Nutrition plays a permissive, not causative, role in muscle building — training is the signal that tells muscle to grow, while diet only supplies the raw material. This means aggressively overfeeding ("dirty bulking") cannot force extra muscle growth beyond what the training stimulus calls for; it primarily adds fat, even with a training stimulus in place.
Despite the Garth study showing no statistically significant extra lean mass from a large surplus, coaching experience (per Jeff Nippard) suggests aggressive "dreamer" bulks can still produce more long-term strength gain and let a lifter occupy more total mass — but they make the eventual cut harder and usually aren't worth it for most people. This is anecdote layered on top of, not replacing, the RCT evidence — a pattern discussed in Evaluating Nutrition & Fitness Evidence.
Daily Protein Intake Guidelines for how protein targets shift between surplus and deficit; Creatine Supplementation and Caffeine as an Ergogenic Supplement for the parallel "real effect is smaller than hyped" framing applied to supplements.
Из тем: Diet Strategy & Body Composition