At this point I really have no clue what my goals are and how I should be training. I guess this is somewhat of a “cut or bulk” thread. My goals are not major hypertrophy and big muscles but rather strength gains while slimming down. I’m not really fat but I jiggle and have extra fat everywhere that I would most importantly like to get rid of.
6’1 185 lbs and probably around 15-18% bodyfat.
I’ve been lifting with doing the occasional cardio but I feel like I am approaching my goals the wrong way. I eat a pretty fair amount – probably around 3000 clean calories – but I don’t know if I should be eating more to help with muscle growth or less to cut the fat. Also, I don’t know if I should be doing cardio or am I shooting myself in the foot if I try to do cardio while weight training.
While I already know the answers to most these questions, I still really find myself confused with what path to take. I just hate the fat around my stomach and upper chest an want to get rid of it…I’m just nervous I’ll be way to skinny by doing so.
There are lots of articles here to help with your questions. However, I would suggest a diet of frequent meals of about a 40/30/30 split 6-7 times daily. Lift, hydrate, rest.
Cleaning up your diet is the greatest step you can take. Keep eating at your current level. IF your lucky, you’ll drop some fat and gain some muscle, while developing healthy eating patterns, so that when you DO decide to cut or bulk, you’ll be able to do so more efficiently.
If you’re looking for strength gains on a modest diet, I recommend rippetoes. I’ve been cutting, and my strength is still going up (albiet slowly).
Drop the cardio, add in a HIIT session. It improves VO2 faster, doesn’t affect strength levels, and is a hell of a lot more fun than jogging.
Personally, I like to do it on off days, so for a 3 day a week program like Rippietoe’s (Monday, Wed, Fri) I’ll add HIIT on Tuesday and Thursday. At the very least, do it after your workout so you don’t tire yourself out before lifting. 10 minutes is a good starting point, but you can go longer. Try adding a minute each week until you hit 15-20 minutes. I wouldn’t go much over that.
I’m kind of in the same boat actually…kind of on the edge as to whether I should cut/bulk. Right now I decided to go the cutting route, trying to get down to 11/12% (I started at 16%) and then bulking up. Even though I know bulking is going to bother the hell out of me as i’ll probably have to still carry around a bit of stomach fat, I know that if i cut any further i’ll just look skinny more than anything else and my strength won’t go up as much. So it’ll be good in the long term.
I dunno, Otep. I think the right HIIT program could actually improve strength.
I absolutely agree with doing HIIT instead of cardio, though. A lot less time consuming with better results.
There is no proof that you can’t gain muscle while losing fat. If you do too much cardio, it will affect muscle growth, but if you do the right amount of high intensity training, you’ll burn a lot more calories (while resting) without affecting Testosterone and GH levels.