Can't Build Muscle while at a Deficit - Revisited

aelunyu

In the end, like I said, inputs vs outputs.

Assuming you have already trained for a while, the logic remains..

1 pound of food to 1 pound of muscle. The in-betweens are for your body to figure out. but you CANNOT gain a pound of mass without a pound of input. You may be able to convert a portion of stored mass to muscle, but then it would not result in a weight change within yourself...you can't create something out of nothing.

TheMattyExperiment

I'm not new to lifting, I've been in a caloric deficit for nearly 2 months and I've lost about 5 lbs while somehow managing to increase 1/4" on my arms and breaking PR's.

Don't believe the BS out there, It's been proven that experienced lifters can and do build new muscle tissue while on a caloric deficit naturally without the aid of "special" supplements. So long as you're training intelligently and intensely enough to promote growth, and you're providing the necessary macros for the body to build new lean tissues.

Hypertrophy is the body adapting and becoming more efficient in lifting the weight... I'm not really sure where people were going with this comment. In fact, you technically should be getting weaker because you're losing weight and therefore leverage in your lifts. This biomechanical (PHYSICS) fact proves that you must be gaining muscle or else a ghost is helping you lift the weights......... :huh:

mmapags

I'm not new to lifting, I've been in a caloric deficit for nearly 2 months and I've lost about 5 lbs while somehow managing to increase 1/4" on my arms and breaking PR's.

Hypertrophy is the body adapting and becoming more efficient in lifting the weight... I'm not really sure where people were going with this comment. In fact, you technically should be getting weaker because you're losing weight and therefore leverage in your lifts. This biomechanical (PHYSICS) fact proves that you must be gaining muscle or else a ghost is helping you lift the weights......... :huh:

Congrats on the results. You do seem a little confused though. This:
"Hypertrophy is the body adapting and becoming more efficient in lifting the weight"
is neuromuscular adaptatiion. Hypertrophy is the increasing of muscle sze. This may or not relate to an increase in weight. There are 2 types of hypertrophy, Myofibirl and Sarcoplasmic. There is detailed explanations here:
http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/hypertrophy-and-muscle-growth.html

You are confusing strength gains, (neuromuscular adaptations) with muscle sze gains (hypertrophy). The physiology doesn't change just because you don't agree with it. Of course this explanation won't change your mind I'm guessing.

ninerbuff

The fact that on a deficit you can, grow your hair, heal wounds and repair muscle, tells you you body can make cells while on a deficit. A healing wound and building of muscle is the same biological process.

This is an interesting comment. Isn't muscle hypertrophy a response to microtrauma to the muscle cells? Why would the body be able to create scar tissue, skin cells, bone cells, scabs, blood cells, etc. after a traumatic event but not muscle?

It's very simple really. The body cares about survival above all else. So it will repair your wounds to your skin and to your muscles because that's a matter of survival. However, it will not CREATE new muscle mass when you're not even taking in enough calories to survive (ie: caloric deficit). It doesn't WANT to pull from your fat reserves but it will to keep you living. Muscle is expensive to create and maintain, and in a deficit your body will prioritize repairs and general survival over giving you more mass.

Make no mistake, in a deficit even simple things like healing from bruises and cuts will take longer. Even your immune system can and will be compromised. Recovery from workouts is significantly impacted. I've noticed this first hand, myself. You're basically starving yourself in a controlled manner to force your body to utilize your fat reserves. Everything slows down as a result.

Couldn't have said it better.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

aelunyu

Sigh. More bro science. More my arms grew. That's sarco. It's water and plasma filling out your muscle. No one said you can't get stronger on a deficit. But strength is not only related to muscle, it's related to nerves as well.

You cannot make these wild logical leaps...as it makes your case extremely fickle:

A ghost does not have to lift weights for me in a deficit. I can hit PRs too...you're not special. That's not me (or you) gaining muscle. It's us reaching into some dark spot in my soul and forcing my nerves to recruit more fiber than I'm used to. Or in the more moderate case, it's us allowing and planning for progression to path linearly upward while slowly tapering our calories down into a deficit.

