here’s a question for you guys who have done really long, slow cuts into a contest prep:
Do you feel you added any muscle, despite being in a slight deficit?
Thinking about my cut next year, I also want to try and bring up my lats but I’m not sure if the two goals are at odds with one another.
Personally, I’d argue I was able to improve my delts by hitting them twice a week a targeting high days around their workouts, during my prep.
This is from 6 weeks out, to the morning of the show, first thing in the morning. Outside of a vast difference in leanness, I’d say they look bigger the morning of the show versus 6 weeks out.
This is on stage, so a pump was there as well + carbing up, but you can see a difference in the roundness/development of the muscle.
Just my opinion
Also, in regards of who I listen to, or who others listen to, with the advent of the internet, there sure are a lot of non-bodybuilders telling BBers what works and what they should be doing.
Here’s Jason Blaha telling us pre-exhaust isn’t beneficial. I guess I forgot the memo and somehow am an anomoly being pre-exhaust and exercise sequencing were all out game changers for me, a rather ordinary guy. I guess Meadows, Mentzer, and Dorian missed out as well!
Who to listen to? In the first picture are researchers, two of whom have admirably competed one in bodybuilding and one in physique (WNBF physique, that is, nothing to sneeze at). In the second picture is one guy whose advice I keep recommending, Tom Venuto.
Interpret this post how one likes to. I seriously don’t mean anything ill-intended here as I do think guys in both flicks are all good people, but I also won’t say anything else in this post either.
Yes, I brought up my lats, upper pecs, and delts but that’s likely because of simply radically changing my training and being more consistent than ever!
I wouldn’t count on it though.
A year is enough to see a change before a cut. If you’re not competing why not cut sooner?
Cut starts Jan/Feb kind of time. I’ve reached the maximum level of fatness that I’m comfortable with
your question made me go through my phone gallery. left photo is from august 2014, 87 kgs. right photo is from march or april 2015. i am about 74 kgs there. i dont know if its an illusion created by lower body fat but i think i may have put on some lat size while losing 13 kgs. ( also arm size )
It took me relearning the shrug movement using dumbbells at my sides (not in front) to relaly engage the traps rather than moving my shoulders up and down with heavy weight in the front.
Along the lines of the other guys who responded, I do think it’s possible to improve on a muscle group while in a deficit. I think the whole “you can only improve a muscle group when in a caloric surplus” has some wiggle room in it. I think especially in the first half of a cut, it’s still possible to gain some muscle and improve. Once you get to the nitty gritty last 8 weeks or so and you’re doing cardio every day and all that, I think the body is too overworked and depleted to grow, but you shouldn’t be losing any muscle if you’re doing it right.
So if lats are your focus, it might be a good idea to hit them twice a week (if you’re not already) OR break up your back workout into 2 sessions, one for thickness and one for width (I’m doing this currently and loving it.) You can keep this up during your cut to ensure you build as much as possible and don’t lose anything in your lats. If the cut is done properly, slow and steady, you should be good to go and not lose any muscle at all.
I recently took on more clients, one is competing and 3 are not but just want to get diced. All of them want to rush to make adjustments (which was my tendency as well when I started working with Stu) and it’s important to make sure adjustments are made slowly and after carefully evaluating if they’re really necessary to ensure you won’t lose any hard earned mass.
This is more of a statement to keep conversation going (as opposed to “I’m clueless and looking for actual advice”). I have my own definite opinions on what I’m about to bring up, but I’m curious what every one else thinks:
When splitting your back workout (as Rob’s quote says), do you have one day for rowing and one day for vertical work? Or do you subscribe to the theory that “build it thick enough and the width just happens”? Are there supporters for the wide-grip-rows-build-wide-backs concept? For someone just beginning their training career, which is more important: Width of thickness?
I’m not looking for specifics for myself…just a question to allow training philosophies to be discussed.
well I personally don’t find I get much lat activation from rows, so I need to think in terms of width and thickness exercises.
EDIT: and width = vertical, thickness = horizontal
Back workouts are one of the few things I feel confident enough to give advice to anyone on. Wide grip back exercises are always a bad thing if you are trying to develop the Rhomboids or lats for bodybuilding purposes. (Perhaps there are other reasons to do it?) Wide grips take aways the stretch at the beginning of the exercise. Take a look at what a static stretch looks like for back muscles and you will understand.
Most people that have two back days do it not because they need help developing their upper-back, but because they need to develop their lats. And the reason for that is simply that they do not activate their lats during their back workout. I have written on that topic in the past many times so I do not feel the need to repeat it. I will add though, that when I show people how to activate their lats, even people who have been training for decades, they all tell me that they have never felt it before. For those of you wondering, activating the lats ought to be felt in the position of the lats that covers the lower back, NOT where your Teres Minor is.
