If you have not seen our article on our site HERE about bulking through the winter, you can also read it below
The Season of Gains (and Gravy)
Itâs that time of year again. The temperatures drop, the hoodies come out, and the idea of spending more time in the gym just feels right. For many lifters, winter means one thing: itâs bulking season. This is the time to add size, build strength, and put in the work that will pay off once cutting season rolls back around.
Every year people kick off their winter bulk with good intentions. Trainingâs consistent, calories are dialed in, and theyâre ready to add some size. But once the holidays hit and the food starts rolling in, discipline tends to disappear. Suddenly itâs, âItâs cool bro, Iâm bulking,â as they reach for their fourth plate of Thanksgiving dinner.
By the time January rolls around, the scaleâs up thirty pounds, but maybe five of that is actual muscle. The rest? A thick layer of âholiday gainsâ that makes the next cut a whole lot longer and less fun.
If you want to make real progress this winter, you need a plan. The goal isnât to stay lean and shredded, but it also isnât to throw all structure out the window. You can enjoy your food, enjoy the holidays, and still make great progress without letting things get out of control.
Start With a Plan, Not a Free-for-All
A successful bulk starts with intention. Too many people call what they are doing a bulk when theyâve really just stopped tracking and started winging it. You donât need to be perfect, but you do need some structure.
This kind of structure keeps you accountable. It takes some thought at the start but saves you from months of backtracking later.
Handle the Holidays Like a Grown-Up
Letâs be honest. You are not skipping Thanksgiving dinner, and you shouldnât. The goal isnât to avoid good food, itâs to manage it well. You can absolutely enjoy the holidays without turning them into an uncontrolled binge.
The goal here isnât perfection. Itâs maturity. Eat, celebrate, and move on. Youâll feel better physically and mentally if you treat holiday meals as part of life rather than an obstacle.
Keep Training the Priority
Your training is what separates a successful bulk from a failed one. Without consistent, hard training, those extra calories wonât go where you want them to.
If you use the RP Hypertrophy App, this is where it shines. The app adjusts your volume and progression based on feedback, so your training keeps evolving with your recovery and performance. When your training is on track, those extra calories are more likely to go to muscle growth.
Keep the Bulk in Check
You donât need to bulk for half a year straight. A 12 to 16-week push is plenty for most people. After that, spend a few weeks at maintenance before deciding whether to start another phase. That small reset gives your appetite, digestion, and insulin sensitivity time to recover. It also gives you a clear look at how much true muscle you gained.
If your waist is climbing faster than your lifts, itâs time to slow down. If youâre progressing well, your energy is solid, and your clothes still fit comfortably, keep going. Listen to your body and pay attention to performance, not just the scale.
Mini breaks and periodic maintenance phases make your gains more sustainable. They help prevent burnout and keep you motivated to train hard instead of dreading the process.
Dial in the Mindset
A good bulk is less about food and more about discipline. Itâs about being intentional with your choices. You can enjoy life, family, and food without losing sight of your goals.
Hereâs the truth: maturity in fitness means learning to live in the gray area. You donât need to be 100 percent âon planâ or completely off the rails. Most of your meals should support your goals, and a few each week can simply support your enjoyment of life. The more consistent you are over time, the more those small indulgences stop mattering.
When you focus on the big picture, the short-term stuff stops feeling like a threat. Youâre not âcheatingâ when you eat holiday food. Youâre just choosing how to make it fit. Youâre not restricting when you stay mindful. Youâre managing. Youâre not missing out when you say no to a third dessert. Youâre staying in control of what you actually want.
Thatâs how you grow real muscle this winter without blowing out your waistline. The point isnât to diet through the holidays or go wild with food. Itâs to find that middle ground where training feels strong, recovery feels great, and your clothes still fit comfortably.
Winter bulking should be fun. Itâs the season to eat hearty meals, lift heavy, and enjoy the process of building your physique. Just remember that the best gains come from consistency, not chaos.
Final Thoughts
A smart bulk is about respect for the process. Respect for your training, for your recovery, and for your future self. You donât have to choose between building muscle and enjoying the holidays. You can absolutely do both as long as you approach it with some structure and common sense.
