The Absolute Best Strategy to Get Bigger And Leaner Over Time in 1 Year (Month by Month Plan)

Dr Mike from Renaissance Periodisation breaks down exactly what you need to do in order to combine training and life in the easiest, and most productive way possible.

1. Get bigger and leaner over time
2. Be leanest in Summer
3. Have fun and enjoy life and training

I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve trained many people, consulted on diets, and coached numerous individuals. I realize that most people with careers, hobbies, school, and other commitments want to become more muscular over the long term, let’s say within a year. They also want to become leaner. However, real life is a thing.

Sometimes, asking people to bulk up during the summer, when they mostly want to be shirtless, or to diet hardcore into December or January doesn’t align with the rest of their life.

A Periodized Plan

So, what I’ve developed for you is a periodized plan for diet and training that covers the entire year. It’s super convenient and awesome. You can modify it so that over the year, you make gains and get shredded. All the phases make sense as to why they’re positioned where they are to maximally improve your lifestyle.

Why periodize? Because I think you probably want three things, versus just training and dieting and seeing what happens.

One, you want a physique that gets bigger and leaner over time—duh, that’s why you’re in the gym.

Two, ideally, you want to be at your leanest when it’s the season to show some skin. Again, it’s awkward when you’re in your peak bulk in mid-July, and people are like, “Let’s go boating,” and you’re like, “Uh, I look like a boat right now.” But forget that.

And of course, three, you want to enjoy fun events and holidays without having to diet through them. There are 11 months out of the year that aren’t the winter holiday month, so just do that then.

By arranging your diet and training in a specific periodized fashion throughout the entire year, you can have it all. You can look great when you’re expected to look great, look fluffy when no one gives a shit because it’s too cold outside to see your physique, and make gains the entire time.

The Plan

Here’s the plan:

• March, April, May (or roughly thereabouts): Fat loss phase.
• June, July, August: Slow gain phase through the summer.
• Late August: Active rest phase, generally two weeks of limited or no training.
• September, October (maybe a little longer): Another fat loss phase.
• November, December, January, February: Muscle gain phase with an active rest phase in there as well.

You get two muscle gain phases per year, two fat loss phases per year, and two active rest phases per year. It checks all the boxes.

But why this specific sequence? Why can’t I do a bulk in March, April, May? Good question. Here’s the justification:

The Logic Behind the Periodization

In the spring, you do a fat loss diet because then you’ll look leanest for the summer. Nobody cares what you look like during the spring anyway.

So, if it’s March or April and you’re not quite in the best shape yet, who gives a shit? Who the hell is showing skin in April? That’s insane. Secondly, when June hits, you’ve been dieting for the entire spring, and your shirt comes off, it’s odd because people are like, “Holy shit, you look great!” Exactly when you’re supposed to. And here’s a cool bonus feature: Dieting is easier for almost everyone when the weather is warm outside. You’re not as cold, and you’re not as hungry, which is amazing. When the weather is cold outside, you’re both cold and more likely to be hungry, believe it or not.

But when the weather is really warm, you don’t get as hungry. Have you ever been to a tropical resort, and you’re out by the pool, and they’ve got a little stand where they give you hamburgers and french fries and hot dogs, and you’re baking in the sun, and someone’s like, “Do you want a snack?” and you’re like, “I guess.” The cheeseburger arrives, and you’re like, “Oh my God, this sun and it’s humid, I ate this cheeseburger. I don’t know about all this.” You eat half of it, and you’re like, “That’s good enough, give me some fresh fruit or some shit.” But if it’s winter time, someone’s like, “Do you want a cheeseburger?” and you’re like, “Yes, why the hell wouldn’t I? What the hell’s wrong with you?” And just existing with your lower body fat is very comfortable when it’s hot.

If you’re fatter when it’s hot, it sucks. If you’re leaner when it’s cold, it sucks. So, this timing works out really, really well. Because you are now your leanest precisely when the temperature is, as they say in the British Isles, “hotting up,” which we in America say, “heating up.” I don’t know why the “hotting up” thing, but that’s something that’s said in the world now.

Summer

We’re into the summer. In the summer, for the first part, for most of it, you’re going to do a slow muscle gain phase.

At the end, you’re going to do an active rest phase because the muscle gain phase is really slow. How slow? I’ll tell you in just a bit. Because it’s really slow, you never really get out of shape during the summer.

