The importance of muscle tension when dieting

Random thought for you about training during a fat loss phase.

Your primary use of exercise during these phases is to preserve muscle. I think most people apply exercise incorrectly during a fat loss phase.

They either think they're going to go sprouting tons of muscle while in a negative energy balance (you're not).

Following this logic, they throw tons of volume at their bodies. Never mind the fact that when calories are down, recovery ability is down. A deficit, in and of itself, is a stress on the body. And they tend to be a little more emotionally stressed, as is, simply because they're fretting over their weight, diet, etc. But then you go and nuke your body with all this volume and wonder why you're not getting the response you're after.

Or they believe the primary function of exercise during a fat loss phase is to burn calories (it's not in most situations). It's this latter idea that I want to talk about most. When I start hinting that the primary role of exercise during a deficit is NOT to burn calories... people tend to look at me with confusion. Especially this day and age where everything is about calories in vs. calories out.

Here's the thing...

Nutrition and cardio are for fat loss.

Training is for muscle preservation while being in a deficit.

That's the primary way I see things.

I mean... there are no absolutes... but I find that laying it out there like this causes people to really check their own absolutes.

You have to be cognizant of the following:

While dieting, your body's trying to adjust to the stress of being in a deficit. One of the ways it accomplishes this is by trying to decrease muscle to adjust metabolic rate down towards your new caloric intake. Your body's in a constant state of striving for homeostasis.

Remember, muscle is expensive to keep around, calorically speaking. In the light of a calorie deficit, extra muscle doesn't look very appealing to keep around from your body's "perspective." As long as it has sufficient muscle to run, jump, and chuck a spear at a saber tooth tiger... that's all it really "cares" about.

I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in being a lighter, softer version of myself. You have to give your body a reason to keep the muscle you have while being in a deficit. It's for this reason that during times of negative energy balance, my primary consideration on the exercise front is keeping adequate tension on the muscles. This will send the signal to hold onto it and thus provide the results you're after from a body comp perspective.

Tension = weight on the bar.

This is counterintuitive since most people use exercise as a calorie sink when dieting. In an attempt to destroy their fat... they go, go, go. High volume, lots of reps, low weight, lots of cardio. And therefore low tension.

Not the greatest recipe for muscle maintenance.

I will say this...

All of this is very context dependent. If you've never trained before... then any movement is likely going to be sufficient in sending a muscle maintenance response. But if your muscles are accustomed to loading, the last thing you want to do is to lessen or remove that loading once you invoke a deficit.

Also, the more fat you have, the more "protected" you are from a muscle loss perspective.

Something to chew on.