If you're 170 lbs and 10 % BF and gain 10 lbs of muscle your body fat % has essentially gone down without losing fat.

So since I know it's pretty hard if not impossible to lose body fat while on a surplus could you technically go down in body fat % while bulking OR stay around the same body fat % due to muscle increase and fat gain while bulking?

I'm not an expert but generally when you bulk you gain muscle mass and you will gain fat.

This post was edited by ArtofApocalypse on Apr 13 2016 08:38pm

You said "if not impossible to lose body fat while on a surplus" then "technically go down in body fat % while bulking (surplus)"

same thing?

Unless you are on gear you will most likely gain fat on a surplus... But yeah if you gain more muscle than fat your bf% will decrease as you gain weight.

Idk maybe on a clean bulk.. but i think thats just a myth.

Yeah, but if fat gain is minimal your body fat % won't go up much as you are also building muscle. Catch my drift?

Fat gain on a bulk is inevitable, but if you minimize fat gain could you theoretically look leaner at the end of your bulking period?

Yes but it would be super hard to keep bf% or lower it while bulking.


Approx of what I did
bw:138
bf: 10%
Fat mass: 13.8 lbs
Fat free mass: 124.2 lbs

After bulk (5.5 years)
bw: 188
bf 13%
Fat mass: 24.4 lbs
Fat free mass: 163.6 lbs

Hard to do a lot better naturally.

That's insanely impressive. Was there a few cutting periods in that or straight bulk and were you cutting calories entire time?

Once for my first meet where I cut 11-12 pounds in 8 weeks and the other was summer 2014 when I worked at the camp for 8 weeks training 1-2 times a week and eating less than I would have liked (lost 14-15 pounds but got shredded as fuck). Otherwise didn't miss more than 2 weeks of training TOTAL and eat maintenance or more.