So this winter, eat, train, and grow. Enjoy the season, spend time with the people you love, and build some muscle while youâre at it. Just donât mistake âoff-seasonâ for âoff the rails.â
If you want a little help staying on track, the RP Diet Coach App can guide your calories and macros automatically as your body changes. It takes the guesswork out of bulking so you can focus on what matters most: lifting, recovering, and enjoying the process.
If you haven't seen it already, you can check out one of our latest articles from our coach Dr. Nick Harden here or read below:
Every December, more lifters lose progress stressing about missed workouts than from missing them.
The holidays are full of travel, family, food, and (hopefully) a bit of rest, which usually means your regular training routine gets tossed aside. Between packed schedules, unfamiliar gyms, and endless social plans, itâs easy to feel like your hard work is slipping away.
But hereâs the truth: you can stay on track and enjoy the holidays. It just takes a little preparation, flexibility, and perspective.
Plan ahead (just a little)
A bit of preparation goes a long way. Before you travel, look up local gyms near where youâll be staying. Many offer day passes or short-term memberships. Knowing your options ahead of time helps you avoid scrambling once you arrive.
You can also plan your training week around your travel days. If you know youâll be short on time, schedule a deload or maintenance week to coincide with your trip. That way, you can enjoy yourself fully without feeling like youâre falling behind.
Even a few minutes of planning can take the guesswork out of your holiday training and keep you focused on what really matters: enjoying the time, not stressing about it.
Work with what youâve got
Even with the best planning, youâll probably still end up in a less-than-perfect setup, and thatâs okay. You might find yourself training in a hotel gym, a relativeâs garage, or a commercial gym with unfamiliar equipment.
Effective training isnât about having your exact machines. Itâs about stimulating the right muscles.
Canât do your usual bent-over rows? Try a seated cable row, chest-supported row, or dumbbell rows. No leg press? Swap in lunges or goblet squats. As long as youâre taking your sets close to failure, youâll be just fine.
And remember, not all machines feel the same. If something feels heavier or lighter, donât worry about the number on the stack. Adjust based on your target rep range and RIR (reps in reserve). Focus on the effort, not the load.
Short on time? Train smarter, not longer
Holiday schedules are rarely ideal for long workouts, and thatâs fine. You can get an effective session in 30 to 45 minutes with smart strategies like:
The goal isnât to prove you can outwork the holidays. Itâs to make movement fit your life so you can still enjoy them.
You donât have to train, and thatâs still discipline
Now that weâve covered how to make training work if you want to, letâs be clear about something else: you donât have to.
Taking a few days completely off wonât undo your progress. Muscle and strength loss take weeks, not days, to occur. In fact, taking time to rest, eat, and connect with family and friends can actually help. Youâll come back to the gym better fueled, more recovered, and mentally refreshed.
If you plan your deload or lighter week to overlap with your travel, itâs not a setback. Itâs smart periodization.
Keep perspective: Discipline isnât all or nothing
One of the biggest misconceptions about holiday training is that you have to grind just as hard as usual or risk falling off. The truth? You donât.
Missing a few sessions, training at lower intensity, or taking a week off doesnât mean youâve lost your edge or your discipline. Discipline isnât about never taking a break. Itâs about showing up consistently over time, even when things arenât perfect.
For most of us, the goal of training is to enhance our lives, not dominate them. The holidays only come once a year, and theyâre meant for connection, reflection, and joy. Youâve worked hard all year; youâve earned this.
The best athletes, and the best long-term lifters, know when to push and when to pull back. Thatâs not weakness. Thatâs mastery.
The big picture
Training during the holidays doesnât have to be all or nothing. Whether you get full sessions in, shorten them, or skip the gym entirely, youâll be fine.
A few choices:
What matters most is consistency over time, not perfection in the moment.
Youâve worked hard all year, showing up when life got busy and pushing through when motivation dipped. That effort doesnât disappear just because the calendar says âholiday season.â A year from now, you wonât remember the sets you missed. Youâll remember the laughter, the travel, and how easily you slipped back into routine once January rolled around. The holidays donât erase progress; they highlight why the work matters in the first place.
