Can You Bulk and Cut in the Same Week? As a method for dieting you can bulk and cut during the same week consuming higher calories on a training day and then lower calories on a rest day keeping your weekly calorie intake at maintenance levels. This isn’t a recommended or optimal strategy for building muscle though.
When dedicating to a bulk you need to be of the mindset that you will gain some excess body fat in the process. I’m all for minimizing this excess fat gain and I’m a keen believer in taking a lean bulk approach to dieting as demonstrated by my numerous articles on the subject:
Lean bulk vs bulk and cut
Lean bulk without counting calories
Muscle growth is a slow process, the rate of growth is around 1lb/0.5kg – 2lb/1kg per month of muscle growth in untrained individuals. The more experienced you are in the gym the slower this rate of growth is and the longer a bulking phase will be needed to support new tissue growth.
Fat gain on the other hand is a quick process, it’s easy to gain 2-3 times the amount of fat than muscle if you have too large of a calorie surplus. It’s here that people try to minimize fat gain and why you see people trying to bulk and cut in the same week.
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Can You Bulk and Cut in the Same Week
For optimal, or any sort of progress in terms of physique development you can’t bulk and cut in the same week. You can manipulate calories on certain days however to promote muscle growth your weekly calorie intake will need to be a surplus.
If your calorie intake for the week is a surplus then you are on a bulk. You can try to get over complicated however if you are a regular gym goer then you can’t beat or trick the laws of thermodynamics unfortunately.
I find this a bit of a sensitive subject because people are always looking for shortcuts or loopholes around tried and tested methods, there’s no doubt that there is always room for improvement and you can find better techniques or methods but you can’t take an indecisive route to get there.
For optimal results for a goal you need to take a laser focused and dedicated approach to getting there, if your overall goal is to build muscle then you need to be in a bulk for an extended period of time and that is not a 1 month period.
A dedicated bulking phase can be 6+ months and even last up to a year or longer with a very small cutting phase cycled in for the purpose of giving your metabolism a break.
To really see results you will need to be dedicated to the process, if you approach it with a marginal attitude then you will get a marginal result and trying to bulk and cut in the same week is a prime example of that.
To put it into a more visually relatable term it’s like trying to train for a 100m and half marathon in the same week, if you chase two goals so far apart from each other then you are going to achieve neither.
Can You Bulk One Week and Cut the Next?
For those trying to bulk and cut in the same week you might be wondering whether you can bulk one week and cut the next.
These two approaches are pretty much the same and this style of dieting is what is better known as maintaining.
To maintain a physique you need to train in order to stimulate the muscles and keep protein synthesis active (hormonal process of muscle growth) whilst also keeping your calorie intake at a maintenance level to avoid excess fat gain.
Your maintenance calorie requirements are how many calories you need to consume on a daily/weekly basis in order to maintain weight, it factors in activity level and basic requirements for bodily functions. If you want to see what your maintenance calorie requirements are then you can do so here:
Therefore by cutting one week and being in a calorie deficit and bulking the following week in a calorie surplus means you will be in physique maintenance mode overall.
Bulking and cutting within the same period is therefore not a possibility, if energy balance at the end is neutral then you are simply maintaining your physique.
Weight training will of course stimulate muscle growth however the process will be much slower without surplus calories to fully support it and therefore muscle growth could take years as opposed to the weeks and months it would take on a bulk.
How Long Should You Bulk Before Cutting
I mentioned earlier but a dedicated bulking cycle with the primary goal of muscle growth is a process that can take between 6-12 months or longer in order to build a physique.
If you are an average gym goer then this would be a long term commitment over multiple years in which you’ll spend ¾ of your time in a bulk and only ¼ in a cut in order to give your metabolism and CNS a break.
The only people who should be going through a bulking and cutting phase on a regular basis are those that are taking performance enhancing drugs which will accelerate the process for each or someone competing in bodybuilding.
It’s ok to also cut down for a special occasion or holiday but if your long term goal is muscle growth then you need to be prepared to be in a bulking phase for the vast majority of your time.
With this in mind there are a few indicators that will let you know if you’ve been in a bulk for too long a period of time, the first of which is excessive fat gain. A good body fat percentage range to be in on a bulk is typically 11% – 13%.
This is a good level whereby your body will run optimally for muscle growth whilst not carrying too much body fat in the process, once you approach or surpass 15% body fat however then this is when your gains will start to diminish.
A higher body fat percentage means that you are more likely to store surplus calories in the form of body fat than you are muscle tissue and this is because as you adjust your calories upward over time the rate of muscle growth will not be directly proportional.
Therefore have 15% as your body fat cut off point before you need to cut and if done correctly this will take upto, and in excess of 12 months to get to this level, a genuine target should actually be 18 – 24 months.
The second indicator is when performance starts to diminish, you feel more fatigued and can’t recover fully from session to session. In this instance you should take a few weeks to deload from the gym and reduce your calorie intake.
This is not a cutting cycle but what is better known as a mini cut.
How to Use a Mini Cutting Cycle
A mini cutting cycle should be used sparingly and is exactly what the name suggests, a short period of time in which you consume a caloric deficit with the sole aim of burning a few pounds of body fat and kick starting your metabolism so to speak.
A mini cutting phase can be anywhere from 4 – 6 weeks long and is used to give your body a break from the constant surplus of calories whilst burning some excess body fat in the process.
A bulking phase is hard on the metabolism due to the high amount of calories you need to break down, digest and utilize. At low levels of body fat your utilize calories optimally and will partition them more toward the muscles than fat storage (this is also genetic dependent).
As calorie intake and ultimately body fat increases this process becomes less optimal, to the point where you will start to see diminishing returns in the gym and from muscle growth. The human body likes to work in waves of regulation with peaks and troughs so you can’t go all out on a bulk year round.
A mini cut therefore give you a break from the demands of a bulk and is a time when you can focus on shedding some body fat in the process.
Summary
So to answer the question of whether you can bulk and cut in the same week the answer is yes but it’s neither bulking or cutting but simply calorie maintenance.
You can fluctuate marginally above and below your maintenance each week which is what the majority of the population do, unless you are in a significant weekly surplus or deficit 300kcal – 500kcal however, then you are in a maintenance phase.
A maintenance phase is ok for physique maintenance if that is your goal but if you goal is to build muscle or burn body fat then you can’t bulk and cut in the same week.
What Next
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