Maintaining Strength During Cut

[Jeff Walker]

I am 5'9, 36 yrs old, I weigh 170 approx 15% BF.  and I want to get down to 160, possibly lower, but I don't want to sacrifice my strength as I am still working on several goals.  My TDEE comes to about 2600.  i try to eat at least 170g of protein (1g-1.25g per lb) and I try to get at least .40g-.45g of fat per lb.   I fill the rest with carbs.  

 

4 days ago, I began the cut.  I decided to try a 20% reduction which came in around 2000-2100 calories.  So for the past 3-4 days, I ate about 2000 cals and hit those macros.  My weight stayed 171 until about the 3rd day and all of a sudden it was 168.5.  

 

My split during this was bent arm, straight arm, legs, repeat.  My first bent arm workout was awesome. I set a record 11 muscleups and felt great.  My  Straight arm felt good but I started to feel tired later that day. Keep in mind,  I get up about 3:45 am and my workouts are about 1-1.5 hrs and then work a full time job.  The 3rd day Legs I felt tired and wasn't a good workout.  By the time I got to the repeat bent arm day the workout wasn't good, I felt weak and just didn't have it I only did 7 muscleups and my elbows felt sore - they just weren't ready not sure how to explain it.   So today I decided to take a day off and catch up on sleep.  

 

So I'm a little unsure if my cut was too aggressive and I need to have less of a deficit OR I need to change my split so that I have more sleep and recovery time built in OR Both.

 

I struggle with changing the split because I really don't have enough time to fit everything i want to work on rings and body weight related into one day.  After warm-up time, etc I really only have an hour.   I struggle to understand the relationship of Rings work, optimal frequency and recovery so that's why I split it up.  

 

I know there are a lot of factors here so I am just trying to share my experience and perhaps you may relate with some of it or not and give me some guidance of feedback.  

 

PS - Please don't recommend Foundation.  As I've said before, i am DOING it but since my mobility is lacking, I am using it primarily as a warm-up to work on those deficits.  The strength elements are not challenging enough to constitute my main workout.  

[Connor Davies]

When you're running a deficit you really need to make sure your nutrition is optimal.  You have less calories to play around with, so you need to get the maximum amount of nutrients that you can from each calorie.  To quote Joshua Naterman "Eat a crapton of vegetables."

 

How many rest days are you having per week?  Is it 3 days on, 1 day off?

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

(...) The strength elements are not challenging enough to constitute my main workout.  

 

Beast  B-)

[Joshua Slocum]

In general my advice is to avoid cutting because it tends to produce short-term results that take a lot of effort to maintain. Focusing on making long term changes like improving your nutrition and lifestyle tend to result in changes that stick. That said, there's nothing wrong with cutting. It can be effective at helping you drop weight. 

 

- You are going to be feeling more tired in general while cutting, since you're not giving your body enough energy to maintain itself. 

- Your recovery abilities will be impaired, for the same reason: not enough energy.

 

My recommendation would be to cut your work volume significantly. Either add a second day or rest, or cut out 1-2 sets from each exercise. 

[Jeff Walker]

Beast  B-)

If you think 5x5 of incline pushups qualifies as that, so be it.  And thanks for not referencing foundation like i asked.  

[Jeff Walker]

Thanks Josh, I didnt expect to feel it as much as I did. 

[Alexander Svensson]

If you think 5x5 of incline pushups qualifies as that, so be it.  And thanks for not referencing foundation like i asked.  

How come only 5x5?

[Michael Litsey]

It was only a 30 day experiment but I found it interesting.

 

 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22835211

 

Ketogenic diet does not affect strength performance in elite artistic gymnasts.

Paoli A, Grimaldi K, D'Agostino D, Cenci L, Moro T, Bianco A, Palma A.

Source

Physiological Laboratory - Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy. antonio.paoli@unipd.it.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Despite the increasing use of very low carbohydrate ketogenic diets (VLCKD) in weight control and management of the metabolic syndrome there is a paucity of research about effects of VLCKD on sport performance. Ketogenic diets may be useful in sports that include weight class divisions and the aim of our study was to investigate the influence of VLCKD on explosive strength performance.

METHODS:

8 athletes, elite artistic gymnasts (age 20.9 ± 5.5 yrs) were recruited. We analyzed body composition and various performance aspects (hanging straight leg raise, ground push up, parallel bar dips, pull up, squat jump, countermovement jump, 30 sec continuous jumps) before and after 30 days of a modified ketogenic diet. The diet was based on green vegetables, olive oil, fish and meat plus dishes composed of high quality protein and virtually zero carbohydrates, but which mimicked their taste, with the addition of some herbal extracts. During the VLCKD the athletes performed the normal training program. After three months the same protocol, tests were performed before and after 30 days of the athletes' usual diet (a typically western diet, WD). A one-way Anova for repeated measurements was used.

RESULTS:

No significant differences were detected between VLCKD and WD in all strength tests. Significant differences were found in body weight and body composition: after VLCKD there was a decrease in body weight (from 69.6 ± 7.3 Kg to 68.0 ± 7.5 Kg) and fat mass (from 5.3 ± 1.3 Kg to 3.4 ± 0.8 Kg p < 0.001) with a non-significant increase in muscle mass.

CONCLUSIONS:

Despite concerns of coaches and doctors about the possible detrimental effects of low carbohydrate diets on athletic performance and the well known importance of carbohydrates there are no data about VLCKD and strength performance. The undeniable and sudden effect of VLCKD on fat loss may be useful for those athletes who compete in sports based on weight class. We have demonstrated that using VLCKD for a relatively short time period (i.e. 30 days) can decrease body weight and body fat without negative effects on strength performance in high level athletes.

[Jeff Walker]

That's interesting.  anyone else have a similiar experience

[Daniel Burnham]

That study has been posted several time before. The biggest issue that I have with it is the exercises aren't that strenuous. I would have liked to see what happens to the performance of something like a ring strength series or max effort floor routine.

[Shia]

I too have just began a cut today.

 

As I am also in fear of losing strength + muscle, I have started on higher kcals and will lower weekly as necessary. There is no rush. Start at a higher intake and manipulate accordingly. If you start at 2600 and lose nothing, drop the calories.

[Jeff Walker]

I too have just began a cut today.

 

As I am also in fear of losing strength + muscle, I have started on higher kcals and will lower weekly as necessary. There is no rush. Start at a higher intake and manipulate accordingly. If you start at 2600 and lose nothing, drop the calories.

I'd be interested in hearing how you got to your numbers

[Shia]

I'd be interested in hearing how you got to your numbers

 

 

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

 

Use this and take 500 kcals off of your maintenance numbers. Weigh yourself beforehand and after a week weigh yourself again under exact same conditions (preferably first thing in the morning, after your business and before you consume anything)

 

If you lose more than 1lb a week, eat more kcals until you find the right intake

[Connor Davies]

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

 

Use this and take 500 kcals off of your maintenance numbers. Weigh yourself beforehand and after a week weigh yourself again under exact same conditions (preferably first thing in the morning, after your business and before you consume anything)

 

If you lose more than 1lb a week, eat more kcals until you find the right intake

I like this one better http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/

 

It has options!

[Rikke Olsen]

I came across this one by random, one day. It's very, very thorough (and somewhat confusing), but I really don't know if it's accurate.

 

Total Metabolic Forecaster