5 days cut, 5 days bulk: effective?

**Witchblade** · 12-18-2007, 06:19 AM

I'm looking for information on the effectiveness of short cutting and bulking phases, say 5 days, compared to longer phases where you have a longer transitional period. I imagine you lose more weight, both muscle and fat, with the short phases, as you cut your calories down a lot very suddenly and bump them back up very fast too.

Articles, personal experiences etc. welcome. Jodi and Iain's opinion welcome in particular.

**tucker01** · 12-18-2007, 06:21 AM

What are you trying to achieve by doing this?

**Witchblade** · 12-18-2007, 07:15 AM

Cutting and bulking at the 'same' time. Or staying lean while putting on mass. I'm on a regular cut ATM though, slowly dropping calories. I've read some articles about short phases being more effective, but I'm a bit sceptical about it.

**tucker01** · 12-18-2007, 01:22 PM

I have never seen anything that short of a period. What would the defecit and surplus be like. I am skeptical on the progress made.

Personally I think 3-4 week periods work better.

**Witchblade** · 12-18-2007, 01:59 PM

I think in the article they said 500 above and 500 below maintenance, so that's a 1000 calorie jump.

What kind of transitional period would you use for a 4 week bulk 4 week cut program? One week maintenance, none?

**Nate K** · 12-18-2007, 02:24 PM

a few day maintenance

**juggernaut** · 12-18-2007, 02:44 PM

honestly, WB. I dont really see all the effort into getting some if at all minimal gains. This sounds like a M&F ragazine article. Can you show us the source? I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, it just sounds...bizarre?

**Witchblade** · 12-18-2007, 07:07 PM

It's not a single source, I've read about it multiple times. I don't have the articles at hand, hence the thread, but I know there was an article about it at ironmagazine.com (main site) and I believe someone mentioned it in an interview at T-Nation. The reasoning was something like: short phases eliminate the need for refeeds and other cycling methods, make it impossible for your body to rapidly adapt and stagnate and the vigorous changes in calories would somehow create a very responsive hormonal environment at every transition.

My counterarguments would be that your body actually needs time to adjust else you're burning too much muscle and putting on too much fat in the cutting and bulking phases respectively.

**P-funk** · 12-19-2007, 05:58 AM

i think you would have to do the phases for longer in order for adaptations to calorie changes to take place and illicit the gains that you want to see.

**juggernaut** · 12-19-2007, 06:03 AM

that's what i was thining

**DiGiTaL** · 12-19-2007, 11:00 PM

Wouldn't this be like maintaining weight?. You lose the weight, then gain it back.

**Jodi** · 12-24-2007, 03:40 PM

Originally Posted by P-funk

i think you would have to do the phases for longer in order for adaptations to calorie changes to take place and illicit the gains that you want to see.

Yeah I agree! I've done 2 week cuts though, maintenance or bulk for 2 weeks then back to 2 week cuts but I think 5 days is way too few days to adapt.

**XFatMan** · 12-25-2007, 01:48 AM

Originally Posted by Jodi

Yeah I agree! I've done 2 week cuts though, maintenance or bulk for 2 weeks then back to 2 week cuts but I think 5 days is way too few days to adapt.

And what's your experience / opinion, does it work? Would be cool to try, I guess.

**juggernaut** · 12-31-2007, 12:54 PM

hey jodi, that was a great game against the Giants the other day.

**cider303** · 01-01-2008, 09:56 PM

i think you are better off stretching it to the 2 weeks like jodi said. i personnally respond better to 3 weeks of a certain stimulus so i would even suggest 3/3/3

**first4muscle** · 01-02-2008, 07:00 AM

Hi mate

i personally have never heard of anyone cutting or bulking for such short periods of time and imo would doubt its effectiveness. Im sure there would also be some health concerns also as not allowing the body to adapt to one program over a lengthier period of time

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