Does Cutting Decrease Strength?

(now, don’t slap me too hard for asking a dumb question, but I’m just double-checking with those more experienced than me)

when you’re cutting calories, reducing rest periods to 30s (as opposed to 60s), and raising the reps to 10+ (as opposed to 6 with 85%RM), your strength will go down, right? as in, what I used to be able to do for 6-6-6-6, I can now only do for 6-4-maybe 3. this is normal, right?

i’m in a cutting phase at the moment and i have found that there is no reason why you need to lose strength. what i have done this time round is reduce calories to 500 per day less than maintenance, but continue to train as if i am still in a strength/ hypertrophy phase. basically still training heavy for low reps, 95% max for 5 reps on the first rep, 8o% of max for subsequent sets, short rests 40 secs to i minute. i always include back off sessions to aid recovery and don’t max out every session.

this has resulted in a fat loss of about 1lb per week for 10 weeks now and no drop off in strength. obviously little or no gains in muscle size as i am in a calorie deficit but at least i am maintaining strength levels, maybe some small increases in fact.

in previous cutting phases i have always increased reps and reduced weights similar to you have described and experienced a drop off in max strength, but definately not this time round.
hope this helps.

Try Chad Waterbury’s 10x3 for fat loss: http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=795366

[quote]Bldr wrote:
Try Chad Waterbury’s 10x3 for fat loss: http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=795366

[/quote]

very good.

Well you were doing 6 reps/set, now you’re doing 10/set. Obviously that alone means you’ll be able to move less weight. But that doesn’t necessarily make you weaker. I’m almost finished with my cutting phase and I gained a few pounds of muscles even in a caloric deficit. Whatever workout you use for your cutting phase, lift to or near failure, don’t EVER give up on trying to move as heavy weight as you can.

Waterbury 10 x 3 for fat loss is a great program if you want to make sure you still lift heavy and keep your strength. Feel free to read my blog, I’ve used different routines since July and gotten different results.

Unless you mentally think it will, there is no indication for that.

Alot of olympic lifters, make incredible strength gains while being in the same weight class or dropping to another.

I think maybe the two reasons why one would propose that this may be true is because.

They think cutting calories will deprive their muscles of the proper energy needed to gain strength and/or they somehow think that biggish looking fat guys are stronger than wiry guys.

If you continually try to lift heavier weight, your body will adapt.

Shit like squats will go up when you’re cutting weight to because, if you lose 20 or 30 lbs of fatass that you’re squatting, that fat weight will slip on to the bar, as it was never loadbearing.

thanks guys. I’m currently cutting for spring break, then going back to my old ways (which weren’t TOO bad) until the end of the semester, then cutting again for summer, and for that second one I’ll try Waterbury’s 10x3. I’ll let you guys know which worked better (though I can already tell you it’s gonna be the guy with a shitload more experience).