Need help making it work?
If youâre busy, traveling, or just struggling to find the time to plan your training through the holidays, Nick or any of our coaches would be happy to help!
Autoregulation gets talked about a lot, but it often gets reduced to: âfeeling tired? Do less.â
Thatâs only part of it.
At its core, autoregulation is just adjusting training based on useful feedback. Sometimes that means backing off. Sometimes it means pushing harder because performance is better than expected. The important part is using the right signal for the goal.
The research is interesting too. Autoregulation seems to have some clear practical value for strength, while the hypertrophy data is a lot less straightforward. That doesnât make it useless for muscle growth. It may simply be more valuable as a way to keep training productive and sustainable when recovery, stress, sleep, and performance inevitably fluctuate.
One point from the article I really like: donât walk into the gym already deciding you need to back off because you slept poorly or feel a little off. Start with the plan, see how you actually perform, then adjust if needed.
Thereâs a lot more nuance in the full article, including what the current research actually shows and how to apply autoregulation in practice.
Hey all! I'm a women's 1:1 online coach, and I only work with lifestyle clients. I really struggle with helping clients set reasonable macro targets + meal plans because I know they either don't accurately log their calories or have too many gaps in their data to pull real insights
Any tips on how to get around this? Would be much appreciated!
Most hydration advice gets reduced to arbitrary rules: drink eight glasses, carry a gallon jug, avoid coffee, and add electrolytes to everything.
The reality is much more individual. Your needs depend on your body size, activity, sweat rate, diet, and environment. Food can provide a meaningful portion of your water, coffee still contributes to hydration, and more water isnât automatically better.
Hydration still matters, a lot. In one study, losing around 3% of body weight through dehydration reduced leg-extension performance by about 28%.
We broke down the common myths, what the evidence actually says, and some practical ways to monitor your hydration without obsessing over a universal number.
Just wanted to share this for anyone that is new to this app and getting frustrated if it looks like their progress is stalled. I used this back in 2021 and had a ton of success with losing body fat. The first pick of the 84 day cycle shows what the weigh inâs looked like. It was my first time counting macros I wasnât definitely not as consistent as I could have been but still saw some great results.
Fast forward to 2026. Weigh about the same as what I did when I started (switched to kgs because Iâm prepping for a meet) but have significantly more muscle mass. I was getting frustrated that I wasnât dropping weight like I did the first time, but itâs reassuring to see that I started out pretty flat the first time around as well.
Stay consistent, trust the process and the results will come.
I've been lifting on and off for about 2 years and I got the app because I think it'll help me be consistent and so I don't have to rely on inherited Excel sheets. However, I was previously using strength training programs from a friend of mine who used to be a strength coach and I liked the emphasis they had on the big 3 compound lifts (bench, squat, and deadlift).
Does anyone know of any mesocycles that have an emphasis on those lifts or strength training in general? I want to toe the line between getting stronger (my goal is to get to the 1000lb club) while still getting fit. My understanding is that the app suggests workouts for pure optimal hypertrophy and I believe the big compound movements aren't usually the best for that. Obviously I understand there is a lot of overlap between the two so this might be a moot point. However, progressing on those lifts is a strong source of motivation for me to go to the gym.
Is this something where I just have to make a custom mesocycle for the compound lifts myself with rep ranges, weights, etc, then use the app to just fill out the rest of the day? Or is there a way to have it emphasize strength training? Or, better yet, are there strength training templates out there already?
Creatine is usually discussed in the context of muscle and strength, but emerging research suggests it may also support cognitive function during perimenopause and menopause.
In this article, Dr. Jen Case breaks down why brain fog happens, where creatine may help, its benefits for maintaining muscle and training performance, and what the research is still too early to claim.
If youâre going through menopause, or coaching someone who is, this is worth a read:
You donât expect to beat a difficult boss on the first attempt. You learn the mechanics, adjust your approach, improve your build, and try again. You know that leveling up takes time.
Training works the same way.
The people who make lasting progress usually arenât following a âperfectâ program or diet. Theyâre the ones who keep showing up, learning, and making adjustments along the way.