Good topic of discussion! I think width and thickness are both important, and the average back workout hits both with rowing variations and vertical pull variations. I don’t think my back is a weak point in thickness or width, but I prefer splitting it up into two sessions for the same reason I split up legs into two sessions for hams and quads, it’s a very large muscle grouping and I don’t want whatever I’m doing towards the end of my workout to lose out on any potential gains because I’m already wiped out. I split it up as one for thickness and one for width so I can go hard on those muscle groups, rather than hitting both in both sessions.
On my “thickness” workout, it’s all rowing variations. Bent over barbell row, t-bar row, 1 arm dumbbell rows, hammer strength low row and seated cable row. “Width” workout is weighted pull-ups, close grip pulldowns, straight arm rope pulldowns and double handle cable pulldowns.
Not necessarily. I used to think so, until @The_Mighty_Stu told me to try using close grip neutral position for pulldowns, and I really felt it in my lats more than with a wide grip. Rowing variations I think it’s important to vary grip and not prescribe to just one, like wide grip. Just an example, on my barbell rows I’m supinated, T-bar row is neutral, 1 arm rows are about halfway between pronated and neutral, cable rows are neutral with a slightly wider attachment but not too wide.
Similar situation here. I do feel some lat activation in the barbell rows and low rows, but not nearly the same pump I get with straight arm rope pull downs, pull ups, etc.
I just wanted to point out that the new CT high frequency stuff isn’t anything like the super high frequency (squat every day) type programs. It is also most certainly not overly reliant on big compound movements. It does things like start workouts with hamstring curls. Intensity sets aside, the program he lays out look exactly like a typical muscle group once a week bodybuilding workout just split with the sole exception that it is divided up into 3 workouts instead of 1.
He’s also laid out exactly why his views have changed in several threads if you want to go check them out.
It’s also something I’m considering for the bodybuilding challenge thread because I hate off days and I love frequency. Maybe I’ll do it and let yall know how it goes.
Perhaps something to add is that Rowing exercises are meant to target the rhomboids and the upper back, I have found ways to turn them into lat exercises, but the way most people do them is for upper back. But this is true of pulldown/chin-up variations as well, the way most people do them they target the teres minor and the smaller muscles at the outside of the back, there are very simple ways to turn these into lat exercises, but most people don’t do them that way.
Please do, I think 6 days a week might be a bit hard for me at this point in my life, but someone experienced actually documenting their experience on that program would be cool.
Thank you, Iron. I’ll probably continue to do trap work with my arms positioned in front of my center line, but if that doesn’t do the trick, I’ll revisit standard shrugs and see if I can find a “trigger” that helps.
In the pics I had it seemed like I added some delt size… But that could be because I shifted my training around a bit and focused much more on pressing of all angles during that time (heavily CT inspired stuff).
I do think there is something that happens though at around the 16-12 week out-ish mark where you still have enough food coming in, the cardio isnt really killing you, you are hyper-focused on the process, and you are training your ass off where everything banging on all cylinders, like everything is optimized almost. You feel great physically at this point too.
So I definitely dont feel like starting day 1 of the cut you have no chance to make gains, although they definitely can be limited, and are almost certainly non-existent for the last 4-6 weeks when you are just training to get to the finish line.
In the last week I have read though all 900+ posts in this thread and Brickhead’s contest prep thread. Some of the best community content I’ve ever read.
Perhaps the biggest realignment in my thinking was how much I’ve been kidding myself about the LBM I carry. Unlike many on this thread, I was the “fat kid.” My extended family are all obese or morbidly obese. I have tried to take the advice “Don’t try to gain muscle until you are under 15% BF,” so I have been on a cut or “maintain” since 2012. (sigh).
In my experience, I get leaner when I manage to get all of the above going at the same time:
Are you folks similar, in terms of margin for error? Does the process get easier once you are leaner?
One question I would like to ask others, is if there was any phobia you had towards any exercise that you no longer have?
Or any attachment to an exercise which you now consider almost useless (for the purposes of bodybuilding)?
I had a fear of doing Behind the Neck shoulder Presses, I tried so many different things to make my lateral head grow while avoiding that exercise. Did not grow, now I do them, but I also put a lot of emphasis on mobility drills for the area and that part of the shoulder is taking off.
I had an attachment to Incline Presses, Deadlifts and Triceps Pressdowns. I still do incline presses, but not as a main exercise. When it was my main exercise, the only chest pose I looked good in at all was the Levrone side chest pose. I do variations of deadlifts, but I do not do any conventional deadlifts anymore. Also, Triceps Pressdowns are now gone completely.
