Q) Thanks for the response to the Instagram — I feel like you cut through all the crap out there!

[I ask people to email me whenever they DM me with a question. DMs aren't my thing. Hard to go into depth when necessary, and I think people miss out because of that.]

I’ve recently read that it’s not necessarily a good idea to go straight from a bulk into a cut and maintain for a bit, as this might help you hold onto muscle gain. Is there any truth in this?

I’ve always been disappointed with the amount of mass I’ve managed to hold onto at the end of a cut, even when it’s been gradual.

I'm currently heavier than I've ever been and am wondering whether to push it a bit more before cutting to try and hold on to more mass.

Thanks again,
Olly

A) Hi, Olly! Thank you for taking the time to email and for being subscribed for the last four years.

I much prefer to answer from my laptop via email. It puts me in the zone. DMs aren't my thing. I think people miss out on a lot of depth because of that, but hey… that's a topic for another day.

I'll get right to it:

No. You can go straight in.

Ah. This is the question behind your question.

First, a bit of theory on muscle maintenance, then I'll get straight to the crux of the issue (unrealistic expectations) before addressing the elephant in the room.

​
How To Maintain Muscle Mass When Cutting

To maintain muscle mass when cutting, we need three things:

1. ​Train appropriately hard.
2. ​Keep weight loss to a sensible rate (0.5-0.75% per week).
3. ​Consume enough protein.

The first two are by far the most important.

If you did these things, you likely didn't lose muscle, and the disappointment is simply due to the unrealistic expectations of how much of the weight you gained during your bulk was muscle.

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The Reason For Disappointment and Second-Guessing is Typically Due To Unrealistic Expectations

Outlier circumstances aside (which I'll come back to), more than half of the weight we gain when bulking is fat, and other non-tissue changes (water, gut content, and glycogen).

Let's say you gained 25 lbs over 10 months. That's an initial bump of 5 lbs of water, gut content, and glycogen you experience in the first 1-2 weeks after you finish dieting, then 20 lbs of fat and muscle at a rate of 2 lbs per month.

Outlier circumstances aside (returning from a training layoff after losing a lot of weight and muscle, a skinny noob new to training), on average, if 10 lbs of that is muscle, that'd be a job very well done. That's 1 lb of muscle per month, with the rest of the surplus there to help:

1. Ensure a sufficient calorie surplus, as well as
2. Make sure the rate of change is measurable, motivational, and manageable (because slower rates of weight gain are increasingly hard to detect above baseline weight fluctuations).

So, 10 lbs of weight gain out of 25 lbs is the best case if you consistently show up and put in the work. That's a HUGE amount of muscle that will permanently change your physique (next time you're in the supermarket, go to the meat aisle and look at how much meat that is).

The problem is that most people don't realize how little of the weight they gain when bulking will be muscle. They are excited and optimistic about the size gains. — We have all been there! It's called a "dream bulk."

When they cut, reality hits. It's depressing to see how much the scale is decreasing — they thought they would be "abs lean" by the time they got to [wishful-thinking-body-weight-number] — and start to believe they have done something wrong.

The issue is compounded by the fact that half of the size they gained in their legs, arms, chest, and back seems to be going away. They didn't factor in the fat gain there also.

At this point, they may be tempted to "change things up" out of fear that things aren't "working."

1. Sometimes, this is a sweeping change to their program, often jumping to an entirely new one. This sounds like a good idea, but they have just cut the balls off of their ability to make an apples-to-apples comparison (which leaves hints as to muscle retention). They are now training based on feelings rather than programming (adjusting the volume, intensity, and frequency) based on their data.
2. They may add cardio, thinking this is key to getting abs lean. But often this is indiscriminate addition, rather than a precision scalpel, speeding the weight loss beyond our "sensible rate."

Both things increase the likelihood of what they feared — muscle loss.

​
The Elephant in the Room — Were You in the Right Position To Bulk Successfully in the First Place?

The reality is that for most people, the battle is lost before they start: They didn't get lean enough before they started bulking.

This happens because:

1. They didn't know how slow muscle gain would be and how little of the weight gain in total would be muscle,
2. So the time from the start of the bulk to the point I call, "Fuck, I'm now too fat and need to cut," is too short.
3. This means they don't gain enough muscle to make a meaningful difference to their physique to feel that the bulk-cut cycle was worth it by the time they have cut down again.

Many people quit at this point, or they remain in Physique Purgatory: Never bulking for long enough to gain enough muscle because they feel too fat. They never cut for long enough because they feel too skinny.

I've talked about this before. The solution is to embrace discomfort at one end or the other, to break free.

If you're following the guides on the site, you're likely doing everything right. You've been subscribed to the email list for four years (thank you!), so that's likely the case. The only issue may be misaligned expectations and not bulking for long enough.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading. 🙏