Losing Fat, Too Much Training?

Training Bodybuilding
1

Okay,so I basically just want to drop about 8% of my body fat, then get to hitting the weights hard. I want to drop as much as fat as possible before April 9 (leave for spring break/rest week).

My plan:
Sprints 3 days a week, 1 tabata day. On sprint days, or off days do upper body work. 2000-2900 calories a day, with a carb:protein:fat ratio of 40:40:20 to 30:50:20, or however much it is with as many carbs being from fruits and veggies as possible and 170+g of protein.

Is all the sprinting and tabata-ing too much?
Stats:
14
6’
~175lbs
17-22%BF

2

Why the lack of emphasis on heavy resistance training and diet to build and preserve LBM while letting the diet do its job and some cardio?? seems a MUCH better approach IMO

Phill

3

How does the rest of your workout look (weight training)?

I’d personally try 10x3 for fat loss or something similair, with a couple days cardio a week.

4

Is that 14 in your stats section meant to be your age? As in, are you 14 years old, 6 foot tall, 175 pounds?

5

[quote]mattchew wrote:
Okay,so I basically just want to drop about 8% of my body fat, then get to hitting the weights hard. I want to drop as much as fat as possible before April 9 (leave for spring break/rest week). [/quote]

I’m just a beginner - so if I’m talking out of my ass others will certainly correct me … assertively :slight_smile: But this is my understanding:

I can see from previous posts you’re decent at math so I don’t need to explain to you that you are talking about trying to lose about 14 lbs of fat in less than 4 weeks.

14 lbs in 4 weeks?

Your stats are 6’, 175 and you are 14 - this mean you have a BMR of about 1975 kcal/day. With your activity level you’re talking about maybe 2500 for maintenance.

So 14 lbs @ 3500 kcal/lb is 49,000 kcal deficit over 28 days - so you need a daily deficit of 1750 calories.

This means you get to eat about 225 kcal per day.

And you need to do this without losing any muscle otherwise your bf% won’t go down as you hope.

My suggestion is to lift heavy (I believe the metabolic boost from lifting heavy will be more than your cardio plans), eat VERY clean, stay healthy and enjoy what is sure to be one of the most enjoyable weeks of your life.

You’ll trim out a little before hand and when you return you won’t have done 30 days of damage that will take 5 times longer to recover from.

But - take it with a grain of salt. I’m just a fat guy offering my opinion.

Good luck and enjoy Italy.

6

I would strongly recommend you add heavy resistance training (main focus) in addition to sprints. The way i see it, sprints is just another form of resistance training, if youre going hard enough but adding some TBT stuff (low reps) will ensure you maintain most of your muscle, gain strength by greatly improving muscle recruitment in various lifts (a boon for when you start bulking) and the EPOC created by both the resistance work and HIIT/Tabata will boost your metabolism enought to create a caloric deficit without a lot of underconsumption.

Cardio is mainly for helping create the caloric deficit of abt 500 calories a day (in additon to calories consumed) and ensure that you lose WEIGHT, while meal timing, proper macronutrient breakdown for each meal, PWO recovery and progressively overloaded resistance training will ensure that fat is burnt while sparing muscle (or that muscle is added rather than fat when you follow everything but with a caloric surplus).
When youre doing sprints anyway, why not add a lifting regime for the whole body which will ensure muscle maintenance and balanced strength gains.

[quote]mattchew wrote:
Okay,so I basically just want to drop about 8% of my body fat, then get to hitting the weights hard. I want to drop as much as fat as possible before April 9 (leave for spring break/rest week).

My plan:
Sprints 3 days a week, 1 tabata day. On sprint days, or off days do upper body work. 2000-2900 calories a day, with a carb:protein:fat ratio of 40:40:20 to 30:50:20, or however much it is with as many carbs being from fruits and veggies as possible and 170+g of protein.

