---
title: 'Gaintaining Is Holding Back Your Progress (New Study!)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=dumRnQkVJGQ'
video_id: 'dumRnQkVJGQ'
date: 2026-07-28
channel: 'Renaissance Periodization'
---

# Gaintaining Is Holding Back Your Progress (New Study!)

> Source: [Gaintaining Is Holding Back Your Progress (New Study!)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=dumRnQkVJGQ)

## Summary

This video discusses the debate between 'gaintaining' (eating at maintenance to slowly build muscle and lose fat simultaneously) and traditional 'bulking and cutting' cycles. A new study suggests that bulking and cutting may be more effective for long-term muscle gain, as it allows for faster fat loss without sacrificing muscle, while gaintaining produces slower results.

### Key Points

- **Muscle gain vs. fat loss difficulty** [00:01] — Muscle gain is harder and takes longer than fat loss. Fat loss without muscle loss is relatively easy for non-lean individuals.
- **Traditional bulking and cutting** [00:42] — Bulking involves a calorie surplus for 16-20 weeks to gain muscle and fat, followed by a cutting phase to lose fat while preserving muscle. This cycle is repeated for long-term gains.
- **Gaintaining concept** [01:37] — Gaintaining aims to maintain body fat around 12-15% (males) or 20-25% (females), eat at maintenance, train hard, and rely on natural fluctuations to slowly lose fat and gain muscle.
- **Key assumption of gaintaining** [03:19] — Gaintaining assumes muscle gain and fat loss are equally easy, but in reality, fat loss is much easier and faster than muscle gain.
- **New study by Salvador Vargas Molina** [05:41] — A 10-week study compared a 10% calorie deficit group vs. maintenance group. Both gained 2 lbs of muscle, but the deficit group lost 6 lbs of fat (double the maintenance group).
- **Implication of the study** [07:13] — Bulking and cutting allow more muscle gain and fat loss in the same timeframe compared to gaintaining. The study shows that maintenance blunts both muscle growth and fat loss.
- **Gaintaining still works but slower** [08:52] — Gaintaining is effective, especially for beginners or those not ready to bulk, but bulking and cutting produce faster results.
- **Recommended protocol** [11:50] — For optimal long-term muscle gain: bulk at ~0.5 lb/week for 12-20 weeks, maintain for 2 weeks, then cut at ~1 lb/week for 4-8 weeks. Repeat.

### Conclusion

Bulking and cutting remain superior for maximizing muscle gain and fat loss over time, but gaintaining is a viable, slower alternative, especially for beginners or those who prefer a less structured approach.

