Bulking stacks are supplement combinations that are designed to increase your body’s ability to gain mass as quickly as possible. Ideally, the majority of this mass will be muscle mass as opposed to fat.
Modeled after the bulking and cutting stacks created using anabolic steroids, a bulking stack supplement fits well into a classic bodybuilding training plan that involves cycling between phases of bulking up and cutting down.
Bulking stacks also find broad use among athletes in sports where gaining mass is an important priority, such as football and in athletes trying to move up to a higher weight class in combat sports like boxing, wrestling, and mixed martial arts.
Our research team tracked down the best bulking stack supplements for serious athletes looking to gain strength, power, and size as quickly and as effectively as possible.
Our advisory panel and our research team rank the best health products and supplements based on performance, label accuracy, and the efficacy of the ingredients in the products.
- Best overall: CrazyBulk Bulking Stack
- Crazy Muscle Bulking Stack
- Best for women: Redcon1 Moab Muscle Builder
- Best stimulant-free bulking stack: Genius Muscle Builder
- MuscleTech Clear Muscle Next Gen
Research
Rankings
Last updated: November 4, 2022
Bulking stacks considered: 18
Hours of research: 39
Experts reviewed: 6
Scientific papers referenced: 12
| IMAGE | PRODUCT | |
|---|---|---|
Best Overall  | 1. CrazyBulk Bulking Stack
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 | 2. Crazy Muscle Bulking Stack
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Best for women  | 3. Redcon1 Moab Muscle Builder
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Best stimulant-free  | 4. Genius Muscle Builder
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 | 5. MuscleTech Clear Muscle Next Gen
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 | 6. Vintage Build
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 | 7. Build-XT
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 | 8. MuscleTech Amino Build
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 | 9. Jacked Factory Growth Surge
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 | 10. Pride Nutrition Muscle Stack
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1. CrazyBulk Bulking Stack
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CrazyBulk makes a great four-part bulking stack supplement. Though the names of the supplements included (D-Bal, Testo-Max, DecaDuro, and Trenorol) are suggestive of steroids, have no fear—these are all-natural steroid alternatives.
Each supplement includes herbal extracts and biologically active compounds designed with a specific purpose in mind. For example, Decaduro includes ginseng, wild yeam, and tribulus terrestris to support high levels of anabolic hormones, while D-Bal includes whey protein, leucine, isoleucine, and valine (the three essential branched chain amino acids), which support synthesis of new muscle tissue.
CrazyBulk’s ability to address all of the important components of supporting a proper bulking cycle are what land it in the number one position.
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2. Crazy Muscle Bulking Stack
Crazy Muscle offers a four-part stack of supplements that does a great job covering all of your bases for bulking up. For supporting muscle mass and muscle repair, it offers a blend of branched chain amino acids as well as a three-part creatine supplement.
You’ll also get glutamine, which aids muscle repair, and hormone supporting compounds like milk thistle, zinc, tribulus terrestris, and saw palmetto.
These help sustain a strong anabolic environment in your body, while encouraging maximum muscle growth with minimal fat gain. The well-balanced all-around approach of Crazy Muscle is why it ended up near the top of our rankings.
3. Redcon1 Moab Muscle Builder
Redcon1 Moab is a bulking supplement that has several of the latest cutting-edge supplements for both anabolic support and muscle protein synthesis.
It features HMB, HICA, epicatechin from green tea extract, panax ginseng, and astragalus, alongside a strong dose of vitamin D3.
These ingredients provide a different approach than the usual strategy of using amino acids plus creatine for muscle strength and various herbal extracts for testosterone and growth hormone support. It’s definitely worth a shot if you want to try out the next generation of bulking stack supplements.
4. MuscleTech Clear Muscle
If run of the mill bulking stacks aren’t doing the trick for you, MuscleTech Clear Muscle Next Gen might be worth a shot. It provides a combination of HMB and betaine, which are relatively new compounds which are thought to support both muscle synthesis and an anabolic hormone environment.
