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Trying to Gain Muscle but Play a Lot of Sports.. HELP!

Trying to Start Bulking but Sports Make it Hard

JewPCabra
JewPCabra g Elliot Levy
1 Post(s)
1 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: August 8, 2018
Posted

Hi! I've been watching a bunch of the videos and have been going to the gym consistenly for the last 6 months. I was happily losing fat and gaining some muscle but I've hit the point where I want to start a bulk (preferrably a clean bulk). The problem I'm having is that I am very active outside of the gym, which is making the nutritional aspect very difficult for me. I know that in order to gain muscle I need to have a surplus of 250-500 calories in my diet. My resting BMR is about 2100 Kcal and most of the calculators online have indicated I should probably be eating around 36-3800 calories a day in order to be in surplus. That would be totally fine (though its quite a lot still)... but that doesn't generally include my sports! 

For example, there was a day last week where I worked out, played volleyball for 3 hours, and an hour of racquetball. The calculators online/fitbit were telling me I need to eat over 5000 calories that day! 

I'm wondering if this is a normal situation, is it possible to offset my heavy cardio (read: sport days) with more food on my non-sport days? Or should I just be eating like crazy? I'm also confused on how to get a good calculation of how many calories I should be eating to offset sports in general. 

Any help would be SUPER appreciated. Thanks so much for all the information!!

Scott_Herman
Scott_Herman a Scott Herman
7.1K Post(s)
7.1K Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Bodybuilding Date Joined: August 8, 2008
Posted
Posted By: JewPCabra

Hi! I've been watching a bunch of the videos and have been going to the gym consistenly for the last 6 months. I was happily losing fat and gaining some muscle but I've hit the point where I want to start a bulk (preferrably a clean bulk). The problem I'm having is that I am very active outside of the gym, which is making the nutritional aspect very difficult for me. I know that in order to gain muscle I need to have a surplus of 250-500 calories in my diet. My resting BMR is about 2100 Kcal and most of the calculators online have indicated I should probably be eating around 36-3800 calories a day in order to be in surplus. That would be totally fine (though its quite a lot still)... but that doesn't generally include my sports! 

For example, there was a day last week where I worked out, played volleyball for 3 hours, and an hour of racquetball. The calculators online/fitbit were telling me I need to eat over 5000 calories that day! 

I'm wondering if this is a normal situation, is it possible to offset my heavy cardio (read: sport days) with more food on my non-sport days? Or should I just be eating like crazy? I'm also confused on how to get a good calculation of how many calories I should be eating to offset sports in general. 

Any help would be SUPER appreciated. Thanks so much for all the information!!

@JewPCabra Wow 5000 calories definitely is a lot! But, if you are doing a lot of work, and burning a lot of calories, then you need to eat them back if you want to be in a surplus and gain muscle.

 

I would simply start at around the 3600-3800 calorie mark, and then go from there. If you start there and don't see any weight gain after 2 weeks, bump it up to more like 4000 calories. If there's still no weight gain, go to 4200 calories. And just continue like that.

 

Eating more on your off days would probably off-set your extra cardio a little bit too, so I would recommend that to help you stay in a surplus for sure.

 

Have you used the calculator on the @mealplan page here as well?

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