HOW TO BULK UP FAST

FOUNDATIONS OF PERFORMANCE BIOCHEMISTRY 

At its core, the science of supplementation is applied biochemistry and pharmacology intertwined with exercise science.

Crazy Muscle is aware that people seeking to better themselves are bombarded with ads that try to reduce elegant science down to talking points that fit neatly into a banner ad or magazine page. Some of these talking points are honest and useful, some are dubious, and others are outright deceptive.

Without specific academic training, telling the difference can be overwhelming for even the above average consumer.

We’d like to provide our customers with an in-depth look into the most important aspects of performance biochemistry to help you get the most out of your supplementation budget. Our hope is to help you understand how your body grows and performs to help you maximize your results.

STEP-BY-STEP OVERVIEW OF HOW TO BULK UP FAST AND BUILD MUSCLE MASS

You'll learn about good bulking foods and exercises for bulking up muscle, the basics of bulking up properly, a sample bulk up diet plan so you know what to eat to bulk up, and some of the most common questions we get about how to get big muscles and build muscle mass fast. Before we dive in, let’s quickly define lean muscle vs bulky muscle. The primary difference is the presence/absence of body fat.

AN OVERVIEW OF HOW TO BULK UP QUICKLY

1. Pick the best bulking program (for you) – Make sure you base this on your NEEDS and your SITUATION. Do your research and really think about what your limitations and constraints are. If you work 2 jobs and are supporting a family of 4, time is your primary constraint. If you are struggling to make ends meet, money is your primary constraint. Once you know what you have to work with, figuring out what you actually can do sets you up for the best chance at succeeding with your muscle-building goals.
2. Be realistic with your goals – We can’t stress enough how important, yet over-looked this factor is. In a world where professional athletes and movie stars like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jay Cutler, Rich Froning and of course Arnold Schwarzenegger are the only types of people on magazine covers and Hollywood movies…it’s quite understandable that a lot of people have un-realistic goals. These guys have less constraints that you likely have and are able to put more time and effort in the gym.
3. What to eat when bulking up – Michael Phelps is a retired Olympic swimmer for the United States who set a global record of most gold medals won. 23 of them on my count. During his training season, Phelps was consuming a mind-blowing 12,000 calories [1]. That’s 6 times more than the average American should be eating on a daily basis. But when your training requires 30 hours of intense training every week, it makes a lot of sense. One other thing to note is that knowing what to eat when bulking can replenish glycogen levels in your muscle tissue, which get depleted after intense workouts. This is why planning is so crucial to know how much you need to eat, exercise, rest and drink.
4. Run the numbers – If you have no idea how to do this, hire someone to do it for you. Anybody who has figured out how to win the fitness game will tell you that it’s all about the numbers. A caloric surplus, reps, sets, weights…all of these factors play a very important role in building muscle mass. If you can figure out how to get all of these numbers working for you instead of against you, the muscle growth will take care of itself.
5. Push your limit and REST – If you want to achieve something you’ve never had, you need to work harder than you ever have. Part of this could be how hard you push yourself in the gym, how much you allow your body to rest/recover or both. The key to bulking up and build muscle size is your ability to lift heavier and heavier weights. Easiest way of achieving this is to keep track of what you did this week and then improve next week.
6. Track your results – You need to be tracking your calories, weights, sets, reps, rest days, hydration, body weight, BMI, body fat % and of course muscle size measurements. Almost forgot, keeping weekly progress photos does an incredible job of visually seeing that your hard work is paying off.

FIVE COMMON REASONS WHY BULKING UP DIETS FAIL

1. There’s no plan of attack or strategy. Bulking up the right way is not an easy thing to do, so having a mapped out plan of attack is essential to building bulk muscles and not getting discouraged when it doesn’t happen as quickly as you’d like.  If you have a window of 30 days to hit your bulking goals, we would strongly recommend you re-evaluate your goals because in a 30 day window, you'll certainly make progress, but you'll need closer to a 60 - 90 day window to see significant results.
2. Most people don't have a bulking meal plan and hence do not have enough of a caloric surplus when bulking up. This of course leads to failure while trying to build muscle mass.
3. On the flip side, some people figure "I'll increase a ton of body weight gain now and turn it into muscle later" and force a caloric surplus.  As a result, excessive bad weight is put on because they weren't sure what role foods played in how to bulk up faster.
4. The accepted belief is that since you are bulking up, you should have more cheat days than normal because you want the extra calories. More information on what foods to eat to bulk up can be found on our blog. Food choice is critical and making sure you have a good grasp on your calorie intake will be a game changer.
5. Most of us don't have the luxury of going out and hiring a nutritionist to come up with extravagantly planned bulking meals, snack plans, and how to change it up every week. The key is to change it up consistently so that you don't grow sick of the same foods for bulking up and ultimately crave a greasy burger every day.

1. KNOW YOUR BODY TYPE AND COMPOSITION

   Your body type plays a crucial role in your ability to pack on mass. Here's a brief primer on the various body types [8]:

   Ectomorph - Skinny, rectangular body

   • Body type: Lanky, slender, thin
   • Muscle gain: Difficult (thanks a lot, high metabolism!)
   • Weight loss: Why on earth would you want to?
   • Success tip: Avoid cardio when trying to bulk up

   Mesomorph - Upside-down triangle body

   • Body type: Athletic, heavily-muscled
   • Muscle gain: Very easy
   • Weight loss: Very easy
   • Success tip: Don't get cocky, stay on top of your diet & exercise

   Endomorph - Square-shaped body

   • Body type: Typically soft, flabby
   • Muscle gain: Moderately easy
   • Weight loss: Difficult (darn you overly-developed digestive system!)
   • Success tip: Watch your calories and avoid refined sugar at all costs

   

   Whether you're a true mesomorph and easily build muscle or an ectomorph who has to fight for every muscle fiber gained, let's talk about androgens and hormone balance as this applies to everybody.

