If you’re on the heavier end of the scale, you’re most likely thinking about a cutting cycle. You may also think about starting to burn fat after bulking. However, it could be hard to start cutting calories since you’ve probably been eating everything in sight. Even if you’ve paid attention to what you’re eating, you will need to reduce the amount of calories, which is quite hard itself.
Still, reducing calories is the basis of a cutting cycle, that’s why it is called this way in the first place, as we “cut calories”. Also, many are confused about lifting while cutting. There are even people who think that they do not need strength training while cutting, only cardio. That’s a huge mistake. But if you continue strength training when cutting, can you get stronger? Also, will it help burn fat?
Yes and yes. You can still get stronger even if you’re cutting, as long as you do it the right way, and it will still help burn fat.
Here, we are going to talk about the bases. From cardio, while cutting through to strength training when you are in a calorie restriction, we’re going to answer the important questions that you need to know for a proper cutting cycle.
Why Should You Strength Train While Cutting?
This is a pretty popular question among beginners. Especially among those who only want to burn fat, so their main goal is to lose weight. However, strength training while cutting is crucial for keeping as much lean muscle mass as you can during your cutting phase. Not only does strength training support your fat burning processes, but the more muscle you maintain (or even gain), the easier it will be to burn fat. That’s because people with higher muscle mass amounts will burn more calories faster, both at rest and when working out, meaning they burn more fat.
Overall, strength training does help you burn fat, but it also helps gain and keep muscle, making it easier to burn calories at rest. You can eat more since you burn a lot. Or you can eat the same and burn even more calories.
- Besides, strength training will keep your metabolism running high. This helps hold onto muscle tissue while cutting and helps increase calorie expenditure. That’s very important considering that the metabolism tends to slow down when we’re reducing calories.
On the other hand, if you don’t strength train during a cut, or you lift too light, it could lead to muscle wasting, loss of strength, as well as a decrease in metabolism. That’s the opposite of what you would want to achieve, isn’t it? So, when you eat less, strength training when you’re cutting will help both burn fat and maintain muscle mass. Moreover, strength training helps keep that “afterburn” meaning that your body will continue burning calories even after a strenuous workout session. You wouldn’t get this effect from cardio though.
The conclusion? Strength training during cutting at least 2-3 times a week is crucial. Even more crucial than cardio while cutting!
Can You Get Stronger While Cutting?
In short, yes you can. In fact, there are a lot of people who report getting stronger during their cutting cycles when everything is done right. Moreover, you will almost guarantee to increase your strength during the cutting cycle with the help of anabolic steroids. Just make sure you use them right and use the high quality steroids. We can help with both as you can buy steroids online for sale from Body-Gear.to and help with a great cycle plan.
When you’re dieting right and working out right, especially with the right steroids, lifting heavy during the cut is going to help maintain muscle mass and likely build more muscle, which will naturally enhance your strength.
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But then again, to achieve it, you need the right way to diet, work out, and use these PEDs. We can help with that, just keep on reading.
Lifting While Cutting
Today we’re talking about strength training while cutting, that’s what we’re going to pay attention to. However, keep in mind that your diet still remains the most important part of your cutting cycle. Despite this, strength training during a cutting cycle still should be one of your top priorities too. In fact, a successful cutting cycle is a combination of a great diet and workout plan in the first place, then mixed with other factors.
Here are top tips that will help you achieve your goals.
Set The Date For Cutting
Before you start your cutting phase, I strongly recommend that you balance out your calories, as this is the base for improvements. Not only calories, but you also need to pay attention to the macro and micronutrients. Try to increase the micronutrients you eat and balance out the macronutrients you eat (carbs, diet, and protein).
Moreover, you need to know when you’re cutting too. For example, if you’re going into an 8-12 weeks bulking phase, you also need to reduce calories to maintenance, have a 2-4 weeks maintenance phase in order to stabilize the weight that you want to conserve muscle growth, and only then have the planned 8-12 cutting cycle plan. That’s why bodybuilders plan their cycles months ahead.
