probably 12 months with very few changes to it and make progress. You know, that’s five days a week. That doesn’t always work for my current life like to do five days a week. So what I was doing up until I injured my shoulder, I don’t know what I did, but I mean it’s, it’s hurt bad.

So I was doing that up until that point and I didn’t hurt it in the gym. I don’t know what happened to it. So now I’m doing an upper lower, upper lower and it’s like a very modified, kind of pathetic upper, just like you said, very limited range of motion, light weights, lots of focus on it. But it’s not what it was before and it’s very frustrating.

But that’s because there’s, I, there’s No point in me spending more time on my upper body when my delts, which are like my absolute bread and butter to train, like they’re. I can barely do anything with them. So a huge component of the best split, I think comes down to your schedule and what’s going to work for your schedule. So it doesn’t matter if it’s the best split.

If you can’t, if you are consistently missing a day every single week, then it’s not the best split. Running them in a cycle. Like you just said. That’s what I was doing before because five days was tough some weeks. So I would just, just keep running the same thing over and over. Maybe some weeks it took me seven days. Maybe some weeks it took me six days.

Sometimes it took me nine days to get through all five of those lifting days and just kept running them in order and that was working like, like phenomenally until the shoulder thing happened. But on paper, I love full body splits. Like so much research is like, yes, this is the way in practice, I don’t enjoy it as much.

Ben:

That’s what I find with a lot of people. Yeah, they, they’re just not as fun for people.

Dani:

Yeah, I mean my legs enjoy it because they’re never like destroyed, but, but it’s just, it’s not. I feel like I never really get to like get into any body part when I’m doing that. And Berto as my coach loved full body splits. Like we were always doing full body splits and I would do it like, I would just do, do as I am told, but I just, I never loved it.

Ben:

That’s how I got Sawyer to start training his legs more because I was like. He was like, oh, I hate leg days. I’m like, well, I’ve been doing this thing for a little while where I just train quads on one of the days and hamstrings on the other day and I kind of just alternate it. And so he’s been doing that for quite some time and he really likes that now. I, I’m a little bit of a masochist and I’ve gone back to the point where I actually love leg days and my favorite day to train.

Cuz it’s just like something about, I think part of it’s maybe ego, but I’m like, not everyone has it mentally to like push themselves to that point on a leg day. Um, and I love that. I love that feeling like walking out of the gym afterwards and being like.

Dani:

Like, yes, I don’t have it. I don’t have it like my mind will give up before my body does on so many things. And then I have, I have to do all of the, I have to play all these games with myself to keep getting reps in, even if they’re like rest pauses and there’s 10 seconds in between each rep or whatever. Yeah, I’ve watched some of your like hack squat sets and I’m just like.

Ben:

Jesus Christ, that’s my favorite exercise. I love that one.

Dani:

I love hack squat. I mean, but in this scheme of lower body exercises, which I mostly hate, I love hack squats. But that’s a. You gotta know yourself. And this is where I really think individualized coaching is so much better than any program that you can buy or download off the Internet. Like any program you download is gonna work. If you do it, it’s going to work.

But knowing what, what somebody is working on, you know, like hitting maybe somebody with a three time bench frequency because they really want to bring their bench up specifically. Like their bench might respond really well to high frequency. But you know, for a power lifter like their deadlift, you might have to do it every other week instead. Like that’s very individualized. So there’s that aspect, but there’s also like, what does this person, what does this person love?

What does this person hate? What can this person mentally or physically give to this workout? Like you just said, you can leave it all on the floor on a lower body day. I have to trick myself into it every single time. And that’s, that’s why there is no answer to that question. Yeah, like what is the best split? And you know, I hate giving the answer. It depends. Like I am so tired of giving that answer, but it doesn’t make it not the answer.

Ben:

Yeah. I think also there’s value in being able to stick to a training split for a given period of time to see how well it works, how you respond to it. But also just the fact that if you’re constantly switching things up, new exercises, you’re not going to make the same degree of progress. And maybe that’s okay because everyone needs some like a different amount of variety.

