Yay muscles

BoxerBrawler

The day my company put all of us on remote working I panicked because I wouldn't be able to get to my boxing gym on the reg! Luckily the entire gym went virtual/live with all of the workouts. Only thing missing was actual sparring/fighting. When that happened I decided F it, I am going to go for strength and building, give up the cardio and put on some muscle. So I've spent the last 6 months, give or take a day, lifting, eating, growing. It's fabulous and I like how things worked out. I've kept up on my fight skills but focused mainly on strength. As of today I've decided to cut and I'm sure looking forward to my muscles really popping but I'm super addicted to lifting. So here's the question - do I just change up my lifting routine? keep lifting for strength? add cardio? eat less? Clearly I've got to cut out some calories but I don't want to lose strength in the process. Any advice is good. Thanks!

steveko89

Keep lifting, go for a mild-moderate deficit and make sure you're getting sufficient protein (~0.8g/lb bodyweight is typically recommended). We've got a pretty decent thread going on the subject as well: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10661905/anyone-cutting-after-a-bulk#latest

BoxerBrawler

Thanks! My problem is always super fast weight loss. I tend to go aggressively on everything I do so I'm glad you mentioned mild-moderate. I have to keep that in mind.

steveko89

No problem.

From a peer-reviewed study on bodybuilding prep that I've used as a macro guide with positive results:

The popularity of natural bodybuilding is increasing; however, evidence-based recommendations for it are lacking. This paper reviewed the scientific literature relevant to competition preparation on nutrition and supplementation, resulting in the following recommendations. Caloric intake should be set at a level that results in bodyweight losses of approximately 0.5 to 1%/wk to maximize muscle retention. Within this caloric intake, most but not all bodybuilders will respond best to consuming 2.3-3.1 g/kg of lean body mass per day of protein, 15-30% of calories from fat, and the reminder of calories from carbohydrate.
Source:https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-11-20

For my n=1, 1% is awfully aggressive and problematic for adherence. I do well at -500/day or less, which tracks just about 0.5% /wk loss rate for my size. Over the last 30 days I've averaged about 2.82 g/kg lean body mass, which is probably overkill but works out pretty well for me. March-July, eating this amount of protein and averaging just slightly above my TDEE I've actually lost a net 4 lbs on the scale and leaned out going from ~15% body fat to <12% in a recomp. If I'd been more diligent about my calories (as is my intent now) I could've gotten leaner over that span.

Chieflrg

I would run more hypertrophy based than strength if you are cutting weight. It will be more efficient retaining muscle loss during the caloric deficit.

Also eat a bit more protien than during a muscle building phase for same reason. Target just over 1g per lb bw.

Nothing wrong with aggressive weight loss if you have a lot to lose. In your case, I would just run .5lb a week on average.

Mellouk89

Chieflrg wrote: »

I would run more hypertrophy based than strength if you are cutting weight.

What is the key difference between the two? Are we talking about the number of reps? Time under tension?

Because on several occasions my performance has increased while on a cut, and I wasn't a newbie. Maybe it has to do with the nervous system idk.

Chieflrg

Generally speaking volume increases and full recruitment of muscle motors is desired.

How that is achieved has to do with the sensitivity of the individual to training and programming in relation to that individual.

There are many ways to accomplish this.

Increasing performances while ncreasing volume at the appropriate avg intensity is very common I Personally see that quite often from athletes that I program as well as myself.

How long someone can maintain that has many factors. And yes the CNS plays a part in load management but isn't the only factor.