You’re still in very decent physical appearance by the end of the summer or close to the end, like you were in the beginning. But because you are gaining, you have a surplus in your diet. You don’t need to fret and worry about hitting crazy macros and starving yourself, which really does interfere with summer fun a ton. But also, you can enjoy fun summer treats, parties, cookouts, and things like that.

So, you both enjoy the heck out of your physique in the summer and get to eat some tasty food. And you’re making gains. Triple threat. Unbelievable.

End of August

Now, at the end of August, generally is when we prescribe active rest. When you don’t really go to the gym much, you just chill out, eat whatever, train basically not at all, really. Give your body a physical and psychological break.

Why do that? Because in most of the world, late August, everyone’s on vacation anyway. Fun fact. Try to vacation in Spain or Portugal or Italy in late August. Ain’t nobody around. There’s nobody to freaking use, nothing to buy at the store. The entire freaking country moved somewhere else, wherever they go. And all the British people show up, and then there’s no one around to take care of them. Fun fact, right?

That’s just the way it works, generally speaking, in many of the modern countries of the world. Late August is a time when not a lot of people are doing a whole lot of stuff. And a lot of people are vacationing. Great time to go on a trip. And amazing because you don’t have to train super hard or diet super hard. You can take your active rest in late July if you like, but August is definitely the default and my highly recommended version.

Autumn

Now, summer’s over. The fall begins. You take about 8 to 10 weeks through the early part of the fall to get leaner again. This shreds off all the summer fluff. Because by the end of August active rest, you’re a little fluffy.

In the fall, there’s no more naked times, so who gives a heck? You look like it’s sweater weather, and well, most anyone can look like a human being underneath a sweater. And so you don’t have to worry about being super shredded. It’s kind of like if you are, there’s no bonus.

Can you imagine being your best shape in late October, and you’re like, “Yes, finally, one day for Halloween I can go as Macho Man Randy Savage.” And the rest of the days, I’m just bundled up like everyone else, and no one can tell I’m lean. “Look at my face, bro. Can you tell I’m lean?” “Yeah, stay calm, good God.” You can end this diet. I’ll give you some more options in a bit, but generally, right before Halloween if you’re as lean as you want to be. Or you can diet right into just before Thanksgiving if you really want to get leaner still, and that’s your call, dealer’s choice.

Late November

Soon as right around the Thanksgiving holidays hit, and I’m just using the American reference late November, you switch and do one of two things: muscle gain diet and some active rest in there someplace.

Holiday eating makes muscle gain a no-brainer. If you fat loss through the holidays, you zigged when you should have zagged, and you freaking made a mistake. You’re going to put on a little fluff. But don’t you worry about that because remember, you have next spring to shed all of that off. And you’re going to gain some muscle too, so it’s going to be a really great thing.

There are very few things more fun than hard-ass training and fun holiday eating. Amazing combination. And you can take your rest during the winter holidays or even take your active rest sometime in February, depending on how you want to do things. Some people, gyms around them are open, they want to smash that food and that training during the holiday season.

But for some folks, they go on holiday, they go on vacation, or the gyms aren’t really that open, and then they just take an active rest phase right around Christmas time and New Year or something like that.

Christmas and New Year

If you’re real Galaxy brained and you’re really dedicated and you have lots of good gyms around and you’re not worried about falling on or off the plan, super Galaxy brain idea is to take your active rest in the first two weeks of January. Strange, right? Why would you do that?

Well, think about it. How many New Year’s resolutioners are there in your favorite gym in the first two weeks of January? I don’t know, like all of them. It’s like the Barbarian hordes invaded.

They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re watching, hopefully, our channel to help them out. It’s a fun time for everyone involved. But if you’re pretty advanced and you like the gym environment, like you like it, and you have a choice to take an active rest phase anytime and you love to smash food and to smash great training during the holidays, soon as Jan one hits, you’re off the gym for two weeks.

So that by the time you come back, there’s some new faces, but most of the old faces and the year resolutioners are, well, for the most part, after two weeks, unfortunately, they’re gone. Most people drop off after a week or two, and then it’s kind of like you can avoid that whole rush altogether.

And bonus round is you can get New Year’s resolutioners to have a little bit more space to themselves, which is quite nice. It sometimes works out really well. Either way, it works.

Technical Recommendations

Now, time for the technical recommendations. These are fungible, and we’ll talk about that in a little bit as well. I recommend for your spring fat loss phase to do roughly half a percent to 3/4 of a percent body weight loss per week as the goal for around 12 weeks, plus or minus, and we’ll talk about that in a bit.