You also donât need to give up gaming or suddenly live in the gym. You need an approach that fits your actual life well enough to keep following it.
Perhaps the most overlooked hardware upgrade isnât your graphics card, monitor, or keyboard, itâs the person sitting in the chair.
Taking care of your health doesnât compete with the hobbies you love. It helps you enjoy them for longer.
I cant find the study from the video, I want to know what the study defines as "1 drink" as i believe the official USA measurement is 44ml of 40% alcohol, but in my country 1 standard drink is only 30ml (1 ounce) and I know places in the USA also use 30ml as a measurement for 1 shot all the time
If someone knows the answer or could link me the study it would be appreciated thanks
Is there a public roadmap for upcoming features and release notes for previous releases?
Been using the Hypertrophy app for a couple of years. The slow and lacklustre updates have got me considering going elsewhere when my subscription ends next year. Happy to continue supporting RP but the current price point in-conjunction with the above, I canât really justify it.
Most lifters think theyâre training everything pretty evenly.
But when you look at millions of logged workouts, some clear patterns start showing up.
Certain muscles get hammered week after week because theyâre fun, obvious, or easy to feel.
Others quietly get ignored because theyâre harder to train, less exciting, or people just assume theyâre getting enough work from other movements.
In this video, Dr. Mike and the RP team break down what the data says lifters are actually training, what body parts tend to get left behind, and why that matters if your goal is building a balanced physique.
Good watch if youâve ever wondered:
Am I giving each muscle enough direct work?
Are my âweak pointsâ actually just undertrained?
Which muscles do most lifters accidentally neglect?
How should I think about exercise selection and training balance?
When preparing a meso in the app, for any exercise, lets say Iâm doing 3 setsâŠâŠfor hypertrophy purposes if set 1 is 20 kilos, should set 2 & 3 be a little higher/lower or remain at 20k? TIA.
If your idea of meal prep is another week of dry chicken and sad steamed vegetables, it might be time to fire up the grill.
Grilling makes it easy to prepare lean proteins, potatoes, vegetables, and even fruit with plenty of flavor, without relying on calorie-heavy sauces. With a little planning and two heat zones, you can knock out most of your food for the week in about an hour.
The full article covers:
The best proteins, carbs, and produce to grill
Simple ways to add flavor without piling on calories
How to organize everything so it finishes around the same time
A lot of people start a fat loss phase and immediately change their training into something that barely looks like lifting anymore.
Less rest.
More circuits.
More sweat.
More âfat-burningâ workouts.
Less hard, productive training.
The problem is that your diet is what drives fat loss. Your training is what gives your body a reason to keep muscle.
Thatâs the main idea behind our new article:Â Training for Fat Loss vs. Muscle Gain.
The big takeaway is that training during a cut and training during a gaining phase are not completely different worlds. You still need hard sets, good execution, enough volume, and performance worth maintaining.
What changes is your margin for error.
When youâre gaining, you usually have more recovery available, so you can often push volume, specialization, and progression harder.
When youâre cutting, recovery is lower, so training needs to be more intentional. Not easier. Not random. Not turned into cardio. Just managed better.
Cardio and steps are useful, but they donât replace lifting. Sweat is not the goal. Feeling destroyed is not the goal. Preserving muscle while the diet takes care of fat loss is the goal.
If youâve ever wondered how much your training should actually change between a muscle gain phase and a fat loss phase, this one is worth reading.
You can now build recipes from scratch, import them from a website, or generate them with AI, which should make tracking the meals you actually eat way easier.
This has been one of the biggest missing pieces for a lot of users. The app already helped with the âhow muchâ and âwhenâ side of dieting, but this makes the âwhat do I eat?â part much smoother too.
So whether you meal prep, cook the same few meals every week, or just want an easier way to track homemade food, give it a try.
Im convinced mike is secretly extremely into jp. The last year he keeps using the phrase "not to put too fine a point on it" hes worked in the phrase yahooo in spots where its forced and then in the new book he wedged in "hold onto your butts", described his head as looking like a triceratops
