Im working a job with a non profit, averaging seventy hours a week in the office. I have a home gym with 400 pounds of weights, a barbell, a squat rack, a pull up bar, and a bench. Im sitting at 5’7, 195, and estimated 15% bodyfat. I’d like to get under 10% this falll before working to gain more lean mass. I’ve been following the anabolic diet with good results. Given my equipment and time limitations (45 minutes to work out Monday-Saturday, longer on Sunday) what’s the best template to keep strength while losing bodyfat? I want to do built dor bad or six weks to superhero but am limited by equipment (I couldnt change the bar weight for each exercise in the given rest time). I’ve been looking at something like this:
Tuesday
Push press ramp (clean first rep)
-Push press EMOM triples for 8-12 minutes (clean first rep)
High pulls 4x6 or 4 clusters
Klokov press 3 rest pause sets
Laterals 1x20
Thursday
Squat ramp
-Squat EMOM doubles for 8-12 minutes
High pulls 4x6
Front squats 4x8
Pull ups
Saturday
Bench ramp
-Bench EMOM triples for 8-12 minutes
Bench from pins 4x6 or clusters
CG bench 4x8
High incline bench
Skullcrushers
Sunday
High pull ramp
-High pull triples EMOM 8-12 minutes
High pulls 4x6
Snatch grip deads from low pins 4x8
Pull ups
Rows
Maybe it would work for you but for me that looks like too much volume for being on a deficit. I wouldn’t bother with the straight sets of the same exercise after the EMOM stuff, nor the beach muscle work at the end. I can only offer what I would recommend myself to do…
CT just had tip today on the front page and has mentioned a few times about alternating EMOM work. I am planning to enter a deficit in a month or two and start working on getting leaner and will probably do something like…
Day 1
Squat 5x1 @85% w/ active rest
Deadlift 5x1 @85% w/ active rest
EMOM alternating between deadlift or high pull and DB bench
Loaded carry
Day 2
Bench 5x1 @85% w/ active rest
Press 5x1 @85% w/ active rest
EMOM alternating between squat or front squat and pullup or rows
Loaded carry
I’m not sure about the loaded carry, it might be too much on top of the rest. But that is based on what has worked for me in the past when I did RSS program on a deficit. On a deficit you can’t expect to gain strength from added muscle but you can get from neurological efficiency. I noticed you didn’t mention owning dumbbells but I just use handles that take weight plates and aren’t very expensive.
This is in response to clypher
Not enough volume for EMOM. He won’t maintain mass without some form of hypertrophy work and if he loses muscle after 3 weeks strength will go down.
I agree that too much volume will hurt since catabolism will exceed anabolism but you need some volume to maintain muscle. If you dont challenge yourself you will lose muscle because the body wont feel like the muscle is necessary
I actually don’t hate your plan. Is it a lot of volume? Sure. And yes you can overdo volume when trying to lose fat but you don’t have to be a wuss either.
If you do not approach training with the mindset of doing everything you can to progress in the gym, you WILL lose muscle. Those who lose muscle when dieting down tend to be those who back off too much for fer of not recovering. The people I know who keep the most muscle (or even add some) are those who pretty much train the same way they normally do when frying to lose fat.
Just a few things I would recommend.
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Keep the ramp up as short as possible.
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I would either decrease the assistance sets from 4 per exercise to 3. OR drop one assistance exercise.
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Listen to tour body… do not force yourself to go train if your body is playing catch up and you feel dead. Have the mindset that going to the gym is to progress and if you feel that you don’t at least have a shot at progressing,take some more rest.
I’m not sure if my format was clear but that was supposed to be 5 sets of 1 of each of those exercises and then 14-20 minutes of 4 rep sets with the exercises on the same line as the EMOM–which I wasn’t explicit about but what I meant when referencing the article/tip. If you thought I mean just 5 sets of 1 of each exercise for EMOM then ya, I would agree that isn’t enough.
For myself I like the looks of this as I don’t need much volume. I did RSS on a deficit for 2 months and afterwards set PRs on the big 3 that were ~10% higher than the last time I tried. I lost a bit under 10 pounds during that–BUT I will admit I didn’t get shredded… leaner, yes, but I could have made more progress on that regard. I seem to respond well to high volume for 2-3 weeks but after that I have made most progress when doing just a 3RM ramp followed by a backoff set for max reps and one or two assistance exercises after. I also seem to be lucky enough to have a pretty balanced growth from just sticking to the big compound exercises, but do incorporate more variation when mass is a high priority.
Anyway, this thread is about buttwink, pardon me.
Thanks CT! I’ll cut back to 3 sets per assistance exercise