Hi everyone,

I've decided to go on a slow bulk. I'm 6'1" and 170lbs. I was just wondering how many calories (roughly) I should be consuming per day and what the split should be protein/carb/fat. I know I will gain a little body fat but I would like to keep this to a minimum. At the moment I split my gym routine into upper body/lower body days, focusing mainly on compound exercises.

e.g Upper body : Bench press, dips, pull ups, lat pull down, military press

Lower body (and abs): Squats, deadlifts, lunges, crunches.

And the routine goes like this

Day 1: Upper body
Day 2: Lower body
Day 3: Rest
Day 4: Upper body
Day 5: Lower body
Day 6: Rest
and so on.

I think this will avoid overtraining. I've posted a couple of photos to give an idea of my physique now and where I may need to focus on.

Thanks

Hi ashie12000. :)
How many calories you need really depends on you. Are you maintaining now? How many calories is it taking you to maintain? I would start by just ramping up your maintenance calories by around 200 a week until you start to see the kind of weight increase that you're going for.
As for macros; the standard 40/40/20 pro/cho/fat is fine for bulking, although some people like to bump up the amount of calories coming from carbs during caloric surpluses.
I hope that helps!

For upper body, I would take out lat pulldowns and replace with something like Bent-over rows. For lower body, I would add a leg curl, or any hamstring exercise to balance it out. Nice exercise choices btw.

I've just cut down from 185. I'd like to go up to about 185-190 with as little fat gain as possible. How long do you think this would take based on a slow bulk?