To be honest, my main goal is to have a big chest. I do other lifts too to stay proportional, and to improve my performance in sports. I’ve seen that the type of chest I want to have is usually found on guys with around 10% body fat who can bench around 1.3 times their weight.
I have about 20-25% body fat, and once I get to the chest I want, I’ll cut down. So I have two questions:
How much strength would I lose on my lifts after I cut from around 20-25% bodyfat to about 10%? (If it’s a percentage of my lift, tell me what it is. If it’s 10 or 20 pounds regardless of person, tell me that)
So if I want to have the type of chest that those 1.3 body weight, 10% body fat guys have, how much should I bench pre-cut, so that I can bench around 1.3 times my weight post-cut?
Hmm, alright, so the archetype consists of 10% bf and 1.3 times their weight for bench presses?
This isn’t indicative of chest size. How do I know? Because I just cut down to 10% bf, and can bench 1.2 times my weight (this increased through my cut btw), and I promise… my chest is absoutely not what you have in mind.
That being said, I would recommend a happy medium with the weight loss and strength gains. You can add strength while slowly cutting weight.
By the way, how long have you been lifting, height, weight, lift #'s?
I am ~10% body fat and can bench 1.67 x bodyweight, and my chest isn’t where I would like it to be.
Face facts, things are not as cut and dried as this especially where strength to size ratios are involved.
I don’t know what your chest looks like, but at 25% body fat is isn’t going to be pretty, and it will look a whole lot better at <15%.
As for strength loss, hell especially as a beginner there is absolutely no reason for your strength to decrease noticeably during a cut. Keep your protein intake at 1g/lb bodyweight, make clean food choices, and keep lifting heavy. If you bust your ass in the gym and stop worrying so much about the details you may actually gain strength, look a whole hell of a lot better, and be making progress instead of worrying about a 1.3xbodyweight bench or some other triviality.
[quote]Dissonance wrote:
Hmm, alright, so the archetype consists of 10% bf and 1.3 times their weight for bench presses?
This isn’t indicative of chest size. How do I know? Because I just cut down to 10% bf, and can bench 1.2 times my weight (this increased through my cut btw), and I promise… my chest is absoutely not what you have in mind.
[/quote]
I 100% agree. I’m 6ft and I cut from 213 down to 190 from July 1 to October 1 while my bodyfat went from 23 to 15. My 1RM max on bench went up from 205 to 245 (close to 1.3 times my bodyweight). I don’t have a big chest at all (41.5 inches). Now these were beginner gains but it’ll tell you 2 things:
Being able to bench 1.3 times your bodyweight does not mean you’ll have a big chest. (Its actually not an impressive goal IMO)
You don’t need to lose strength while cutting. I have been cutting for a coupld months and my 1RM is holding solid at 315. I am gaining on other lifts (squats, deads) where I am not quite as developed.