Yes..nerves are responsible for how much fiber we recruit....the average human does not use most of their fiber. An "experienced" bodybuilder uses much more via nervous system and kinetic chain conditioning. Breaking PRs on a deficit or cut is a must. At least for the first duration before the deficit gets extreme. I do not have the delusion that I'm gaining muscle. I

You can be in a moderate deficit and have homeostasis track down to meet your new intake. Once you want to get to contest shape, you will understand that maintaining 100% strength is improbable. You'll be lucky to be 85% at 7% bodyfat. People vary on this, but the MOST genetically gifted individuals I have seen can only put up 90% or so of their offseason lifts, once they dip below the 10% barrier. That's not to say you can't maintain sub 10% and start to slowly put on muscle, but you'd have to eat at a surplus to do it...

TheMattyExperiment

I'm not new to lifting, I've been in a caloric deficit for nearly 2 months and I've lost about 5 lbs while somehow managing to increase 1/4" on my arms and breaking PR's.

Hypertrophy is the body adapting and becoming more efficient in lifting the weight... I'm not really sure where people were going with this comment. In fact, you technically should be getting weaker because you're losing weight and therefore leverage in your lifts. This biomechanical (PHYSICS) fact proves that you must be gaining muscle or else a ghost is helping you lift the weights......... :huh:

Congrats on the results. You do seem a little confused though. This:
"Hypertrophy is the body adapting and becoming more efficient in lifting the weight"
is neuromuscular adaptatiion. Hypertrophy is the increasing of muscle sze. This may or not relate to an increase in weight. There are 2 types of hypertrophy, Myofibirl and Sarcoplasmic. There is detailed explanations here:
http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/hypertrophy-and-muscle-growth.html

You are confusing strength gains, (neuromuscular adaptations) with muscle sze gains (hypertrophy). The physiology doesn't change just because you don't agree with it. Of course this explanation won't change your mind I'm guessing.

I understand and respect what you're saying, but what you are talking about pertains more to beginners and powerlifters. "weight lifters" train their CNS in such a way that the body becomes more efficient in lifting the weight and not necessarily gaining muscle (hypertrophy). Having said this, neuromuscular adaptations will occur simultaneously with hypertrophy regardless of the way you train. Training like a powerlifter will have less of an effect on hypertrophy than say bodybuilding does because of the time under tension, etc. but there will still be hypertrophy no matter how minor an increase.

I get challenged all the time on this but my own personal strength and size increases on a deficit are proving otherwise. I also only train with one set to failure on 3-5 exercises... once per week.... and PhD Exercise Scientists tell me that I won't gain any appreciable results doing this. Maybe this is bro science (even though I'm in HKIN) but science isn't exact, it's just a guideline we humans use to try and better understand the world in which we live. Many if not all studies are slightly biased and do not count the outliers. The fact that there even are outliers proves it's not exact.

As for losing strength when dipping below the 10% bf... that's a bit of bro science right there if I'm not mistaken (just giving you a hard time aelunyu) . I'm by no means a genetic freak, I'm obviously natty, and I have made serious strength gains at roughly 6-7% bf while in a caloric deficit. Although I do train quite unorthodox and allow my body plenty of recovery time. If I were to get even lower body fat % I would imagine losing strength only because I would be so dehydrated (Since muscle is I believe 75% water).

Btw that's one hell of a sarco gain if my arms grew 1/4" while I simultaneously lost 5 lbs and got leaner? I'm not training any differently so what's going on?

Cp731

Random Dancing.....





Thread blocking.............................................................:huh:

NovemberJune

I see skinny dudes at the gym all the time eating about 1200 calories a day and gaining muscle. It's totally possible. Not probable, but possible.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

But if you see it all the time, it makes it sound probable....? But I guess you see a large sample of people so even seeing it happen all the time is still a very small %....?

I was being sarcastic. If they were gaining muscle, they wouldn't be skinny! My point was there are lots of skinny guys at the gym that think to get buffed, that all they have to do is lift weights and still eat the same. Most don't know how to eat in actual calorie surplus.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Doh sorry I thought you meant they were skinny then gained muscle and became un-skinny. I get it now.