Assuming you're not a complete beginner to working out and assuming you already have a solid foundation of muscle, how exactly does one go about gaining muscle without putting on any body fat?

Is it possible or does everyone need to get fat when bulking?

Well I'm here to tell you today that it is indeed possible to put on muscle with as little fat as possible.

How do you do it?

Calorie cycling, baby!

Most normal muscle building diets involve eating in a caloric surplus everyone single day. But the truth is that on the days you don't workout, the calories get stored as fat.

So the best days to eat in a surplus are on your workout days. By overeating only on your workout days, you ensure that the extra calories are utilized to rebuild your muscles to become bigger and stronger since they were already stimulated by the weight training. 

However when you're resting, your muscle fibers are not being torn apart by the weights and thus you have no need for the extra calories.

And how many calories should you eat? You should eat at a 500 surplus on your training days. But don't worry, this number is adjustable. I would just start off at 500 calories to be safe, and you can adjust down by 50 calories per week if you begin to put on too much fat.

On your off days, you should eat at your maintenance levels. By doing so you're ensuring that you don't gain fat on your off days and any weight you do gain is pure muscle lean muscle tissue .

But I must warn you, with calorie cycling don't expect the scale to go up very quickly. Traditional bulking diets have you eating big every day, but with calorie cycling you're only eating big on workout days.

While this approach to eating is slower than traditional bulking, you does ensure that you will gain as little body fat as possible. An when it comes time to dieting, you really won't have much fat to lose.