Dirty Bulk vs. Clean Bulk: Which Gets You More Muscle?

Tuning your diet up is one of the best strategies to eliminate fat and build solid, clean muscle.

If you’re a thin guy or gal, you may be looking to add a bit of weight to your slender frame for a more filled-out or aesthetically pleasing physique.

You may be seeking out how to get thick thighs, how to get wider hips, or investigating tips for working towards a slim thick physique or shelf butt.

All of these changes to your body can certainly make you look and feel fantastic about yourself. These are all achievable goals that involve putting on some lean muscle.

But if you’re starting from scratch, what kind of bulking program gives you the most bang for your buck?

Let’s take a look at the differences between clean bulking and dirty bulking. We’ll see which is more effective and more sustainable for building the body you want. Plus, we’ll unpack some of the health and safety concerns associate with a dirty bulk vs. clean bulk.

What is Bulking and Cutting?

No matter what kind of bulking up you do, you’ll have to undergo a “cut” period if you want all the muscle you built to show through in the form of shredded abs and toned thighs.

Although bulking helps you put on size, a lot of the bulk consists of extra fat as well as muscle.

“Bulking” simply refers to gaining weight, while “cutting” refers to losing it. This terminology comes from the world of bodybuilding.

What is a Dirty Bulk?

Dirty bulking is one way you can gain muscle mass quickly. This technique mostly disregards any concern for gaining excess body fat. Basically, you eat what you want to get big, FAST.

But is there a downside to dirty bulking? While it can be effective for building size and strength, it's not necessarily the healthiest approach to putting on weight.

You may not look as good as you’re hoping to either. Because you’re putting on a lot of flab with the muscle and overall size gains, you may not look your best after a dirty bulk.

How to Dirty Bulk

More Calories

To put on weight, clean or dirty, you’ll need to eat more. Plain and simple. Dirty bulking involves consuming a major surplus of calories to stimulate your muscle growth.

You should try for an increase of around 500-1000 calories per day above your typical level. What you usually eat daily is called a “maintenance level.” In other words, that’s what you consume to maintain your weight. If you don’t find yourself regularly losing or gaining weight, you’re probably eating at maintenance.

A caloric surplus gives you the extra energy your body needs for high-intensity workouts. It can also help you with muscle repair when you take in more healthy proteins and amino acids.

Max Out Your Macros

Understanding macronutrients and how they work in your body can be a good tool for any type of bulking. What are macronutrients? This term refers to protein, fats and carbohydrates. We all need to eat some balance of these three things to properly function.

Other nutrients like the vitamins and minerals found in green vegetables, for instance are called micronutrients. These can influence hormone production and metabolism. Read all about micronutrients here: The Key Role of Micronutrients.

To really increase your muscles, you’ll need to focus on getting enough protein, carbs, and fats in your diet. Protein helps your muscles repair themselves and grow. To get the benefits of protein, aim for around 1 to 1.5 grams of protein for each pound of body weight.

Carbohydrates rev you up for high-energy workouts. They also help replenish a substance in your body called glycogen. Glycogen is the stored version of glucose (sugar). Although glycogen itself isn’t technically a carbohydrate, it’s derived from the carbs you eat.

Finally, healthy fats are the last key ingredient when it comes to balancing your macros. Although “fat” is often considered a dirty word in the fitness community, you need good fats in your diet. Healthy fats help to:

• Energize you
• Keep your cholesterol and blood pressure balanced
• Protect your organs
• Improve brain health.

Make sure you’re looking to good sources of fat like fatty fish (salmon, trout, etc.) and avocados to reap the benefits of dietary fat.

Eat Anything and Everything

When you dirty bulk, there's not much restriction on the quality of food you eat compared to clean bulk.

Although it's still important to select nutrient-dense foods, you can be less strict in what you’re eating for a dirty bulk. Calorie-laden foods like milkshakes, burgers, pizza and fries are common faves when it comes to dirty bulking.

Basically, these high-calorie meals can easily have you crushing your daily calorie goals without much effort.

Be forewarned though, dirty bulking can have dirty health consequences. Unlike the fatty foods associated with good heart health, consuming too much junk food has the opposite consequences.

Get Supplement Savvy

You don’t need them, but supplements can be useful to get more muscle growth and help you recover during a dirty bulk.

Protein powder can help you reach your daily protein goals more easily, while creatine monohydrate or micronized supplements can boost your strength and muscle mass gains.

