You Need Muscle Before You Can Show It

by YOUxTalks | Aug 8, 2025 | Lifestyle

A fundamental truth in the world of fitness and body transformation. Achieving a well-defined physique isn’t about constantly chasing low body fat or trying to “tone” muscles that aren’t there yet. It’s about building first, then revealing what you’ve built. The first phase is about creating a solid foundation of muscle mass. For this, resistance training plays a central role. Strength-based workouts, often involving compound movements like squats, deadlifts, presses, and rows, are ideal for stimulating muscle growth. During this phase, the body needs a slight caloric surplus — meaning you eat more calories than you burn. This provides the energy and nutrients your body requires to recover, grow, and adapt. Many people wrongly assume that gaining weight is bad, but in this context, gaining quality weight — mainly muscle — is the goal.

It’s important to understand that the muscle-building phase doesn’t bring instant visual results. You likely won’t look “ripped” or “shredded” while gaining muscle because some fat gain usually comes with it. But this is strategic — without a solid muscle base, cutting fat later won’t reveal much definition. That’s why building first is essential.

Once enough muscle is built, the next step is “cutting” — reducing the fat layer hiding those muscles. This requires a calorie deficit, but it’s not just about eating less. Smart cutting means high protein intake, cutting down on processed sugars, and continuing strength training to protect your gains. As body fat drops, muscles start to show — abs, veins, striations, and sharp lines become visible. You can’t reveal what you haven’t built. Many people skip the muscle-building step and end up looking skinny, not fit. Finally, this whole process takes time and consistency. Building muscle can take months or years, and cutting must be done properly to maintain hormonal balance.

Smart Ways to Burn Fat

Exercises like sprinting, burpees, jumping jacks, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) fire up your metabolism, burn calories fast, and keep your body in fat-burning mode long after the workout ends.
Sports like football, tennis, cricket, basketball, and many more not only keep the excitement alive but also help you burn serious fat while having fun — it’s cardio without feeling like cardio.

What Is Recomping?

Recomping a process stands for body recomposition — the process of losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. Trying to do both simultaneously works in some cases too. While it sounds ideal, it’s far more difficult to execute and only works effectively under certain conditions.

Beginners

Research indicates that untrained individuals experience significant muscle protein synthesis and fat loss early on — a phenomenon known as “newbie gains” The body responds quickly to resistance training, even without perfect planning.

Returning after a break

People who trained in the past and took a long break can recomp successfully due to muscle memory. Previously built muscle returns faster, allowing for simultaneous fat loss and muscle regain.

Overweight individuals

Those with high body fat have enough stored energy for their bodies to build muscle, even in a calorie deficit. Recomping is often successful for this group with proper training, protein intake, hydration, and adequate micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to support metabolic and recovery processes.

Highly optimized routines

Recomping can work for experienced trainees, but it demands strict attention to training intensity, nutrition, macronutrient timing, micronutrient sufficiency, recovery, and sleep. It’s slower, more complex, and less forgiving than traditional bulk/cut cycles.