My advice would be DON'T! I speak about this with personal experience. Last summer 2007, I bulked up to around 190lbs and I didn't look very good at the beach at all! It was definatly a bulky, chubby faced 190lbs, LOL. When I dieted back down for my contest's this spring I weighed only 2lbs more than I did in March 2007. So really, was being 190lbs, "being big" and the extra water and fat worth it? UHH NO! That would be a negative! Now this summer I'm at 175lbs and much, much leaner and oh my goodness, stronger than I was at 190. Doing shoulder presses with 100lb Dumbells, now for me that is a lot of weight! I speak only from MY personal experience and am not downing someone if they can bulk up and see good results, I just know that it didn't work for me. Best of Luck. Shys

Yeah, that's kind of the old way, staying fairly lean between 8-12% and 12 would be pushing it.

Me? One day I'll do it. I still love pushing the limits on weights and can't do that below 16%.

Now, it will take roughly 24 weeks to diet into precontest shape (10%) to try an maximize fat loss, minimize muscle loss.

Yes! I agree completely!! Gone are the days when you would go 20-30 lbs over your contest weight just to "retain" whatever muscle you had. BLAAAH! Who the heck wants to be chubby and sloppy even in "offseason"?? It is unhealthy and it defeats the purpose of Bodybuilding completely! LEAN! BE LEAN! That is what bodybuilding is all about. If you are gonna play the part, you dang well better look the part!

I have been as heavy as 233 lbs! Why?... I love cheeseburgers and pizza... was I strong? Sure, but I am stronger NOW at a bodyweight of 193 lbs! Not to mention i am within just 10 pounds of contest weight! Work hard all year long, thats what "bodybuilders" do.

I DO advocate a clean bulk though. What I mean is Im now around 170 to 180 depending on time of day and Saturday my skinfold test said 10.4%. I am eating like a horse and growing. I include junk like pizza, cookies, candy and whatever else I want on top of my 6-7 good meals. I believe in order to get shredded you need to be able to overeat too.

What I mean is this. If you diet all year long at 2,200 to maintain 8% or lower, or whatever it takes, when it comes contest time it will be REALLY tough to get shredded without ridiculously low calories.

At this juncture Im starting my slight cut which will take me back to 9% and Im starting at 360 carbs per day and eliminating sugar. See what I mean?

But, yeah no need to get above 12%. Whatever confines you need to stay there or lower is a good idea to employ.

I just see people say Im going to stay lean then they eat like they are precontest and come contest time there isnt much to take out of the diet.

Just my take on it.

my goal when I first started was to get as big as humanly possible.I thought that was the whole point of lifting. This meant I had to eat a boatload of food and train until I puked. No 9 point testing, no food scales, no counting calories, no cardio. **** a buck seventy was my first stop from 155 lbs. All I know is when it was all said and done I maintained a 30 inch waist with a 19 3/4 inch arm at 5'6 amazingly this was accomplished without the use of any steroids,growth hormone,pro hormones, creatine,no releasers, fat burners,cardio blah, blah, blah. But what I do believe was the magic bullet or bullets was copious amounts of liver and aminos.Along with my daily food intake of 2 lbs. of ground sirloin, 36 eggs, a loaf of wheat bread and a quart of OJ. This was mainly how I ate for almost 2 years straight.I never mentioned fruits or vegetables but I always had a huge salad with dinner and snacked on fruit all day in between meals.I know the aforementioned goes against all that is sacred here but genetics do play a major role.