This is a big big topic. And one I get asked about ALL the time. I’ve addressed a few of these issues/items before, but I thought “What the Hell?”……summer is upon us, people are gonna start trying to shed some of their winter coat, and so let’s try and avoid some big costly mistakes.
These 4 Tips don’t necessarily constitute an exhaustive list, but they do cover 4 big categories: Strategic Programming, Session Programming, Diet, and Cardio.
Let’s start with Strategic Programming.
Strategic programming refers to the broader goal / philosophy/ structure of your programming. The key point to examine here is HOW is progression accomplished across weeks or months.
The biggest mistake people make is to follow programming that linearly increases in stress across a given amount of time. Let’s arbitrarily say 12 weeks, since that might be an appropriate amount of time to shed 10-20 lbs worth of body fat which is a common goal.
During those 12-weeks of steadily reduced caloric intake, you should probably avoid following a program that steadily increases stress. Reducing calories is never a recipe for getting stronger. So do not follow programming that literally asks you – demands of you – to get stronger over the next 12 weeks.
If right now, you are 225 lbs and Squat 315 x 5. Do not expect to be 205 lbs and Squatting 335 x 5 12 weeks from now. This is a BIG ASK for your body. Potentially an impossible ask.
The exception might be if you are extremely overweight. In certain cases the reduction of 10, 20, or even 50 lbs of body weight isn’t actually that detrimental. Let’s say your body fat percentage is north of 30% or more……then 10% drop in bodyweight may not affect you that much….but it still might. It’s hard to say with certainty as these things tend to be highly individually responsive. There is too much individual variance for me to be able to come up with any “rules.” But in general, if you are very heavy, you can usually get away with more and not lose strength, or even improve strength.
For the rest of you though, who just want to drop a few inches off that winter beer gut…….it’s better to follow programming that can be auto-regulated day to day for the duration of your cut.
What do I mean by auto-regulated? I mean that you follow a system that allows for some variance in performance day to day. During a prolonged cut, training will mostly likely decline over, say a 12 week period, but not necessarily linearly.
My preference is to follow a system that auto-regulates in the direction of allowing you to be maximally aggressive with your efforts, but doesn’t necessarily box you into concrete set/rep/weight goals at each session.
For strength athletes I prefer something like the Conjugate / Westside system which I have detailed in several previous articles. For physique oriented athletes I prefer something like a rotating linear progression using a top set / back off set methodology. Again, in previous articles on this blog I have addressed rotating linear progressions and how to use a top set / back off set approach.
Both these systems allow for the athlete to go maximally HARD at every session. But if maximally hard isn’t a great performance – so be it. You took what was there on that day.
I much prefer this approach to something like RPE / RIR based systems which ask the athlete to cautiously approach the workout and stay within the boundaries of a set RPE / RIR. One, I don’t find these systems to be very accurate (especially with athletes on a deficit where everything feels like shit) and it tends to promote very tentative training as opposed to aggressive training.
For max retention of muscle mass during a cut – my preferred approach is to keep volume low and relative intensity very high.
This somewhat dovetails into the next tip that has to do with Session Programming.
Session programming is basically just how you the strategic approach is implemented and/or organized on a day to day basis.
As I mentioned, I prefer a lower volume, higher relative intensity approach to training on a cut and one of the main reasons for this is to keep session length SHORT.
There is literally no reason to be in the gym 90-120 minutes while cutting. Workouts should be short and intense. Focus should be narrow. I do not like full body sessions on a cut. My preference is some sort of upper/lower split or a body part split. With the focus being on 1 main lift and perhaps a handful of assistance movements.
Energy supplies are reduced during a cut. You have less fuel to use for training and you have less fuel to use for recovery.
Don’t unnecessarily burn up calories and drive up Cortisol levels with long, drawn out, high volume workouts while cutting. This isn’t good for fat loss or muscle retention.
Remember, the goal during a cut is not to maintain your “peak” strength on every lift. Your peak is your peak. By definition, you cannot maintain your peak when nutrition is less than optimal. Your goal is to maintain your muscle mass!!! This is NOT the same thing. And muscle mass can be maintained with a bit less work than what it took to build it. So a handful of very high quality, very high effort sets for each muscle group is likely going to be enough to maintain that muscle mass.
Programming that works in conjunction with a cut can be found in my online programming group, The Baker Barbell Club.
We have 3 tracks to follow.
The Basic Barbell Track,
The Conjugate Track,
Body Building Track.
The latter two can be used effectively while cutting weight. Both are auto-regulated, and both will allow you to continue to train hard, even when calories are reduced.
Part 2 coming next week………