Though this bulking supplement doesn’t conform to the usual distinctions between supporting muscle synthesis, an anabolic hormone environment, and augmented muscle power production, it might be worth a shot given the promising scientific research on its individual ingredients (especially HMB).
5. Vintage Build
Vintage Build borrows heavily from post-workout supplement formulations, using leucine, isoleucine, and valine (the branched chain amino acids) as well as glutamine and creatine monohydrate to support muscle synthesis and recovery following punishing workouts.
As a bulking stack, Vintage Build works best when combined with another bulking supplement that specifically targets anabolic hormone levels to optimize muscle mass gain and minimize fat gain.
6. Build-XT
Build-XT uses many of the same medicinal mushroom ingredients found in Genius Muscle, alongside a combination of astragalus root and ginseng root plus peat and apple fruit extracts, both of which are designed to boost energy levels.
The workout and hormone benefits are solid, though this supplement could use a bit more in the way of compounds that directly support muscle tissue synthesis. Fortunately, this is easy to correct by adding something like a BCAA capsule to your supplemental regimen alongside Build-XT.
7. MuscleTech Amino Build
MuscleTech makes a bulking supplement that borrows heavily from research on using amino acids for muscle repair and muscle synthesis. It includes all three branched chain amino acids, plus betaine, taurine, tart cherry, and coconut water powder for augmenting muscle recovery.
Like many of the other products on the market that focus on muscle repair and synthesis, it’s lacking a bit when it comes to ingredients to support high levels of testosterone and human growth hormone, which knocks it down a few places in the rankings. Other than that area of weakness, though, it’s a supplement for bulking cycles.
8. Novex GF-9
Novex GF-9 focuses on sustaining high androgen levels with its amino acid and herbal extract-based growth hormone support formula.
It’s a highly targeted approach that’s best-suited for people who already have supplemental sources of raw building blocks for muscle, like creatine, protein, and BCAAs, and want to top things off with growth hormone support.
9. Jacked Factory Growth Surge
Jacked Factory Growth Surge combines the utility of a post-workout supplement with the benefits of a bulking stack supplement.
This powder-form supplement gives you a hefty dose of creatine for muscle mass and muscle power, plus betaine and L-carnitine for direct improvements in muscle repair and muscle power production.
To top it off, it uses black pepper extract to improve the bioavailability of the supplemental ingredients. Though it is lacking when it comes to ingredients to support high levels of anabolic hormones, it excels at providing the necessary building blocks for muscle tissue.
10. Pride Nutrition Muscle Stack
Pride Nutrition provides a bulking stack that includes a testosterone-supporting capsule with ingredients like longjack fruit, maca root, and magnesium, as well as a liquid amino acid supplement which provides branched chain amino acids for supporting muscle protein synthesis.
While it has solid coverage of the different aspects of bulking it, it doesn’t have quite the same dosage and breadth of ingredients as some of its other competitors, which results in Pride Nutrition Elevate being further down in the rankings.
Category winners
Best bulking stack overall: CrazyBulk Bulking Stack
CrazyBulk covers all your bases: muscle growth, muscle recovery, and testosterone support, all in one supplement stack. It’s our pick for a one-stop solution for people looking for a bulking stack.
Best bulking stack for athletes: CrazyBulk Bulking Stack
It should come as no surprise that our top overall pick is also our recommendation for athletes looking to bulk up. CrazyBulk’s focus on supporting muscle recovery after tough training sessions put it in our top position when it comes to bulking stack supplements for serious athletes.
Best stimulant-free bulking stack: MuscleTech Clear Muscle
MuscleTech Clear Muscle combines free HMB with betaine in a super clean formulation that focuses on upregulating muscle growth and recovery directly–no stimulants necessary.
Best bulking stack with testosterone support: CrazyBulk Bulking Stack
The testosterone support in CrazyBulk is unparalleled thanks to its Testo-Max component of its multi-supplement stack. This testosterone support supplement provides basics like zinc and magnesium, plus cutting edge natural extracts like fenugreek, nettle leaf, and ginseng, all in service of maximizing testosterone levels during your bulking cycle.