## Transcript

losing much muscle. But the same isn't true the other way around. Muscle gain is harder than fat loss and takes [music] way longer. But bulking and cutting have a big theoretical advantage in the long term over gaining. So
gaining works. It's the Chevy Malibu in our analogy. But bulking and cutting works faster. It's the Corvette. [music] Now here's where this new study comes in. Hey folks, Dr. Mike here for RP Strength
and I have a question. is gaining dead according to this new crazy study. Well, how new or crazy is this study? You may be asking, well, hold on a second. Let's talk about the traditional view of muscle gain dieting phases. In the
traditional view, here's how things work. You generate a calorie surplus and that's a huge weapon for gains. It's a big weapon right after training thing I ask people is like, are you eating enough? Are you eating to gain?
which is calorie surplus. But you can't bulk forever because of fat and muscle and eventually you just get too get way too fat. So the
typical idea is bulking for like 16 to 20 weeks nice and slow and then cutting maintenance phase in there and repeating the process. That has worked for a long time for many people and it's likely to work on
theoretical grounds for a few different reasons. The bulking adds muscle and fat. The cutting reduces away the fat and pretty much only the fat if you cut moderately. And that means you keep all the muscle and then you just repeat that
process and you make long-term gains. Okay, sounds good. But there's another idea that opposes bulk cutting and it's called gain real sports scientists like uh Eric Helms um Dr. Eric Helms uh really like
going for it. gaintaining it looks like this. You want to be in a body fat that's conducive to not crazy muscle loss when you lose fat you're trying to to actually gain muscle. So something around 12 to 15%
body fat or so. Chill at that body weight. Train hard. Eat enough protein. Don't try to push a calorie surplus. Just hit a maintenance on average and you're going to be likely to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. And
that's all true. Why does gaintaining work at all? Why is it likely to work for you? Because no one hits um pretty much almost nobody hits true maintenance little little bit of a surplus or a little bit of a deficit. And so you're
kind of doing these like zigzag mini bulks and cuts anyway, which is kind of some fat, lose some fat, gain some muscle and some fat, lose some fat, and eventually it's like these mini bulks and cuts built in.
don't have to stuff yourself and pre-plan a bunch of stuff. Just shooting for maintenance is just awesome and it's got that built-in pulsatility. You actually want that. So you're good to go. So the rule of gaining is just eat
to make sure it's not falling or rising too much at any one point and you're good to go. But bulking and cutting have a big theoretical advantage in the long term over gaining.
Gaintaining has a big built-in assumption compared to bulking and cutting. The assumption of gaintaining is that building muscle and losing fat is that building muscle and losing fat are roughly as easy slash difficult as
one another. But the reality is different. The reality is that fat loss without muscle loss, especially in 10 to 15% body fat males or 20 to 25% body fat females. And sure,
above body fat, for sure that's true. Fat loss without muscle loss for people who aren't extremely lean is actually really easy. It happens all the time in study after study after study. You can lose a ton of fat without losing any
muscle unless you're getting ultra shredded at the end. On the other hand, even in that body fat range, muscle gain is hard. Very, very
range, muscle gain is hard. Very, very hard. And fat loss can happen in mere weeks. I mean, you can lose a pound of actual fat per week. Scott, can you gain cases? >> Yeah, dude. Totally.
>> I mean, Scott can. He just never does, but if he tried, he would. look bad. >> Yeah. Like all of us, same idea. And so, it turns out that you can lose a shitload of fat without losing much
muscle. But the same isn't true the other way around. You can't just gain a ton of muscle without gaining a ton of fat. you actually just can't gain a ton of muscle per week no matter what you do with your fat store.
So fat loss takes way less time than muscle growth. So if you push your weight gain a bit extra over the long term for extra muscle growth, you get all the extra muscle, but you can just get rid of the
fat super easily. Some things are just not compatible to do at the same time. Like if you're trying to like hang out with friends and trying to go out to eat after figuring out the right restaurant might be
real quick figure out what restaurant and then go because trying to vibe with and they're swatting your phone out of your hand it's just super annoying. So and then the other. Now here's where this new study comes in. So far and
there's some good data for this but so far too much of this has been theory bulking and cutting versus gaintaining. Oh, it's just too theoretical.
There was a study just published by Salvador Vargas Molina and colleagues I [music] Bobby where's Jar probably out there if that's a [music] female Salvador maybe not anyway I don't know Latinos insert joke
they looked into this directly with their recent study at two groups one group did a 10% calorie deficit and the other
did maintenance both trained and ate well for 10 weeks where they trained hard for 10 straight weeks. So, one had a deficit, one had maintenance, everything else was the same. [gasps] The maintenance group gained like 2 lb
of muscle and lost about 3 lbs of fat, which is really good. Proving again illustrating maybe rather than proving that gaining is absolutely viable.
But the deficit group lost 6 lb of fat, double the fat of the maintenance group. And check this out, the deficit group still gained the same