For more information on protein powder and other supplements, check out these articles:

• Can Protein Powder Go Bad?
• How Is Protein Powder Made?
• Does Creatine Help With Weight Loss?

Make sure you’re factoring in any vitamin deficiencies that you might have too. Most humans don’t get enough vitamin D. Although we don’t often see symptoms, vitamin D deficiency can lead to fatigue, osteoporosis or thyroid issues.

It’s a good idea to look into vitamin deficiencies and supplement accordingly. This may make you feel less lethargic if you’re too lazy to work out.

Lift Heavy

Since you’re eating more calories, dirty bulking can be a good opportunity to push yourself when it comes to weightlifting workouts.

Although you’ll probably put on mass on a dirty bulk, the goal is usually to put on mostly muscle and not fat (although everyone is different!).

Get some heavy lifting in with squats, deadlifts and bench presses. These moves will work multiple muscle groups at the same time (compound lifts) and force your muscles to grow more readily.

Recover Properly

One of the most challenging parts of putting on muscle is getting proper rest. What, sleeping is hard? Yes!

If you’re a gym fiend, taking a step back and getting the rest you need to grow big muscles can feel emotionally or mentally difficult. Sometimes allowing yourself to rest can feel even tougher than your deadlift max!

Especially when you test your limits in the gym, you need to be resting. Because a bulk will hopefully make you bigger, you may find yourself able to put up heavier weights, and thus, in need of more rest.

The recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult is 7-9 hours of clean sleep nightly. This lets your muscles repair themselves and grow. Make sure you take rest days during your workout weeks too. This helps you prevent overtraining and your muscles get the time they need to fully recover.

Don’t Get Fat

Um, hey, do you notice that none of your gym clothes are fitting anymore? Dirty bulking obviously leads to some fat gain along with muscle growth. After all, you’re pretty much scarfing down pizza every day and hoping for the best.

That being said, always monitor your body composition and make sure to tweak your diet if the added fat looks or feels alarming to you. Although the goal is to increase your mass, you don’t want If you find yourself gaining too much fat, consider reducing your calorie surplus slightly or incorporating more cardio into your routine to help burn off excess calories.

Because of the fat gain, dirty bulking is not a good idea for most people, at least not in the long term. Although a cheat day here and there can be part of a healthy diet, routinely consuming large amounts of greasy or fatty foods can put you at risk of obesity and inflammation.

Get Ready to Cut

Always bulk with a cut in mind. You can’t sustain the dirty bulking phase forever. It can be taxing on your body and most of us eventually reach a point where we feel uncomfortable with the way we look due to too much fat during a dirty bulk.

Consider how you’ll switch up to either a leaner bulking phase to bulk more sustainably or how you want to cut once you’re done bulking overall.

If you want to lean out, make sure you’re getting in regular cardio to burn fat, and slightly less calories to lean out and let your sexy muscle definition radiate. You've worked hard to build it, so why not show it off?

What is a Clean Bulk?

So now we understand the pros and cons of a dirty bulk.

But what should you do if you hope to keep it clean? Clean bulking (aka a lean bulk) is a way to gain muscle mass while lessening the amount of body fat you put on in the process. Unlike dirty bulking, clean bulking requires you to eat nutrient-rich foods.

You also have to maintain a slight calorie surplus so you grow muscle without getting fat.

How to Clean Bulk

Know Your Maintenance Calories

Do you know how much you should be eating to stay at the same weight? To calculate your maintenance calorie intake (number of calories you need to maintain your weight), you can try an online calorie calculator.

Nutritionists or dieticians should also be able to give your a rought estimate of what you’d need to eat to maintain your weight. They take into account things like your current weight, age, activity level, health conditions, metabolic age, and more.

Add Calories Slowly

You should aim to add a few extra calories per day that you think you can keep up over time. For most people, 250-500 extra calories per day on top of your maintenance level is a solid benchmark.

This small surplus give you more energy to get in effective workouts and slowly put on weight. Adding slowly created less of a shock to your body too. Think about it. If you go from 0-100 (in this case, 1000 extra calories per day in a dirty bulk), your body will be confused.

“Yikes!” your system may be screaming at you. This break from a consistent habit will shock your body and can simply cause extra fat storage.

When you add gradually, your body has more time to process your intentions to gain weight, storing your extra calories as healthy muscle.