Best bulking stack for women: Redcon1 Moab
Redcon1 Moab is great for women because it focuses on some of the aspects of muscle growth that aren’t as reliant on high levels of androgen hormones. First, it provides HMB to slow down the breakdown of protein in your body, and second, it provides both ginseng and green tea extract to oxidize fat and encourage more gains from muscle as opposed to fat.
Best bulking stack for rapid weight gain: Crazy Muscle Bulking Stack
Looking to add pounds as quickly as possible? Crazy Muscle Bulking Stack is a great option thanks to its focus on supplying all the raw ingredients you need for adding muscle. With this four-supplement combo you get branched-chain amino acids, glutamine, creatine, and testosterone support. There’s no better option for adding muscle mass in a hurry.
Who should buy a bulking stack?
Bulking stacks are designed to elevate your levels of natural anabolic hormones, and provide your body with the precursors it needs to synthesize new muscle tissue, repair damage to your muscle fibers, and control levels of hormones that inhibit muscle growth, like estrogen and cortisol. For these reasons, they’re perfect for:
Serious athletes who want to add substantial amounts of muscle mass. Many sport depend critically on raw muscular power, and the bigger you are, the better you perform. A bulking stack is a great tool to add if you’re in a sport where size matters.
People who want to gain muscle mass without gaining a lot of fat. Bulking stacks include ingredients that support androgens like testosterone and HGH that help support lean muscle and discourage fat gain. Bulking also entails putting on some fat, but a bulking stack can minimize the amount of body fat you gain, without inhibiting your overall muscle mass improvements.
Athletes and bodybuilders alternating between bulking and cutting cycles. A common training pattern among both power sport athletes and bodybuilders is to gain raw muscle mass on a bulking stack, then drop fat in a cut (possibly with the help of a cutting stack) retain strength while shedding fat mass. Bulking stacks are easily incorporated into this cyclic training pattern.
How we ranked
When we formulated our rankings of the best bulking stacks on the market, we looked at three primary criteria:
Ingredients for new muscle synthesis. To support strength gains, a bulking stack needs to support the creation of new muscle tissue inside your body.
This means including ingredients like branched-chain amino acids or BCAAs, which are the building blocks for muscle fibers, as well as other useful precursors like whey protein (which also contains BCAAs) or creatine, which aids with improving muscle size and muscle power at the same time.
Testosterone and growth hormone support. Next, we considered the extent to which each bulking stack supported high levels of testosterone and human growth hormone.
Keeping these hormone levels high is essential for gaining muscle mass, since they are such a major influence on the anabolic state of your body.
Ingredients to boost testosterone and growth hormone, from simple compounds like zinc and magnesium to more advanced herbal extracts like tribulus terrestris ginseng, and fenugreek seed, might give your body the extra boost it needs to maintain high levels of testosterone and HGH synthesis.
Compounds to augment muscle strength and power. Third, we examined whether each supplement had additional compounds that would boost the power and strength of the muscles you already have.
That includes creatine (it does double-duty, supporting muscle gains and power increases), beta-alanine, acetyl-L-carnitine, and other supplements that can boost muscular power output.
While these don’t directly contribute to gaining muscle mass, they do increase your workout performance, which indirectly leads to increased bulk by permitting higher-caliber training sessions.
Compounds that add muscle, not just body mass. We steered clear of anything that was too close to being a pure mass gainer. While mass gainers have their place as supplements, they don’t accomplish quite the same thing as a bulking stack.
Mass gainers tend to bulk you up with more fat than would be ideal if bulking and cutting cycles are your goal. Some of the products that made our rankings did include high calorie ingredients, but all of these also had strong benefits beyond just their caloric content.
Clean supplement design. Products with a lot of artificial colorings and flavoring agents, or binders and stabilizers, got moved down in the rankings or dropped completely. The top remaining products made our list of the best bulking stack supplements available right now.
Among the bulking stack supplements that met the three criteria above, we rank-ordered the remaining products according to the number of different potential benefits they provided, as well as their overall purity and supplement design.
FAQ
Q: How does a bulking stack work?