2 lb of muscle that the maintenance group did. So if you're in the deficit group, in the cutting group, you're 3 lb of fat less than the folks that compare to you in the maintenance group, and you have the same amount of muscle. And now
you can bulk for like 6 weeks at half a pound per week and gain even more muscle and end up at the same body fat with that much more muscle gain.
The big insight here is from other studies and this one especially from other studies for this especially from other studies for this particular point. We know that you gain
a bit more muscle when you're bulking. Not a ton but a bit more. And we also know from this study for sure, you lose way more fat while cutting in a reasonable deficit than you do in a maintenance situation. You just
study, people actually gained it. And they do this in a bunch of the studies they do this in a bunch of the studies as well. So what this shows us is the imposition of maintenance, taking away the calorie surplus and the calorie
deficit powers [gasps] ends up blunting both muscle growth and fat loss. you just get less of everything. So if you do bulking and more cutting and in the end because the cutting doesn't lose the muscle. You
gain more muscle and you lose more fat in the same window of time that with maintaining with gaining rather the gaining does happen. Muscle does accrete but not as much of it as you would think. And the
much of it as you would think. And the fat loss is also not as impressive. That means that smooth, slow bulks, half a pound of weight gain per week at a time can make big changes to your musculature. And then you do a low-key
cut that add maybe for 4 to 8 weeks of fat loss. You lose none of the muscle you might gain even a little bit more muscle and then voila, you repeat the process over and over again. Now bulking and cutting almost certainly works
better than gaintaining but gaining still works. Literally in this study same time. Meadow Henselman's says this all the time all a lot of people way more than you think can make very notable changes and recomposition and
lose muscle and gain fat. Good gut lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. too if you just stop training and eat like shit. So, if you like to do it or you're on vacation, you're still going to train hard, but they can't track
calories really, then just yolo and you're probably good to go. You're going at least going to gain some muscle. And beginners and folks not mentally in a space to be bulking, gaintaining is your best friend. If you like, let's say, you
are kind of pretty fluffy, pretty fat, and you sort of want to gain some fat loss dieting yet, but you don't want to bulk up anymore. man gaining is unbelievable, especially as a beginner. So, don't toss it out.
difference between something being effective and something that is attempted to be optimized. Now, you guys are smart people that view this channel. You usually don't make this mistake, but
other folks make it all the time. The difference between effective versus difference between effective versus ineffective versus maximally effective. >> [gasps] >> Just because a Corvette
made by Chevrolet, an American company, is faster than a Chevy Malibu, doesn't mean that a Malibu literally can't get you to the store to get what you need from the store. It just the Corvette just gets you there
faster. The Malibu will still get you there. So, gaining works. It's the Chevy Malibu in our analogy. But bulking and cutting works faster.
It's the Corvette. Hey Scott, I got 1,400 horsepower under this here. Highly modded vet ZR5. Sir, they don't make a ZR5. They do Sir, they don't make a ZR5. They do here. Godamn it. [screaming]
>> shot his roof off of the Corvette. Scott, I saw a thing where they had um one of the new ZR whatever Corvettes go up against a topline Lambo and it just $800,000 less.
>> Crazy voodoo magic on that thing, man. >> The dude C8 Corvette is my god. I I why can't that be me in there? And then I realize I don't fit into a C8 Corvette. So if you want the best results long
term, both empirically and theoretically, bulking and cutting still So if it's worth it for you to do structured dieting, do it because it's still better. Even though gate training does work, just not as well. So all this
wrapped up, big take-home points for you. Muscle gain is harder than fat loss and takes way longer. Fat loss without muscle loss is easy
unless you are contest lean. And fat loss can be done rapidly without muscle loss risk. So for most of the time, for the most
long-term muscle gain, you want to gain about half a pound a week for anywhere between 12 and 20 weeks on average. It can be more, it can be less. And that adds about 6 to 10 lbs total to your body. No big deal. It's not crazy.
Then you want to maintain for maybe 2 weeks just an active rest or as many as strength and maybe even do a little of uh gaining, rest up a little bit, and then hit somewhere between 4 to 8 weeks and about
a pound per week of fat loss. You're going to lose all of the fat pretty much going to lose probably none of the muscle and you might even gain a little bit. Especially if you monitor your strength using like the RP hypertrophy
for the dieting, it also helps. I'm completely honest. We sell these things for a reason because they work. [gasps] If you look at your RP hypertrophy app strength week to week to week, you are almost certainly not losing any muscle.
And the net result with this protocol is going to be pure muscle gain in the long you recycle this plan, you're just up a few pounds of muscle every single time. There is a lower stress option. You can absolutely maintain when you like and
you will still make progress. It's just going to be slower. But with the RP diet coach app and RP hypertrophy app, by god, the progress can be slightly better still. They don't bullshit you here at RP. I mean, I do.
The rest of RP doesn't. Anyway, either bulking or cutting because if you're gaining, oh boy, then I'll still was also an effective strategy, just slower. See you guys next time. [music]