Hey guys, I am currently clean bulking at around 3500 calories and getting some gains, all kinds.
However I am nervous about losing them in my upcoming cut. I used to do a lot of running and burnt all my muscle away and got skinny fat. I am now adding muscle but have quite a reasonable amount of body fat on me. I have been looking at ways to approach my first cut.
I was thinking of keeping my workouts the same, which is a five day split, but upping the reps from 10-12 reps to 12-15 reps.
Adding either steady state cardio three times a week using a heart rate monitor to stay in the fat burning zone, distance not exceeding five kilometers or doing walk-sprint HIIT workouts on a football pitch for 15 minutes 3 times per week.
As for diet I was going to opt for either the paleo diet or a low calorie diet including moderate carb intake to guard against catablolic state during the cut.
I got a lot of great advice here, which saved me from embarking on the eat everything diet I had been told to follow by people away from this site, the workout I am currently doing was also put together from advice I received off here.
I would love some help from any people who have bulked and cut before and had success. as a former fatty I am worried about messing up. Any help would be great. I have googled this and find many contradicting pieces of advice, both claiming to have proof their way is scientifically better etc.
Unless you were cutting for a show, which you aren’t, it’s just not that complicated. Lift heavy and hard, carbs peri workout only. Lots of protein and don’t skimp on the fat. Also, don’t jump from 3500 to 2500, try 3000 for several weeks or a month. Lift even heavier, keep rests shorter. Your heart rate will be jacked up and down, like doing intervals. Oh yeah, you are doing intervals
[quote]strangemeadow wrote:
Unless you were cutting for a show, which you aren’t, it’s just not that complicated. Lift heavy and hard, carbs peri workout only. Lots of protein and don’t skimp on the fat. Also, don’t jump from 3500 to 2500, try 3000 for several weeks or a month. Lift even heavier, keep rests shorter. Your heart rate will be jacked up and down, like doing intervals. Oh yeah, you are doing intervals [/quote]
he said he was clean bulking at 3500, so wouldn’t 3000 be maintenance unless u cut out cardio or something
[quote]strangemeadow wrote:
Unless you were cutting for a show, which you aren’t, it’s just not that complicated. Lift heavy and hard, carbs peri workout only. Lots of protein and don’t skimp on the fat. Also, don’t jump from 3500 to 2500, try 3000 for several weeks or a month. Lift even heavier, keep rests shorter. Your heart rate will be jacked up and down, like doing intervals. Oh yeah, you are doing intervals [/quote]
he said he was clean bulking at 3500, so wouldn’t 3000 be maintenance unless u cut out cardio or something
[/quote]
It might be, it might not be. That’s a BIG jump down, and where do you have left to go from there? Not very many calories. Where will he go after 2500? To 2000? Argh. He’ll start losing his gains. If he ups his weights and shortens his rests between sets he’ll do great. It’s old school but like so many old school things it works well. And carbs only around workout will fuel the whole thing.
I am doing no cardio at the moment guys, I was thinking of introducing one of those types of cardio when I start my cut. Sorry, should of been clearer.
[quote]strangemeadow wrote:
carbs peri workout [/quote]
Is this pre or post workout bud?
[/quote]
Peri, mean around. Before, during, after, as long as your kicking ass is not a big deal. You think your maint. is 2000? Unless your like 5’5" and 40 I think you’re gonna starve yourself.
How old are you, weight/height? Idea of bf? roughly and where you wanna be?
[quote]strangemeadow wrote:
Unless you were cutting for a show, which you aren’t, it’s just not that complicated. Lift heavy and hard, carbs peri workout only. Lots of protein and don’t skimp on the fat. Also, don’t jump from 3500 to 2500, try 3000 for several weeks or a month. Lift even heavier, keep rests shorter. Your heart rate will be jacked up and down, like doing intervals. Oh yeah, you are doing intervals [/quote]
he said he was clean bulking at 3500, so wouldn’t 3000 be maintenance unless u cut out cardio or something
[/quote]
It might be, it might not be. That’s a BIG jump down, and where do you have left to go from there? Not very many calories. Where will he go after 2500? To 2000? Argh. He’ll start losing his gains. If he ups his weights and shortens his rests between sets he’ll do great. It’s old school but like so many old school things it works well. And carbs only around workout will fuel the whole thing.
[/quote]
yeah, i don’t really get the point in cutting if you aren’t prepping for a contest or something
personally I never cut, just year round slow bulking or eating around maintenance
yeah give us some info on body stats and lifts, bodyfat etc.
yeah you should probably aim for a target weight of 150
why did u list 8 sets for barbell press though?
when i started out i was only doing 1 set 3x a week and made pretty fast gains, never tried high volume… wouldn’t worry about not being able to do more than a few sets though
Well before this I always changed routines because I never knew what to do, when I used to do 5 reps I think I got up to 70kg for one set for flat bench however I never gained any muscle lifting as heavy as I could. I also used to squat 65kg for 5 reps and dead lift around 125 with straps for 5 reps.
I changed to high volume and it is the only time I ever noticed gains. Small ones however.
Wendler’s 5/3/1 or Rippetoe’s Starting strength is what you need as you are weak. You need to build a decent level of strength. You don’t have that, clearly. A cut is not in order.
^As above dude^ Get some serious size and muscle and then think about cutting. There is nothing wrong with cutting - it’s a big motivator and really useful when you come to a second CLEAN bulk. But the worst thing you can do is a premature cut.
If you don’t have a decent musculature frame then when you cut, you will just be a skinny ripped kid.
However if you are insistent on embarking on this journey to ripped city then I suggest you drop all this high-rep stuff. If you want to retain muscle then you have to teach your body to do so. LIFT HEAVY. If you have not done so then pick one of the two programs meadow has mentioned. I have done 5/3/1 and would highly recommend it.
Depending on how you want to train, either do HIIT or LISS, no jogging for hours on end! Either walk or sprint.
It’s advice man, it’s all it is…don’t get but hurt about it or start a youtube channel and hate on me…you can do whatever the FUCK you wanna do!
Thanks for the advice guys, guess I will just carry on bulking till my numbers rise.
I am never going back to 5x5 style routines, got a bit of strength but a soon as I went back to lifting high reps the numbers went back to normal. Gained no muscle and looked the same, fuck 5X5 hate that routine.
So yeah cheers, will stay on the bulk till I have got my numbers up.
train, either do HIIT or LISS, no jogging for hours on end! Either walk or sprint.
It’s advice man, it’s all it is…don’t get but hurt about it or start a youtube channel and hate on me…you can do whatever the FUCK you wanna do![/quote]
[quote]Chopatoua wrote:
Thanks for the advice guys, guess I will just carry on bulking till my numbers rise.
I am never going back to 5x5 style routines, got a bit of strength but a soon as I went back to lifting high reps the numbers went back to normal. Gained no muscle and looked the same, fuck 5X5 hate that routine.
So yeah cheers, will stay on the bulk till I have got my numbers up.[/quote]
well your routine now looks like garbage and it will probably waste a lot of your time
if you didn’t make gains on a strength program maybe your diet wasn’t right