For example, they plan to bulk through January, February, and March (12 weeks) gaining 0.50% of their body weight a week, then maintaining their weight through April, starting their cutting cycle at the beginning of May, ensuring they are ready fully ready for a cutting show by August, when they have the competition, giving them full three months of cutting preparation. But even before starting their cutting cycle, they’ve already balanced their calories, macros, and micros, with enough lifting experience too.
This will help you set the date when you need to finish your cutting cycle and plan ahead correctly. During the 8-12 weeks cutting cycle, you need to aim at realistic results, yet, keep on pushing. For example, aim to lose 0.50-0.75% of your current body weight each week. Losing more puts you at risk of losing muscle (less chances if you’re using steroids), losing less may seem like it takes forever to achieve your goals. Adjust the calories weekly according to how you feel, and the results you get.
Define Your Workout Split
Strength training is extremely important regardless if you’re cutting or bulking. As said, even if talking about cutting, strength training is even more important than cardiovascular exercises!
People who are strength training during cutting cycles will keep their metabolism high, preserve muscle mass, and burn even more calories. But if you increase the number of sessions per week, it helps bring even more results when talking about the aforementioned benefits and also easier recovery from their workouts.
However, you do not need to increase the number of sets, you just split the days you work out per week. Although you remain in a calorie deficit, you can still recover muscle tissue and still continue training at higher intensities. So, just reduce the amount of sets per workout, but increase the workout number per week. I would recommend a 4-5 workout split while you are cutting. Such as training each muscle group twice a week in 5 days through the week, or following a 4 day upper, lower, upper, lower split.
Doing some cardio when cutting during your split is also going to help as it allows you to burn even more calories. Nonetheless, that is not necessary for everyone as you could continue burning calories without cardio. Still, burning 200-300 more calories with the help of cardio can make a huge difference. It allows you to eat more calories (necessary for gaining strength and muscle) and still lose fat.
Best Exercises To Build Muscle While Cutting
The key to a successful cutting cycle isn’t to burn fat only, but to burn as much fat while preserving as much muscle mass as possible. That’s why strength training is so important as it is responsible for preserving muscle. The pillars of strength training plans during cutting phases are compound movements. That’s because they stress greater amounts of muscle tissue.
Yes, the movements during cutting and bulking can be, and often are, the same. However, unlike the bulking phase, the recovery may be slightly more difficult. That’s because you are going to be in a calorie deficit, delaying recovery.
So, it is of utmost importance to listen to your body and not push yourself too hard. You may not be able to perform the same amount of reps or sets. During cutting, people actually tend to increase the amount of reps and/or sets than for bulking, however, they are not lifting heavy weights. This will avoid too much tension in the already stressful event.
Do NOT assume that we’re saying you can’t or shouldn’t train hard. You absolutely can and actually should. It is just important to understand that your body works on fewer calories than required. You need to focus on correct techniques while lifting heavy weights that won’t add too much stress. That’s why you need to:
Work Your Sets, Reps, and Weights (Overall Intensity)
Losing weight can be done through diet alone. Of course, you may boost your weight loss progress by adding cardio in there. That’s why we can say that lifting heavy weights is not a vital part of cutting. But it can greatly help with building strength and muscle mass.
Moreover, while some increase the amount of reps with lighter weights (thinking they can get a lean and toned look), it may lead to muscle loss. This technique does have its place, but what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t opt for too many reps with too light weights. Nor should you opt for a few reps with very heavy weights.
- The best approach would be to stick to moderate reps to conserve strength and muscle mass during compound lift movements. You may also alternate between more reps lower weights and fewer reps higher weights to balance your overall success every once in a while.
Here’s an example of the total amount of sets per week per muscle group. You may increase the total weekly set volume by one set, up to potentially 16 to 19 total sets per muscle group. Keep in mind that you need proper weights. Needless to mention the importance of proper form during each movement. Lastly, the number of reps can vary, usually from 5 to 25 (such as 6 to 8, 8 to 10, 10 to 12, 15 to 20, and so on). It depends on the weight, movement, experience, and so on.
