Dr. Bret Contreras

They're just –

Yeah, they can carry on, they can

pull off, you know, 30% body fat looking really aesthetically pleasing for their goals, whereas other people can't.

And so other people, you know, put on – like men tend to store fat more in their bellies.

We have different fat storage, but just even with women, they tend to store fat differently.

If you store it like around your entire gluten, it just makes it rounder versus –

kind of going to your saddlebag areas and just making the lower look really saggy.

So you're going to have to figure out your optimal body fat percentage and get there through diet and activity.

But you can improve just through re-comping, like gaining strength in your glutes, specifically on those exercises, and it'll just look better and better.

So I've probably written more on this than anyone.

In fact, Brad and Alan are two of my best friends, Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon.

I argue with them all the time about this.

And they think that you should bulk and cut.

You see better results that way.

I don't think...

I mean, there's one, this Helms study by Eric Helms, and it showed that adding like basically the subjects gain just as much muscle in maintenance as they did with surplus.

And all these studies on big surpluses just show that you gain more fat.

This is a very controversial topic and most people will disagree with me on this, but I will say what is the stimulus for gaining muscle is working hard in the gym and PRing.

Do you have to be in a caloric surplus?

The evidence doesn't appear so.