​If you’re relatively new to the pursuit of a leaner and stronger physique, you may be asking yourself: “Should I cut or bulk?”
 
Indeed, it’s a question I get a lot during clients’ initial consultations.
 
To start, let’s get our terms straight. A “cut” is a fat loss phase, focused on body fat reduction. A “bulk” is a muscle-building phase, focused on an increase in muscle mass.
 
So, which one should you do first?
 
My answer to these newbie clients is: Neither.
 
If you’ve never done a properly structured bulk or cut, you may not have the skills to get the most from either just yet. Imagine if your primary school teacher asked you to write a novel before you learnt the alphabet. Would you have been able to do it?
 
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
 
All aspects of training and nutrition require knowledge and skill, so you need practice. 
 
That’s why, before you cut or bulk, you need the Kickstart Phase, an initial stage that I guide all of my newbie clients through in order to boost their future results.
 
In this article, I’ll take you through the answers to these questions:
 

• Who needs a Kickstart Phase?
• Why does it help?
• What results can you expect?
• How long does it last?
• How do you set it up?

 
Let’s kick things off with:

Useful Links: Part 1 | Part 2
​

In the third and final instalment of this multi-part series on bodyweight data and dieting, I’m going to tackle the following topic: How do you make adjustments to a muscle gain phase based on your bodyweight?

Before we dive into this subject, I want to point out that the most important component in a muscle gain phase is your training, not your diet.
 
Your diet can only help you gain muscle if you’re giving your body the necessary stimulus to grow muscle, a stimulus that only training can offer.
 
If you eat in a caloric surplus, but you don’t train, you can eat all the protein you want… but the only mass you’ll be putting on, sadly, will be fat.
 
So, before you read the rest of this article, make sure you have a solid training program, and that you’re consistent with it.

​To achieve any goal, you need to collect and analyse data.
 
Without it, you wouldn’t know
 

• If you’re making progress
• The rate at which you’re progressing
• What is working
• What is not working

 
In other words, without data, you can’t make the right adjustments to your plan.
 
You could still accomplish your goal, but you’d probably run into one of these two scenarios:
 

1. You can’t maintain the achieved results because you made excessively drastic decisions that you can’t sustain in the long term
2. You take an unnecessarily long time to reach your target because your decisions were too conservative

 
However, having data isn’t enough to secure effective and efficient results. Inconsistent and unreliable data, or data that you’re interpreting incorrectly, can be just as damaging as the absence of it.
 
For example, with fitness goals such as fat loss and muscle gain, a common mistake is to focus too much on day-to-day fluctuations on the scale, which are normal, and too little on your average weight increases or reductions over a longer period of time, which is what matters most for these fitness endeavours.
 
This multi-part article series will provide you with the knowledge to assess your bodyweight data in order to achieve fat loss or muscle gain.
 
In Part 1, we’ll delve into:
 

• Why you need to weigh yourself
• How to weigh yourself to get consistent and reliable data
• How to record and assess this data

 
In the rest of the series, we’ll cover how to adjust your diet and training protocol in response to changes in bodyweight.

​If you’ve been reading this blog since 2019 (hats off to you, OG Reader!), you might remember “Hardgainer, Now What?”, an article I published in January 2019.
 
Over two years later, I decided it was high time to revamp the original post, tackling the topic from a new perspective:
 
What are some key aspects of training and nutrition, which hardgainers typically struggle with, and which could have a dramatic impact on your physique?
 
First of all, a hardgainer is someone who thinks they struggle to build muscle or to put on any weight at all. They usually look like the typical “skinny kid” and believe they have “bad genetics” for muscle growth.
 
I view myself as a hardgainer and, at some point in my bodybuilding journey – and sometimes to this day – I’ve had all three of the issues I’m going to cover in this article.
 
What’s more, over these past years working as a coach, I noticed that many clients who wanted help building muscle, were facing similar hardships.
 
So I’m going to share:

• Three hardgainers’ common problems
• How to solve them

 
Ready for the brain gains?

One month on testosterone therapy versus three months

Useful Links: April 2020 Update | July 2019 Update | One Month Update | Three Months Update
​

​In this month’s update on my journey as a transgender bodybuilding trainee, I’m going to talk about my experience with medical transition from female to male and the effects this has had so far on my training, nutrition, and body composition.
 
At the time of writing, I have been medically transitioning for four months, from March 13th 2020, but I will primarily reflect on the first three months.
 
The aim of the article is to cover:
 

• What is medical transition?
• What does my medical transition look like?
• How has this affected me in relation to bodybuilding so far?
• How has my approach to training and nutrition changed, if at all?

 
The purpose of this piece is to share my experience in order to educate transgender and non-transgender individuals alike, and to provide anecdotes and observations on how medical transition can change training, nutrition, and body composition in a transgender person who trains to improve their physique.
 
As a final disclaimer, I want to point out that this is only my experience.
 
I am not a medical professional, so I am not going to offer any form of advice.
 
Anything I share in this article is personal, individualised to me, and meant to inform, not make recommendations.
 
Without further ado, let’s delve into the update.