Like a really hardcore bodybuilder maybe could follow the same training split for years. Sure. But most people need, need some degree of like every 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, whatever it is, they need to change the training split. So I’d say stick to something as long as you can stick to it and as long as it’s working. And then try something else.

Dani:

Yeah, oftentimes when I’m Going to change one of my clients programs because they’re like, they’re just kind of getting bored with it. Not because it’s not working, because they’re kind of bored with it. I will say go through your program right now and tell me what moves you still love. Tell me which ones you are sick to death of and tell me what you are stuck on.

Like what are you plateaued on? And they give me that list. And if it ain’t broke and it’s still working and they are not hating it, we’re gonna keep doing. Maybe we’ll change the set and rep scheme a little bit or, or where it is in the workout at an.

Ben:

Intensity technique, something like that.

Dani:

Yeah. And then, you know, we’ll. We’ll change the other stuff. But I think that’s a good way to look at it. But it was actually Lane Norton, that was my coach when I got that split that I absolutely love. Talk about that experience.

Ben:

But that’s a different episode. Yeah, coaching.

Dani:

Yeah. And I ran it for like six months and he was like, it’s about time for us to change this up. And I was like, can I not. And he was like, yeah, awesome. Like if you. And I ran it for a year and I still. I mean, I have it. There’s lots of stuff I’ve changed about it over the years, like certain tweaks to certain exercises. But like that, that particular program for me, for my body. So tried and true. And I’ve used it as a skeleton for some clients that have similar physique goals to me.

Ben:

I have a couple of figure competitors and I have them run a very similar split where it’ll be like maybe like a posterior day that might be like hamstrings, back rear delts, maybe some side delts on there. And they might run that three times a week. And then they might run some sort of pusher or anterior day where it’s like pushing exercises and quads or.

Yeah. Splitting it lower body and upper body and kind of segmenting it off in some way. Because I think for a figure like delts and lats are just two things you can never get enough of.

Dani:

I love it so much. Yeah. And.

Ben:

Okay.

Dani:

And the last thing you wanted to talk about was protein. Oh boy. Geez Louise. I can barely even remember. So I’m very, I feel very lucky that very early on, Even as a vegan, 2006 maybe, I understood the importance of protein and I made an effort to get my body weight in protein.

Ben:

Yeah, you were kind of unique in that. Way, right. Like a lot of people.

Dani:

Oh yeah, people hated me for it.

Ben:

Community were like, no. But you were like, I’m following the evidence based.

Dani:

Not even. Because it wasn’t even evidence based at the time. Because I don’t even. I mean, I know these people existed because I’ve heard they said like, oh, I was on bodybuilding.com forum, but I wasn’t. I was on veganbodybuilding.com forum. Probably equally as terrible in terms of science, but I was following. I was just reading fitness magazines like shitty crap like Muscle and Fitness, Hers, Oxygen magazine.

Like, I was like, okay, this is what these chicks are eating. They’re all, they all seem to be following the same pattern of getting, you know, X amount of protein, roughly. It’s like, I’m gonna do that. That was, that was literally. That was my whole thought process at the time. Yeah, Lots of mistakes in other areas and carbs and fats and meal timing and clean eating and all of that.

But I feel very lucky that I, I did a good job with the protein right out of the gate. In spite of a lot of hate from people about it. I don’t really think that my protein, my thoughts on protein have changed much. I think. I think I sometimes go a little bit lower sometimes with folks now than I used to. Like, I started with one pound of body weight, right? Like, like so many people do.

And then that changed to like 1 gram of roughly lean body weight. And the people that I will go lower with that because I think it’s like point seven two or something is the most recent research. I still use 0.8 as a bottom for myself and my clients, but the people that I generally do that with are people that are already eating like 30 grams of protein.

Ben:

I see exactly the same thing where I have a wider range in my head than what I came into. Like, I also was the same. Started at kind of that one gram per pound, maybe even a little bit higher. And over time I was like, well, I think if you’re at maintenance or a surplus, probably like 0.7 is fine. Like even a deficit. If you’re doing the resistance training, if you’re new to training, that’s really going to make a difference.