A: Bulking stacks intent to support your body’s ability to pack on extra muscle mass through three main mechanisms.
Supplying your body with precursors for muscle tissue. Usually, this means including branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) or creatine in a bulking stack supplement. These ingredients are well-known to be direct precursors for muscle synthesis.
Maintaining high levels of testosterone and human growth hormone. These hormones encourage muscle growth and discourage the deposition of additional body fat. Thus, high levels of these anabolic hormones encourages a good bulking phase that packs on a lot of muscle and minimal fat.
Improving your workout performance. This happens by including compounds like beta-alanine, glutamine, and creatine (which has a dual function as a direct precursor for muscle mass). All three of these compounds improve strength and power, helping to enhance your workouts.
Q: How is a bulking stack different from a cutting stack?
A: In short, bulking stacks are designed for putting on muscle mass, while minimizing body fat gain. In contrast, a cutting stack is designed for decreasing body fat, while minimizing loss of muscle mass.
Many of the ingredients used in bulking stacks are not found in cutting stacks, since their goals are quite opposite, but one exception is with compounds designed to boost testosterone and human growth hormone levels. Interestingly, these anabolic hormones support the goals of both bulking and cutting.
The direct connection with bulking is obvious, but high levels of anabolic hormones can minimize muscle loss during cutting, and even encourage burning off body fat. This feature is beneficial during cutting, since burning fat is a primary objective, but is also useful during bulking because it minimizes body fat gains through a mechanism that does not affect overall metabolism (which could interfere with bulking).
Q: Do bulking stacks boost your testosterone levels?
A: Boosting or at least maintaining testosterone levels is one of the primary goals of a bulking stack supplement. Ingredients like tribulus terrestris, horny goat weed, ginseng, and fenugreek seed extract all aim to boost testosterone levels, and are commonly found in bulking stacks.
Even simple mineral ingredients like zinc and magnesium find their way into bulking stacks, thanks to research indicating that lower levels of these minerals are associated with lower levels of testosterone.
While the changes in testosterone levels that are attainable from a bulking stack aren’t going to be anywhere near what you’d get with testosterone cream or testosterone injections, they are legal and available without a prescription. To the extent that higher levels of testosterone boost muscle mass gains and limit body fat accumulation, they are very helpful in the context of a bulking cycle.
Q: How long should a bulking stack last?
A: Most bodybuilding experts suggest spending at least four to six weeks on a bulking cycle, during which you’d take a bulking stack. This lines up with most research on resistance training and supplementation, which usually involves studies with a duration of at least eight to twelve weeks.
It takes several weeks to get real gains in muscle mass, and the process of muscle accumulation is relatively slow.
So, you need to sustain an anabolic hormonal state and have protein available for muscle synthesis for a long time (on the order of several weeks) if you are going to encourage your body to substantially increase its muscle mass.
Bulking cycles are sometimes set not for a specific period of time, but for a specific amount of weight (e.g. adding 15 pounds). This strategy is more common among athletes in sports with specific weight categories, like bodybuilding and mixed martial arts. Usually these plans also involve cutting to a specified weight after the bulking cycle ends.
Related articles
- Cutting stack
- Mass gainer
- Creatine
- Fat burners for men
- Natural steroid alternatives
- Estrogen blocker
- Pre-workout supplement
- Intra-workout supplement
- Post-workout supplement
Recap
For serious athletes looking to add muscle mass as quickly as possible, a bulking stack supplement can help you optimize your bulking phase.
By providing your body with compounds that increase muscle power and recovery, assist with synthesis of new muscle tissue, and support an anabolic hormonal profile in your body, bulking stack supplements aim to provide your body with the compounds it needs for maximal muscle mass gain and minimal body fat increases.
Of course, bulking stacks are meant to be used alongside a rigorous training program to increase your muscle mass, plus a diet regimen that’s replete with enough calories and protein content to support the raw increase in mass that you’re looking for. When used alongside a well planned bulking cycle, a bulking stack might be just what you need for maximum gains.
For BodyNutrition’s #1 bulking stack recommendation, click here.