- Chest: 12
- Back: 12
- Shoulders: 12 to 16
- Triceps: 8
- Biceps: 8
- Quads: 12 to 16
- Hamstring/Glutes: 12 to 16
- Calves: 8
- Abs: 12 to 16
Dieting
We’ve been discussing strength training and lifting. That’s why I haven’t discussed diet so far. But it goes without saying that you should keep track of your nutrition and control your diet. This is essential to achieve your goals. Make sure you have a calculated amount of calories, with balanced macronutrients, and enough micronutrients.
As I have already discussed earlier, a pretty safe and maintainable amount of weight you can lose per week is about 0.50%-1% of your body weight per week. But be careful if you lose more than 0.75% of your body weight per week as it puts you in the danger zone of losing muscle mass too, unless you’re on anabolic steroids.
If you notice you lose muscle mass, you may up your calories (especially from proteins) and/or stop doing any excessive cardio when you are cutting. If it’s the other way around and you do not notice any weight loss, then you should either decrease the calories and/or add some more cardio into your routine. The 200-300 calorie loss per day from cardio can make a huge difference.
Cardio
Since we’ve started to talk about cardio, let’s check more about it. First off, cardio is not necessary during your cutting phase. I understand how it sounds, but let me explain. Again, you can lose weight without entering the gym at all, only from your diet. But you can get a toned physique by maintaining muscle mass with strength training. Also, strength training helps boost metabolism and calorie expenditure. It doesn’t sound like you need cardio to achieve your cutting goal, does it?
Yet, cardio does have its place! In no way we’re trying to say that cardiovascular exercises are useless. They are highly beneficial, but only when done right. For example, cardio helps you keep your cardiovascular system healthy! Cardio helps the heart muscle (the heart is also a muscle) healthy including other benefits. It also helps boost metabolism. Moreover, cardio helps lose those extra calories.
For example, you eat the same amount of calories that your body requires to maintain per day, including strength training. If you implement cardio every day, losing 300 calories per day, you are in a deficit of 2100 calories per week, thanks to cardio, while you eat in maintenance. So, cardio can be extremely beneficial for those who are feeling hungry more often. They eat more, add cardio, and still lose fat.
However…
Yet, you need to be careful with it (similar to what you need with strength training). For example, too much strength training can stress your muscles too much, leading to muscle loss, poor recovery, fatigue, or even muscle loss. Too much cardio can be detrimental too. Adding cardio to your already stressful program can stress you more than what you’re already under just from eating fewer calories. Doing too much and/or too intense cardio can force your body into starvation mode. This way, it will start preserving fat stores and break down muscle mass!
Achieved Your Goal? Don’t Stop!
So, you follow all our recommendations and you’re getting stronger and stronger, gaining lean muscle and burning fat. Now you’ve reached your cutting goal, what’s next?
It is very important that you do not just get back to eating everything your eyes can see. That would be a quick and sure way to gain all the weight you’ve lost. Maybe even more. If you put all the effort into cutting and dieting, it can be pretty easy to get back into eating, as a reward or other issues.
Follow a proper lifestyle with a balanced diet and workout plan. That’s a crucial part of maintaining a lean muscular look and remaining healthy. After a cutting phase, you can gradually increase your calories (usually carbs) by around 200 to 300 calories. Increase until you reach your maintenance phase and stay there. Why is this important?
Your body needs to adapt to the new weight and to the new muscle. This way, you will keep up your hard earned gains, but won’t add fat. Do it slowly and wisely. Increase calories for 3 to 4 weeks as your body is getting reintroduced to the increase of calories and carbs. This way it “accepts” the new muscles and learns how to cope with the extra fuel to build muscle and increase metabolism.
Boost Your Progress With Body Gear
While we shared plenty of advice to move forward, strength training during cutting can feel really exhausting due to a lack of energy, strength, endurance, stamina, and recovery. All due to a calorie deficit. In order to boost all these, you will require a balanced and healthy diet. Nevertheless, sometimes, it may not be enough.
This could make you feel fatigued and sore, losing motivation and strength. That’s why Body-Gear.to is here, offering a helping hand during your cut. In fact, we can provide help with any of your physique and performance enhancement goals, including bulking, but we’re here to talk about cutting.
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