And I just found that, that the more I tried to push on, the people who are really having difficulty getting the protein in, I’m like, what is the minimum amount that we. Or like what is the maximum amount? I should say that we can feel like we can adhere to over time and then maybe just slowly push it Up.

Dani:

Yes.

Ben:

So if somebody says they really don’t like protein or they struggle with it, I’ll start them at that point. 7. I’ve had people say, I can’t even do that. So you take 10 or 20 grams off of that. Can you do that? Okay, you can do that. That’s great. Let’s stick there for a period of time. Maybe there comes a point where like. And then I’ve had people say, over time, okay, this feels, like, cool. Now I feel like I could add a little bit more. But then on the opposite end of the spectrum, I’ll have

people who are maybe like competitors who are like, I’ll do whatever it is. And so in a surplus, I’ve sometimes had competitors go a little bit higher on protein than 1 gram per pound because I feel like there’s not too much of a downside. There could be a potential benefit if somebody wants to kind of like, cross all those T’s and dot all those eyes, sure, I’ll give it to them. But most of the time, I think that is a good heuristic, is around that. That.

Dani:

Yeah, I mean, I’ve gone up to, I think in my last prep at the end, because I will go higher in a cut without. Every time I will go higher in a cut. I think my last prep, I ended my prep at 160 grams of protein, and I was like 125 pounds on stage.

Ben:

So I think sometimes if you just start your protein, your prep at a certain amount, you just keep it that same throughout prep because your body weight will drop.

Dani:

Right.

Ben:

So that ratio of.

Dani:

But in the off season, I’m like 130 or 140. So I actually did kind of walk it up. And there is some research to suggest that, you know, there’s certain demographics that do better with more protein than the standard recommendations, and vegans are one of them. So, you know, I kind of like, don’t want to lean too far into that because it sounds like, oh, veganism is deficient and you have to make up for it in some way. But, like, I mean, what’s the harm?

Like, what’s the harm in an extra 10 grams of protein or something to somebody? For some people, it’s just not doable. They struggle. They struggle to get it in. I. It’s funny, when I did eat meat and dairy products, I didn’t. I did not like meat at all. So it’s hilarious how much I enjoy all of the mock meat stuff that is out there now. But. Okay, so yours, you Basically also started.

Ben:

At about so very similar to you. Yeah.

Dani:

But I mean, Giacomo was very different. Giacomo. Giacomo was sometimes ate 3 grams of protein per pound of body weight from Spirulina. It was awful.

Ben:

I can only imagine the, the smells living with it.

Dani:

It was really terrible. But again, there was no. Other than the smell of our house. There was no negative effects of that. Like, I feel like erring on the side of a little bit too much protein is less detrimental than erring on the side of not enough. When it comes to building muscle, maintaining muscle while you’re getting leaner, the biggest

downside to having maybe too much protein is that it can potentially take away from carbohydrates or fats that might be better utilized in that phase, but not. Not a huge deal.

Ben:

Yeah. Especially if you’re in a surplus. Yeah.

Dani:

Oh, I feel like we could probably keep talking about this sort of stuff forever. Maybe we’ll. We’ll find more of these things. Cause I. I mean, bcaas I changed my opinion. Like there’s a lot of stuff I changed my opinion on over the years, but maybe we’ll save it for another episode. If you guys have questions of stuff that you wanna know if our opinions change or not, there’s probably a ton of vegan, like vegan specific stuff too.

Ben:

Thank you everyone for tuning in to another episode of Vegan Protein Muscles by Brussels Radio. If you want to get in contact with us to let us know what you’d like to see on the podcast in future content. If you’re interested in coaching or joining our Muscles by Brussels community, you can head over to veganproteins.com and check out all of our offerings. You can hit the contact button and one of our coaches will get back to you within 24 hours.

And you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all the social media at Vegan Proteins at Muscles by Brussels and myself at Ben A. Mitchell. And you can find the rest of our team over there too. So thank you for listening to another episode and we will catch you all in the next one. Thanks, everyone.

Dani:

Bye.