Is all the sprinting and tabata-ing too much?
Stats:
14
6’
~175lbs
17-22%BF[/quote]

7

[quote]mattchew wrote:
Okay,so I basically just want to drop about 8% of my body fat, then get to hitting the weights hard. I want to drop as much as fat as possible before April 9 (leave for spring break/rest week).

My plan:
Sprints 3 days a week, 1 tabata day. On sprint days, or off days do upper body work. 2000-2900 calories a day, with a carb:protein:fat ratio of 40:40:20 to 30:50:20, or however much it is with as many carbs being from fruits and veggies as possible and 170+g of protein.

Is all the sprinting and tabata-ing too much?
Stats:
14
6’
~175lbs
17-22%BF[/quote]

Dropping this much, this quick, I think you should try something like the V-Diet.

But on the note of your exercises, I think you should do not only upper body work – sure do upper body work on the sprinting days, and on non sprinting days, do some squats, deadlifts too even. 5x5, 3x10, whatever works for you.

Anyway, I would at least incorporate a proper lifting “leg day” once per week if trying to up my metabolism this much, and besides, if you drop down to 160lb, you’re probably just going to be skinny, not very muscular.

Heck I’m just a little bit taller than you, about 25lb heavier, and I feel if I lose 14lb I’d be skinny, not muscular. I can still identify with your desire to get rid of the fat before bulking clean, that flabby stuff is just so awful…

Anyway, good luck, I think you might need it…

8

Excuse me on my lack of information on the original post, I was in a hurry.

I didn’t mean all of it over the next less than a month sorry I wasn’t clear, just as much as I can by then. After that go back to some heavy weights and lose the rest, then a moderate bulk in August through next March/April.

I guess I need to read up more, I was under the impression HIIT was more or less the best way for fat loss.

I gotcha on the leg days… I wasn’t sure if that was too much on my legs.

As far as my current/previous training, 4 sets, 10 reps 3 days a week TBT, because I’m a beginner then down to 5x5 at 5-6 days per week.

I guess I’ll up my calories to 2600+ per day. I meant to mention I’ll be eating at 7AM, 11AM, 3PM, 6PM and at 9PM. Post w/o is basically .5-1cup of cottage cheese and milk, at this point I can’t get protein shakes.

Also going go to bed about an hour earlier, so about 9, maybe 10 hours some nights.
I hope this answers all of your questions and concerns.
Thanks,
Matt

9

I had success with Don Alessi’s “Meltdown Training.”

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=237melt2
http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=205melt2

Dropped ~30lbs in 5.5 weeks, at which point I hurt my back (not doing meltdown, being a moron elsewhere).

Cardio was 3-4x3min shadow boxing rounds plus 3x3min heavy bag rounds.

I didn’t follow any true diet program, I just ate clean. Had a protein shake every meal, 4-6oz lean meat every meal. Carbs were limited to fruit and oatmeal. Except for the first meal of the day and post-workout, I had 1tbs ground flax with every shake, 6-10g omega-3s from fish oil caps. I ate way more protein and fat than I did carbs and always tried to eat carb/protein meals and fat/protein meals. The big thing for me was giving up sugar, I respond and feel best when on a moderate/low carb, high protein, and relatively high fat diet (and lots of fiber).

Whenever I ate out I always got steak and plain vegetables (no bread) or a grilled chicken salad (no dressing, cheese, or croutons).

Supplements were whey protein powder, flax seeds (ground up in a coffee grinder), fish oil caps (Costco brand), lots of green tea, tribulus, and creatine.

Here’s a good site to check out nutritional info:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/

Good luck.

10

[quote]Memento Mori wrote:
I had success with Don Alessi’s “Meltdown Training.”

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=237melt2
http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=205melt2

Dropped ~30lbs in 5.5 weeks, at which point I hurt my back (not doing meltdown, being a moron elsewhere).

Cardio was 3-4x3min shadow boxing rounds plus 3x3min heavy bag rounds.
[/quote]

Ahh, thanks. This looks about like exactly what I want, the only problem is I cant workout in the morning without getting up at about 5 or earlier. I guess I could get both of them in in the afternoon? I’ll figure something out.