Extreme bulking trend: who started it and why it's a disaster

The extreme bulking trend: gaining fat just to lose it again is physiological nonsense

Three or four years ago, a practice took hold in certain fitness circles: deliberately gaining weight until exceeding 120 kilos, with a fat proportion that turns the body into a problem. The theory is that a massive caloric surplus maximizes muscle gain, but the reality is that, past a certain threshold, almost all the weight gained is fat. Then, to lose those 20 or 30 kilos of lard, extreme diets and sometimes non-prescribed drugs are used, leaving the body with loose skin and stretch marks.

Physiology against the myth of massive bulking

The body has a natural limit to protein synthesis: you cannot gain more than 0.25-0.5 kilos of muscle per week. Eating 4,000 or 5,000 calories a day only accelerates fat accumulation, infiltrated between muscle fibers. Those who defend extreme bulking argue that gaining fat volume protects the joints and allows lifting heavier weights, but the data show that performance plateaus when the excess weight is not functional.

The cost to health and wallet

Beyond aesthetics, the cycle is expensive and risky. The bulking phase requires exorbitant food spending; the cutting phase, supplements and, sometimes, drugs that can damage the liver or heart. Add to this the time: half a year to gain and another half to cut, with the result being a physique that, in many cases, does not improve on that of someone maintaining a balanced diet with small surpluses.

Who drove this trend?

On social media and bodybuilding forums, certain influencers promoted the "PermaBULK" as a shortcut to hypertrophy. The strategy of gaining weight at all costs attracted trinc who today face the consequences: deep stretch marks, sagging skin and a body that never regains its lost tone. The question remains open: was it a specific guru, a school of thought, or simply the desire for quick results that normalized this nonsense?