What is a Recomp? Body Recomposition Explained

Recomp is short for body recomposition, which is when you build muscle and lose fat at the same time. It’s the holy grail of the fitness industry. It’s actually pretty common, though, especially among people who are out of shape or new to lifting weights.

Let’s go over some examples and some research, and explain how to do it.

Recomping from Weight Training

Most weight training studies put people on a workout program without trying to encourage weight gain or weight loss. The training stimulates muscle growth, but building muscle takes energy, and they aren’t eating extra energy. So, their bodies are forced to get energy from their body fat, causing body recomposition.

The best data comes from a recent meta-analysis of 116 studies (study). On average, working out for 4 months caused people to lose about 2 pounds of fat while gaining 2 pounds of muscle.

You can probably do better than that. The type of training designed to stimulate muscle growth is called hypertrophy training. If you follow a good hypertrophy training program, I wouldn’t be surprised if you get even more body recomposition.

What if You Eat More Protein & Fewer Calories?

The most important part of recomping is hypertrophy training. That’s what stimulates muscle growth, encouraging your body to use the energy from your fat to build muscle. But what if we look at a classic cutting protocol, where the participants lift weights, lose weight, and eat more protein?

Longland and colleagues put participants on a hypertrophy training program and told them to eat in a calorie deficit (study). Half of the participants ate an average amount of protein (about 0.5 grams per pound of body weight per day), and the other half ate twice as much (1 gram/pound/day).

After one month, both groups had lost about 8 pounds of weight. The group eating a normal amount of protein lost 8 pounds of fat. The group eating more protein lost 11 pounds of fat while gaining 3 pounds of muscle, achieving body recomposition.

We see this with skinny-fat and overweight clients sometimes. They lose weight, gain strength, and finish with bigger muscles than when they started. In the more obvious cases, they finish with smaller waist circumferences, broader shoulders, and bigger arms.

What If You Eat More Carbs & Calories?

Protein is arguably the most important nutrient for recomping, but what if we look at a classic bulking protocol, where people eat more carbs to drive themselves into a calorie surplus?

Kruszewski and colleagues took intermediate lifters and put them on either a low-carb or high-carb diet while following a hypertrophy training program (study).

The low-carb diet wasn’t very filling, causing the participants to lose quite a bit of weight. The study shows that they lost muscle mass, but some of the mass in our muscles comes from carbs (glycogen). When you eat fewer carbs, your muscles lose some of that glycogen, which can cause a few pounds of temporary muscle loss. The muscle will come back when you start eating more calories and carbs.

The higher-calorie, higher-carb group managed to recomp. After four months, they’d gained 11 pounds of muscle while losing 4 pounds of fat. Eating more calories and carbs supports more muscle growth. Plus, their muscles probably inflated with a pound or two of glycogen.

Older studies have gotten similar results from high-carb, high-calorie diets. For example, Rozenek and colleagues gave a bunch of new lifters mass gainers full of thousands of calories of carbs (study). After 8 weeks, they’d gained 7.5 pounds of muscle while losing half a pound of fat.

We see that with skinny clients sometimes. They bulk pretty aggressively and still manage to lose fat. I had similar results during my first bulk when I first started lifting weights and eating a good muscle-building diet.

What If You Get Better Sleep?

Getting better sleep gives you more energy, greater self-control, stronger hormone production, and an enhanced ability to build muscle. When you combine it with a good weight training routine, it can help you recomp.

Jabekk and colleagues split the participants into two groups (study). Both groups were put on a hypertrophy training program. Only one group was given some tips about how to improve their sleep. We cover all those methods in our article on sleep.

After 10 weeks, the participants who combined weight training with better sleep lost 4 pounds of fat while gaining 4 pounds of muscle, achieving body recomposition.

What if You Bulk and Cut?

The trouble with recomping is that it doesn’t work forever. It makes for a great place to start, but eventually, your body won’t want to burn more fat to build more muscle. It will settle into a new point of equilibrium. At that point, you’ll need to pull out the big guns. You’ll need to choose between:

• Eating more calories to keep gaining muscle and strength.
• Eating fewer calories to keep burning fat.

If your waist circumference at the height of your belly button is 40 inches or more, gearing into a calorie deficit will probably be better for your general health. Otherwise, both options are great, and focusing on building muscle often makes for a good next step.

I recommend doing a lean bulk for at least 3 months, but ideally closer to 6. That way, you have time to gain a significant amount of muscle. After that, could spend 2–3 months trimming off fat, finishing both bigger and leaner than when you started. It’s a recomp on a longer timescale. For more, we have a full article on bulking and cutting.

How to Recomp

The best way to recomp is to combine all of the interventions that encourage muscle growth and/or fat loss. Here they are in order of importance:

1. Lift for muscle growth (hypertrophy training): I recommend starting with full-body workouts and doing 1–2 exercises per muscle group, 3–5 sets per exercise, 6–20 reps per set, and lifting to the brink of failure.
2. Eat enough protein: I recommend eating 0.7–1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. Eat more protein if you’re older, leaner, losing weight, or eating a vegan diet.
3. Eat enough carbs: I recommend eating at least 2–3 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day if you can. Less is fine, more is better.
4. Eat a nutritious diet: you don’t need to eat a perfectly “clean” diet, but do try to eat balanced meals made from nutritious foods. Fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes, fermented dairy, fatty fish, lean meat, and so on.
5. Get enough good sleep: I recommend getting in bed at least 8 hours before any alarm goes off. You might not need all 8 hours. Plenty of people do fine with 7. But that way, you aren’t woken prematurely. If stress prevents you from falling asleep, try something relaxing and distracting, such as reading a fiction novel under a dim light.
6. Eat according to your appetite at first: You can calculate your calories here, but you don’t have to. You can start your recomp by eating a comfortable amount of food. Your appetite should keep your weight reasonably stable.
7. Add/remove calories when you hit a plateau. The easiest way to recognize a plateau is to track your strength gains in the gym. When you stop making progress on most exercises most workouts, you probably aren’t recomping anymore, so it’s time to be more deliberate with your calorie intake. (If you want to track your calories, here’s our review of the best calorie-tracking app.)

If you want a customizable workout program (and full guide) that builds on these principles, check out our Bony to Beastly (men’s) program and Bony to Bombshell (women’s) program. Or, if you’ve already gained your first 20–30 pounds, check out our Outlift Intermediate Hypertrophy Program.