Lifting Heavy and cutting

mathjulz

I recently started lifting heavy weights (and I love it!!)

My goal right now is to reduce body fat (cut). I know that I need to eat at a deficit to do this. My question is, should I lift differently for cutting? Do I change weight, reps/set, or sets, or can I continue to lift the same regardless?

I'm 35 year old female, 5'0" 132 lbs, and around 26% bf (by the handheld thing at the gym … not the most accurate but the best I have). Currently I'm lifting 5 sets of 5 reps each.

knot_enough

i am no expert. but, a good way to decrease body fat is to increase muscle size. Generally working in the 8-12 rep range and probably decreasing the amount of weight you are working with so that you can get those reps in. I'd say 4 or 5 sets of 8-12 reps is great for muscle hypertrophy.

Chief_Rocka

Don't change anything, you're doing exactly the right thing.

Your goal while cutting is to maintain as much muscle as possible. This is best accomplished by maintaining (or increasing, if possible) the mount that you can lift. Since you're knew to lifting, you will be able to see some pretty significant strength increases despite a caloric deficit.

michail71

Are you on any specific lifting program?

Typically if you are an experienced lifter you want to stay heavy and reduce volume.

However, since you are new to lifting you have the ability to gain muscle while reducing fat if your deficit isn't too harsh. The body fat will help fuel the growth. This doesn't last forever but you should be able to run that for several months.

The best advice to to stick to a routine such as Strong Lifts or Starting Strength as written. This means sticking to the progression laid out by the program. Keep a modest deficit 200-300 calories and get lots of protein. Probably for you that would be 132+ grams at a minimum.

tonynguyen75

General trend is to continue on a 5x5 program for your big compound lifts for as long as possible. Eventually during your cut you'll run into the point where you can no longer lift as much as you used to when you started your cut. When you start to decline in your strength, you can go ahead and lower the reps by 1 or 2 and do 5 reps, 5 reps, 4 reps, 4 reps, 4 reps or something similar. Try to maintain the same weight as your strength is lost. This is what most consider the best way to maintain LBM.

mathjulz

Thanks for the responses!

I should clarify that, while the heavy lifting thing is new for me (the 5 sets of 5), I am not really new to lifting. I've lifted quite a bit before, but was always in the 3 sets of 12 kind of thing. It's been a few years, but a lot of the muscle memory is still there, as well as much of the strength (I think I was up to 90-95 lbs bench press before, and I'm at 90 now, but different set composition; I never used weights with squats, etc, before, but I squatted 95 lbs today).

I'll keep with what I'm doing as long as I feel good, then. I want to get stronger, as well as reducing bf%, so I know I'll probably need to do a refeed/eat at maintenance before I hit my weight, body fat goals. And that's okay

tonynguyen75

If you're interested, you can experiment with reverse dieting as opposed to refeed/jumping back to maintenance. I've heard good things from it, however, haven't done it myself yet.

No_Finish_Line

the point of resistance training while eating to loose wieght is to retain the muscle you have.

I'd say you can accompish that by continuing lifting as you are.

But if you wanted to do something like circuit training or something more high volume/higher intensity to burn more calories while doing your resistance training, it MAY work just as well to retain existing muslce mass.

remember that how much you can lift and how much muscle mass you have are by no means a one-to-one ratio.

most of what i read now a days actually says that high volume training is actually better then low reps/high weight for hypertrophy. obviously low reps/high weight being better to increase strength

kdiamond

I agree with the others, you're doing the right thing. However, when I do a cut I tend to stick to the 8-12 rep range, simply because I lose a bit of strength when cutting...that's me personally though.

emirror

Bumping to see answers.

michail71

Thanks for the responses!

I should clarify that, while the heavy lifting thing is new for me (the 5 sets of 5), I am not really new to lifting. I've lifted quite a bit before, but was always in the 3 sets of 12 kind of thing. It's been a few years, but a lot of the muscle memory is still there, as well as much of the strength (I think I was up to 90-95 lbs bench press before, and I'm at 90 now, but different set composition; I never used weights with squats, etc, before, but I squatted 95 lbs today).

I'll keep with what I'm doing as long as I feel good, then. I want to get stronger, as well as reducing bf%, so I know I'll probably need to do a refeed/eat at maintenance before I hit my weight, body fat goals. And that's okay

From a lifting perspective, especially for switching to a strength program, you can consider yourself new. Being new means your body can make rapid gains, even while dropping some fat. The muscle memory should kick in rather quickly but if you didn't squat heavy before you're in for a treat. Squats and deadlifts hit the entire body and strengthen the core.

michail71

most of what i read now a days actually says that high volume training is actually better then low reps/high weight for hypertrophy. obviously low reps/high weight being better to increase strength

True, but I think it usually better to start off with a strength program before tackling hypertrophy. For a novice to intermediate lifter on a strength program there will be hypertrophy gains too.

I'm doing Wendler 5/3/1 right now. It finishes off with some volume training as an accessory. That's a killer after the high intensity work. But I just started a cut so I've dropped the volume work.