I’m planning going on a Keto diet for about 2 months and then switching to T-Dawg 2.0 after that. My questions is about training while on the Keto. What’s the best routine as far as saving muscle? I’m 5’9" 245 lbs. @ 27.5 % BF. Obviously I have a decent amount of LBM and I’d like to keep most of it. At the same time, I also know my body puts on LBM much easier than it loses BF, thus the desire to do a classic Keto (lose BF fast and can put back on any LBM I lose in the process). I’m under the impression that high-intensity/low-volume weight training (such as 5x5) is the way to go. If you guys could give me some ideas and/or point me to any threads or articles on this subject I’d really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
You’re on the right track with the idea of low volume/high intensity training. You could take a look at Joel’s Ripped, Rugged, & Dense article. That’s a good starting place.
In the end though, there’s no magic in a 5x5 program. The key points to rememeber are:
- Train heavy - I’d say keep everything under 6 reps. That could mean you’re doing anything like the following:
- 5x5
- 6x4
- 5/4/3/5/4/3 (wave loading)
- 8x3 (personal favourite)
The fact that these loading parameters are not glycogen demanding/depleting is a good thing considering you’re not going to have much gas in tank to start with.
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Don’t train to failure on any set. You should always have at least one good rep left in the tank. That obviously then means you’re also not going to be doing any forced reps, which are completely overrated anyway.
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Stick with compound movements. Your goal is to simply maintain muscle and heavy compound movements will be your best bet.
So, you could pick one major movement per bodypart and just hit one of the above set/rep schemes.
For example, I recently did the following on a diet
Day 1
Flat Bench - 8x3
Barbell Row - 8x3
Day 2
Full Squats - 8x3
Seated Calf Raise - 8x3
Day 3
Standing Military Press - 8x3
Dips - 8x3
Day 4
Good Mornings - 8x3
Pull Ups - 8x3
That’s it. The workouts were short and effective. I lost no strength at all. Not to mention lifting heavy for sets of 3 is just fun. I took a day off when needed, which was usually after day 2 and 4.
Keep your workouts short and frequent and respect CNS recovery. If you feel motivated to train, go and train, but resist the temptation to do more than is necessary to meet your goals. Your specific goal with weight training being to preserve your size and strength. Your diet will take care of the rest.
Thunder,
How long were your rest periods doing 8x3 during your diet?
any special tempos?
Damn good post! 
The only thing I can add is to keep total reps per bodypart per week around 50-80. So if you wanted to do chest all in one day you could do:
flat bench 5X5
dips 8X3
or you could do it multiple times per week like Thunder showed…just two different paths to the same goal.
I agree with the 5X5 training.
Rest periods were only 1 minute. For everything other than the quads/calves day, I did straight sets. So I’d do all 8 sets of bench with 1 minute rest intervals before proceeding to the next exercise.
One the quads/calves day, I paired them up A1/A2. So one set of squats, rest a minute, a set of calves, rest a minute, and repeat.
Tempo? Nothing crazy - just a 201.
cool, thanks. i’m on a similar protocol right now.