   Androgens are the hormones that make your body physically male or female.

   They include androstenedione, testosterone, dihydrotestosterone (abbreviated as DHT,) and synthetic derivatives for medical use.  The systems that produce and  regulate your hormone levels are an elegant array of checks and balances called a ‘feedback loop,’ an array that Crazy Muscle will teach you to hack so you can get your serum testosterone into the high end of normal.

   Androgens, including testosterone, causes your body to change in ways that distinguish a male.  They are also powerful confidence building psychological agents.

   Androgens have a grab bag of biological effects, signaling nearly every cell, tissue and organ in your body.  They are surprisingly powerful psychoactive substances as well, increasing your confidence, perception, libido, and aggression.  It will fortify both your muscles and bone density, increase the thickness of your blood so it carries more oxygen, and rejuvenate your skin. 

   This doesn’t mean it’s a universal remedy, however.  Androgens also result in hair loss on the crown of the head, hair gain everywhere else, increase the likelihood for violence and unnecessary risky behavior, and of course acne.  This is why we speak of hormones in terms of balance rather than blindly regulating them upwards.

   Understanding the effects of androgens, not just as a muscle building substance but rather as a progenitor of more masculine traits can help you determine both your general testosterone levels as well as your testosterone levels in the moment.  Long term exposure to testosterone causes changes in the skeleton.  Take a look at the structure of your face.  Do you have a large brow and jaw?  Is the bridge of your nose broad?

   A quick note about circadian rhythms. Your testosterone is highest early morning [9] and is monitored by a sophisticated yet hackable feedback loop.

   Testosterone levels cycle every 24 hours with peak production occurring during late night sleep.  We’re going to go over testosterone production step by step to help you understand ways to hack your testosterone production which we will go over in detail in subsequent papers.

   The process is a feedback loop, meaning that a detectable uptick in hormone levels signals the system to stop testosterone production.  It is called the HPG axis, with HPG standing for “hypothalamus pituitary gonad” Here’s how it works:

   1. The hypothalamus, the master gland for your body that resides in your brain, releases a small amount of a chemical called ‘Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone’ or GnRH.  It’s target is the pituitary gland, which sits just millimeters away in your brain. 
   2. When the pituitary detects the GnRH, it begins mass producing chemicals called ‘gonadotropins.’  Both GnRH and gonadotropins are very large molecules that aren’t easily susceptible to manipulation, and you should be skeptical of supplements which claim to directly up regulate these.
   3. When gonadotropins reach the their target organs, specifically the testicles, they begin producing an enzyme called ’17-betahydroxysteroid dehydrogenase.’  This enzyme takes DHEA and converts it into testosterone.  The testosterone courses through your bloodstream and starts activating the cells it comes into contact with.
   4. A small fraction of your testosterone, roughly 0.3%, comes into contact with a second enzyme, aromatase.  Aromatase produces estrogen by chemically altering testosterone.  It is rising estrogen levels that are noticed by your hypothalamus, which in response stops releasing GnRH and effectively shuts down testosterone production in your body.  Partially blocking the action of aromatase forces your body to drive testosterone measurably higher to get to the estrogen levels needed to stop testosterone production.

    Understanding the HPG axis allows you to manipulate to do what you want by way of raising your testosterone.  It also helps you avoiding pitfalls that interrupt this process.

   Sleep, exercise, and solid nourishment are factors that alter your testosterone levels, thus are critical to maximize your testosterone naturally. 

   Of course, there are ways to naturally raise your testosterone and improvements you can make to your daily habits that will nudge your hormone levels higher without any supplementation at all.  The first and best thing you can do is get more an better sleep.  As we’ll see in the next section, testosterone is released while you’re sleeping.  Testosterone levels are at their peak between 3-5 AM, which is immediately recognizable as high libido as you wake up. 

   Exercise, specifically lifting heavy weights, is another way to raise testosterone.  Your body releases testosterone as a response to oxidative damage in the muscles, which not only results in hypertrophy, but also repairs micro tears in your connective tissue and broadens your joints, allowing them to bear more weight. 

   There are also factors that diminish your testosterone levels.

   Generally speaking, these can be called “stress.”  For example, recent graduates of the US Army Special Forces Assessment and Selection course or the Navy SEALs BUDS program have testosterone levels consistent with castrated hospital patients.  This is due to simultaneous sleep deprivation, malnourishment, and a regimen of deliberate overtraining.

   Remember that testosterone production entirely depends on you being asleep. 

   Beside stress and sleep deprivation, you need to be particularly aware of phytoestrogens.

   Phytoestrogens are plant-based chemicals which are very similar to circulating estrogen.

   The brain detects and categorizes these as the output of testosterone production and shuts down the HPG axis early in response.  Phytoestrogens are most commonly found in soy-based products, and your body is incredibly sensitive to it with microgram level doses able to significantly reduce testosterone levels.