That’s going to net you something like four to 8% fat loss, pessimistically. You can do even a little bit better, and that’s pretty cool. That’s a big dent. For the summer muscle gain, remember earlier I was telling you guys we’re going slow because we don’t want to get too pudgy.

Not like you’re going Mega bulking and then you’re fat at the end of the summer. This is a really, really good approach, actually. You’re pretty lean the entire time, which is great if you want to stay leaner. I just recommend getting leaner during the spring fat loss phase, a little bit more aggressive in the spring. Get down to 8 or 9%. You’ll be 12% by the end of the summer.

Active rest during the summer, maintenance eating around two weeks in duration. No big deal. You’re going to look a little floppier, a little flabbier. No big deal.

Fall Fat Loss

Fall fat loss somewhere between half a percent and 75% loss per week, just like before in the spring, this time around 8 to 10 weeks, a little bit shorter, and there you net something like 3 to 7% fat loss, which is a really, really good amount of fat loss if you really grind into there.

And I mean total weight loss, so fat loss could be a percent less than that. That’s still solid. I mean, imagine dropping 5% fat. You go from 15% fat to 10% fat. That’s a big deal. You’re going to be much leaner at the end of this, perfectly setting you up to bulk through the holidays. Amazing. It’s weird to start bulking when you’re already fat, but when you’re very lean, not only do you psychologically want to start bulking, but physiologically and anatomically, you have tons of room to grow, so it’s a really great situation.

Winter Muscle Gain

Winter muscle gain, 0.25 to 0.5% gain per week, a little bit more aggressive because look, it’s the winter and you have all of spring to drop that fat off, so feel free to eat a little bit more. And remember, summer, yeah, there’s fun treats around, but you’re not that hungry because it’s hot outside.

Winter, not only are the treats pretty much better because holiday food is amazing, but also, it’s cold and you’re less active, and you just eat more when it’s cold. All sorts of porridges, stew, pasta, I love it.

So, 14 weeks is of winter muscle gain. This is a good thing. Muscle gain takes time, and you’re going to want to take a lot of time to do it.

Around 3 to 7% of your weight gain will occur there. That’s a lot of weight gain potentially, and some of it’s going to be muscle, which is great, but a good deal is going to be fat. But you’ll probably be leaner at the end of that phase than last time because last time you had minus one fall and one spring of fat loss.

And guess what? After active rest in the winter, where it’s two weeks of maintenance eating and roughly no training, you’re going to be ready to hit up spring again, shred city, get shredded, have a couple more pounds, maybe even more of muscle from that whole year, and you just repeat and repeat and repeat. Amazing.

Modifications

First, you can always and everywhere slice a week or two off of the plan duration or add a week or two on just to match your schedule to make sure that your phases work well. If you have a cruise or taken in early June, there’s no sense in dieting through that. Just cut it off early, and you’ll be ready to go.

Number two, you can fuss with the rate of gain or loss by a small fraction if needed. Maybe you want to gain a little slower than I said, maybe you want to lose a little faster. Be intelligent about it, be wise, and you can get really, really good results tailored exactly to your face.

Point number three, this is a big one. You can always take, especially the fall fat loss phase because when you think about it, in the fall in the spring fat loss phase, your fat loss has two elements.

One is to reduce your body fat to prep you for further bulking, but two is like to actually look good.

So, there’s some impetus for the spring fat loss phase to be pretty serious. But a fall fat loss phase, yeah, you can get primed for gains, but you might already be lean enough to gain plenty. And it’s not like anyone’s going to see what the hell you look like after the fall fat loss phase, short of posting some after pics.

So feel free to turn the fall fat loss phase into just a four-week mini cut, probably through like the month of September or mid-September to mid-October. There you can lose up to a percent of your body weight per week every week for about four weeks. You know, 3 to 4% fat loss. And then you can take a much longer bulk, 16 to 18 weeks if not more, through the winter if you really need some size.

So, if you’re biasing the plan towards being lean over the course of the year, your fall fat loss phase should be like 8 to 10 weeks. But if you’re biasing towards muscle gain because you’re already pretty lean or you’re skinny and you want more muscle over the course of the next following years, then every year, you should do something like a 4-week mini-cut during something like September-October. And then, as soon as that’s over, right back into that winter bulk.

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