Winter Bulk Building

 Matthew Sloan's Program for Packing on Winter Bulk

A few months ago - it was the week of Thanksgiving - my oldest son Matthew (who used to post here on and off several years back) decided he wanted to go on a "winter bulk" and find out just how much muscle he could pack on over the course of a few months.  Prior to the bulk, he had been training in a sort of haphazard fashion, and wasn't "out of shape" but wasn't exactly svelte, either.  He started his bulk-building regimen weighing between 205 and 210, depending on daily weight fluctuation.  His goal for his winter bulk and power program was to reach a weight of 250.

This past week, he weighed over 250 - 251 to be precise - when he weighed himself first thing upon waking, sans clothes.

Here are some pics of what he looked like before his bulk (these were taken a few years ago, but he wasn't too much heavier than this when he began the bulking regimen - I hate I didn't take some legit "before" pics around Thanksgiving, but this still gives you a fairly accurate idea of his mass gains):

And here is Matthew this past weekend: 

these pics give you an idea, but don't do justice to just how massive my son has gotten

even though his legs are pasty white, they have gotten HUGE during his bulking regimen

and here he is walking down to our garage dungeon gym after doing a set of walking "hill" lunges

Matthew's Winter Bulking Plan Explained

Although there is no doubt that my son gained some fat in addition to muscle, you can tell that he also gained a LOT of muscle mass.  He put on more than 40 pounds of mass in around 90 days.  No drugs, either!  Just hard work on a good muscle-building routine and plenty of REAL food.  The only supplements he used were a creatine powder, protein powder when needed on days when he wasn't able to get in enough real meals, and the occasional use of a pre-workout.

First, his diet.  Matthew has always believed in tracking calories - total calories plus number of grams of macronutrients daily.  When getting lean, he was always very exact.  He could tell you the exact number of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and total calories consumed on a daily basis.  He kept a journal and would cut calories by 100-200 each week until he reached his desired weight and "look".  For bulk-building, he wasn't quite so precise.  He made sure that he kept up with number of calories consumed each day, and amount of protein.  He told me that he tried to get in a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight daily, but that there were days when he managed to only consume 180 to 200 grams of protein per day.  But he also said that he always got enough calories.  At the start of his regimen, he consumed about 3,000 calories daily, but he slowly increased it on a daily basis until he was getting approximately 5,000 calories per day minimum!

He believes that, when it comes to bulk-building, you need an almost equal amount of carbohydrates and fat.  He ate an inordinate amount of milk, eggs, red meat, and a variety of cheeses.  He also consumed a lot of pasta and breads for his carbs.  He ate some rice, but unlike his father, has never been a big fan of rice.  He also believes that beans are great for bulking, so he ate some beans and rice dishes whenever he did eat rice.

Now, as for the training...

I gave my son some ideas, and he came to me for advice if he wasn't sure about certain aspects of his training, but for the most part, the routine was entirely his creation.

Matthew enjoys (always has!) training a lot.  If he could get away with it, he would train two weeks straight before taking a day off (and he HAS done that in the past).  I tried to convince him to take an extra day of rest during the week, and sometimes he did, but, once again for the most part, he trained six days per week.  On occasion, as I recommended, he would only train five days per week.  I suppose there may have been one or two weeks when he trained just 4 days during a week, but I seriously doubt it.

During the entire bulking regimen, he performed a push, pull, legs split.  Day one was a push day, and he would alternate between some sort of bench pressing movement and some sort of overhead pressing movement as his "core" exercise for this day.  Day two was a pull day, and here he employed more variety.  He would pick a deadlift, a clean, a chinning movement, or a rowing movement as his core exercise for this day.  Day three was leg day, and he learned well from his old man!  His primary exercise was almost always squats!

If he trained 6 days per week - as he most frequently did - then it meant he did his "push" day on Monday and Thursday, "pull" day on Tuesday and Friday, and "leg" day on Wednesday and Saturday.  Sundays were typically his off day, although there were a few weeks here and there where he took another day off.  But his other off days were never planned.  He knows his body pretty well after years of training, and so he took off whenever he felt inordinately tired, or whenever a muscle felt a little "off" (in his words)and he wanted to make sure that he didn't pull anything.

Matthew used just enough variety to keep from getting bored (or injured) but he primarily stuck to the same style of training at each and every session.  Here is where you can see that he has been influenced by the likes of me, Anthony Ditillo, Doug Hepburn, and Reg Park.

At the start of his program, he primarily did a 10 sets of 10 or 8 sets of 8 program for each major bodypart, followed by a few sets of assistance work.  For instance, on his push day, he would do 10 sets of 10 reps on bench presses, followed by a couple of sets of flies or dips, and then a set or two of lateral raises for his shoulders, and another set or two of skullcrushers or very close-grip bench presses for his triceps.

As the program progressed, I encouraged him to switch over to some heavier training, which he did.  And he loved the way it made him feel and look.  So for the last 4 to 6 weeks, he did 7-8 sets of 5-3 reps on his major bodypart, followed by assistance work the same as before.  A typical leg day, for example, would start with squats, working up over 5 sets of 5 reps until he reached a "heavy" 5-rep set.  At this point, he would either continue to add weight and do triples until he reached 8 sets, or he would perform 3 or 4 more "straight" sets of 5 reps with the same weight.

Making it Work for YOU

If you want to gain a lot of bulk and power the way my son did, then here are some tips you can take from his training and eating regimen:

1. Eat big to get big.

2. Consume plenty of milk, eggs, cheese, beef, chicken, pasta, and breads to pack on the muscle.

3. Don't be scared of carbohydrates.  No one ever got massive eating keto.

4. If you are really serious about bulking, then consume 20 times your bodyweight in calories daily.  This is exactly what Matthew did.

5. Train frequently.

6. Train heavy with enough volume, but not too much so that you can train the bodypart again in another 3 days.

7. During the course of the week, make sure you are squatting heavy, pulling heavy, and pressing stuff overhead heavy.

8. Don't JUST bench press for your push day.  Matthew made sure that he did plenty of overhead work, too.

Conclusion

I hope you've found my son's bulk-building odyssey interesting, and also found some valuable training information, too.  If there is enough interest, I will go into more detail into one of his training sessions to give you an even better idea of a day of training.

Bottom line, I suppose: eat big and lift big to get big.