Bulking / Fitness while in a strong IB group?

Hello, I'll make this quick and would appreciate advice from some fitness experts, especially at the Associate level or higher:

My situation:

- AN2 leaving my lifestyle bank and lifestyle group because it's falling apart. Hours max 60 hours a week

- Trying to bulk up (will provide stats later)

- New bank is in a strong group, although not the strongest, so hours can be tough

- I'm now working out 4 times a week, each session ~45-50min

- At new IB shop might have to switch to a new split doing 3 days a week on Fri, Sat, and Sun

My stats:

- 5'11, 155lbs, 11% body fat with abs

- No girlfriend or wife, so time commitment to the gym should not be an issue

- Not too many temptations to go on benders every weekend

- Naturally wake up after 6.5 hours of sleep, maybe 7-7.5 on weekends

My question:

- Is it possible to go on a lean bulk of 250cal surplus in a semi sweaty group? Proxy hours would be DB REGAL or Barclays Industrials. Not as sweaty as GS TMT, GS FIG, JPM HC, JPM M&C, or JPM M&A

Thanks!

18 Comments
 

Definitely possible, but with your stats 250 cal is too small of a surplus. Watch a couple lean bulking guides on yt from people like Natural Hypertrophy, GVS, and Alpha Destiny and you’ll get a sense of how much/what to eat.

 
wannabemonkey008

Definitely possible, but with your stats 250 cal is too small of a surplus. Watch a couple lean bulking guides on yt from people like Natural Hypertrophy, GVS, and Alpha Destiny and you’ll get a sense of how much/what to eat.

Thanks - I watched and they recommend ~300-400 ish surplus as that's more reliable so I'll follow that. What are your hours and how do you manage to get in all of your work outs in in a week?

 

If you don’t mind spending ~$100 on the RP templates, it could take the guess work out of bulk. I used the diet template (can set your current weight and goal, they do all the macro calculations) and exercise programmer they have.

It makes it incredibly easy to just follow the macros needed to gain healthy weight as long as you’re disciplined. I gained ~15 pounds in about 3.5 months from running them in tandem. 

 

You don’t need to bulk brother, what you need is a mix of muscle mass training and cardio

 

Max 60hrs a week?

What is your end goal? You need to provide us with that to determine if your plan is sufficient. 
 

250c surplus ain’t it. You need min 500c above your Daily Energy Expenditure if you’re trying to bulk. 
 

if you’re really doing 60hrs a week then yes this won’t be an issue. Go before work and eat carbs prior to the workout (I have 60 carbs / 240 cals before I workout)

 

Complex carbohydrates are not dirty. He's bulking. If he's only 250 above his DEE and working out, he needs to be higher. He's 5'11 / 155 lbs so he likely has a high metabolism.

 
Most Helpful

Not what I mean by dirty. I mean the excess surplus. 250-350 above is all you need while working out to lean-bulk. It's in his benefit to try it out and adjust/add as needed based on results he sees but given good macros and intensity in training it should be enough. Anything more will add fat. At 5'11 155 he's just really lean but assuming he's not a total beginner, 500 cal surplus would add 1lb a week which is 4lbs a month. He's at most gonna convert 2lbs of that to muscle. No point in adding unnecessary fat he can just bulk slow and long, the physique results will be better and he won't have to cut as hard. If the strength gains lag he can add a little more cal which he'll have to do anyway as his TDEE rises. 

 

It all depends on how much sleep you need. If you can, try to add a Monday morning lift (assuming you guys get to bed on time on Sunday evening). That way you have Friday evening, sat, sun, Monday morning. If you can squeeze in a quick workout one other day during the work week, you’ll be at 5 days. That’s plenty if you lift hard. Will need to cut rest times down if needing to do faster workouts. Don’t waste time with isolation movements. Only have time for compound work. Do Abs in your apartment during the week between turning comments etc. if you can get adjustable dumbbells, you can do biceps then too. 

 

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