Nutrient Density

Food choice matters here. Whole foods that are nutrient-packed are the best way to get your essential nutrients in. Lean proteins, complex carbs, healthy fats, fruits, and vegetables should all be staples in your diet if you’re taking the clean bulk route.

Some good foods you can include in your diet are:

• Chicken or turkey breast
• Lean ground beef
• Fish, like salmon or tuna
• Eggs
• Tofu
• Quinoa
• Brown rice
• Sweet potatoes
• Oatmeal
• Leafy green vegetables
• Greek yogurt
• Nuts and seeds

Work around these staple foods and try to come up with simple meals that you like. Remember, just because you’re not pounding back smoothies and gobbling down pizza all day doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it.

Look up creative recipes to try with the whole foods that you enjoy eating and you’ll have your work cut out for you.

Up Your Protein Intake

Protein is essential to help you grow and repair your muscles, yet many people don’t get enough in their diets.

If you find you gains grinding to a halt, it could be a good idea to check in on your protein intake. Try to include at least one source of protein in every meal. Most adults need about 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. Good sources of protein for a clean bulking diet include things like chicken, eggs, fish and whey protein powder.

Drink Your Water

It’s not just about what you eat, but what you drink. Proper hydration supports your muscle function, nutrient intake and how well your body functions overall.

On top of this, sometimes what you mistake for a hunger cue can really be a thirst cue! Although it is important to eat when you’re hungry, many of us overeat due to mistaking our thirst for hunger.

This can cause you to eat too much and reach for the junk food. If you do this consistently, you’ll probably end up adding unwanted fat to your bulk.

Try to drink at least 8-10 glasses of water per day, if you get an average amount of exercise. If you’re in the gym a lot or tend to get more physical exercise, drink more. Fortunately, human thirst cues are pretty accurate, so if you think you need water, usually you do!

Hit the Weights

Resistance training is how you’re going to make good use of your improved diet to actually grow your muscles.

Try to develop a weight training program where you’re lifting heavy things at least 2-3 times a week. Focus on heavy compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, bench presses and rows. These should be the bulk (pun intended) of your workouts.

All these lifts recruit several muscle groups at once and stimulate strength and size gains. Feel free to add accessory and isolation movements too. These lighter lifts will help you prioritize strengthening specific body parts that you may struggle to grow.

Is There Anyone Who Should Dirty Bulk?

There is a category of people who find it difficult to put on any weight, muscle or fat with a normal diet and exercise program. Scientifically, these are referred to as “nonresponders.” In the fitness community, we call them “hardgainers.”

Usually, these individuals have an ultra-lean ecotmorph body type and don’t respond in significant ways to regular exercise. With medical supervision, some evidence indicates that these individuals may respond to dirty bulking, however, they are still at risk of excess fat from this technique.

Always speak to a medical professional if you are making major changes to your diet. Big shifts like a dirty bulk can be dangerous if performed without medical supervision or dietary awareness.

The Takeaway

If you’re looking to get bigger, bulking can be an empowering step toward training for the body you want. Putting on muscle, overall size, and a bit of additional fat can give you the appearance of a super-strong frame.

For men, especially, being a big guy is positively correlated with attractiveness and athleticism. It can also boost your self-esteem.

Dirty bulking means more calories in any way you can get ‘em. Although you’ll certainly put on weight, often this comes with excess body fat that can be taxing on your organs. You may feel sluggish and tired, and you won’t be able to keep this type of bulk up for a long time.

On the other hand, clean bulking works in slower increments. By adding protein and maintaining a slight caloric surplus, you should be able to see gains over time. Clean bulking also helps you reduce the amount of fat gain that you get when you put on weight.

Overall, we don’t recommend dirty bulking, at least not for extended periods. Although it can be a tool to spur weight and muscle gain, it’s not sustainable for most people without putting too much strain on your heart and other organs.

When bulking, always understand how bulking diets come with health risks. Putting on weight for a higher body mass index (BMI) can help you build muscles.

But you also risk putting on visceral fat. This type of fat sticks between your organs and can cause issues to your overall health. You may be at risk of problems like type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance.

Keep track of your progress by tracking your body weight, measurements, strength gains, and overall performance in the gym. You can always tweak your maintenance or surplus calorie intake and macro ratios as you need needed based on how you’re progressing.

This will help you move towards your muscle-building goals with less extra fat.

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