Winter Warfare: How to Bulk Up This Season

How to Train Both Hard & Heavy for Anabolic Success

When it comes to lifting heavy or lifting hard, neither is best. Merging both heavy and hard lifting is best for providing a better stimulus for growth. When considering these two concepts, try the following format:

• Heavy Compound Movement: 2-3 sets (primary focus is “strength”)
• Heavy Compound Variation: 3-5 sets (primary focus is “exhaustion”)
• Isolation Exercise: 3 sets
• Isolation Exercise: 3 sets
• Isolation Exercise: 3 sets

Starting with a heavy compound exercise recruits multiple muscle groups for a better level of exhaustion. The first compound lift should be with a focus on raw strength, then the second compound movement should be done with more volume to exhaust the anatomy. Then, isolating the muscle groups you want to grow the most afterward will help you target the exact area of the body you want to be the focus of your training session.

Benefits of a Winter Bulk

The benefits of a winter bulk are increasing your resting metabolic rate, improving strength, and providing hormone regulation for more normalcy within the holiday season. You learned earlier that the winter weather causes individuals to naturally gain weight.

Why not leverage this weight gain into something that can be beneficial? Why not use these additional holiday calories to add mass instead? Doing a bulking phase during the colder season makes a lot of sense.

Increased Metabolic Rate

One study found that increases in muscle mass contribute to an increase in resting metabolic rate. With a higher resting metabolism, you can expend more calories at rest. This could be helpful for those who are fearful of unhealthy weight gain during the winter season.

Improved Strength

One of my favorite quotes comes from a previous coach of mine. He told me “mass moves mass”, meaning that the more muscle you pack on, the more likely your strength increases. There could be some exceptions to this. However, I like my odds to bench press more if my body weight goes up. Who wouldn’t want a better bench!

Hormone Regulation

One study found that winter weight gain causes testosterone levels to decrease and estrogen levels to increase. Resistance training helps stabilize your hormones. This is a huge benefit for not just athletes, but anyone! Everyone should embrace their fitness this holiday season, especially resistance training.

Top Tips for a Winter Bulk

When working on your winter bulk, keep these top tips in mind!

Prioritize Compound Movements

Putting an emphasis on compound movements is crucial for a successful winter bulk. Compound movements are also termed “multi-joint” movements, meaning there are two or more joints being used. You are probably familiar with the main compound movements of the squat, bench, deadlift and overhead press. These tend to be popular movements in many programs, and rightfully so.

Compound movements provide an overloading stimulus — the more joints used, the more muscles used. The more muscle we can recruit, the more exhausting your effort becomes. Providing an exhaustive stimulus to the working muscle is the catalyst for growth. This is why compound movements need to take priority, especially at the beginning of your winter bulk workouts.

Embrace Carbohydrates (Within Reason)

Carbohydrates are the number one source of fuel for high intensity resistance training. Interestingly enough, carbohydrates tend to be the most accessible macronutrient in the holiday season. Take advantage of those holiday treats!

This study showed that restrictions of carbohydrates could cause a reduction in performance. Make sure you’re hitting your macronutrient goals, and perhaps exceeding them. Try not to go too far over for multiple days in a row. Work with a nutrition coach to get accurate macro numbers.

Lift More Often

During a winter bulk, you should aim to lift at least 3-5 times a week. I understand that is a big range of days, but those 3-5 days of lifting could be approached differently.

• If you are a busy person who can’t go to the gym often, perhaps you go 3 days a week but those sessions last longer.
• If you are someone who can go to the gym most days, perhaps you go 4-5 days a week but for shorter sessions.

Either way, you need to prioritize your strength training. Watch out for too much high intensity cardiovascular training, that could put you in a caloric deficit that would impact your bulking phase.

For those who want to continue cardiovascular training during a bulk, I would recommend low intensity cardiovascular training that is within 60-65% of their max heart rate.

How do you find your max HR? Generally:

• 220 – Age = Max Heart Rate

So this means if you are 30 years old, your max heart rate is 190 beats per minute, and 60-65% of this heart rate is 114-123 beats per minute. Anything higher than this would put your workout at an intensity that expends precious calories you could use for adding mass. This long, low intensity training prioritizes fat as a source of fuel. We want to spare all those extra carbohydrates for your heavy resistance training.

Hit Failure More Often

You need to hit failure in training to promote growth. Failure doesn’t need to happen in all aspects of your training, though. For compound movements, you want to work towards max effort by the third to fourth week of training. With your isolation movements, this is where you can hit failure more often and try to exhaust your muscle groups.

No one wants to be a failure this holiday season! However, being a failure in your workout is ideal. Fail in reps this holiday season, stud. But don’t fail and buy your spouse the wrong gift. Been there, done that!

Prioritize Rest

Rest is one of the most crucial parts to any training program. If you do not rest, you do not allow the body to repair itself from all the physical torment you put yourself through. During the holiday season, resting should be easier than ever. As noted in this study, due to the limited amount of sunlight, you’re more likely to rest more during the winter season.

This is the perfect condition, yet again, to embrace a bulk during the winter season.

A Sample Winter Bulking Plan

The following is a 4-day split to use this winter season to make gains and have a successful bulk! These workouts follow the guidelines discussed earlier with merging compound movements, isolation movements, and other characteristics of a successful bulking workout. Don’t forget to eat!

Day 1

For this leg workout, we are prioritizing the glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps to build some massive lower body muscles.

Day 2

This upper body workout focuses on the pecs, triceps, and front shoulders for sculpting a thicker upper body. Nothing is more intense than big bodacious pecs that spark conversation at the dinner table!

Day 3

This pull day will challenge your back, rear shoulders and glutes as well. We use the farmer walks to amplify the intensity of this workout to prepare you for all the bags you’ll carry with your winter shopping!

Day 4

This secondary press day will challenge your shoulders and biceps, giving you an armor of  muscle to protect you from the shoulder-to-shoulder traffic you’ll experience while shopping.