Guess who's back, back again.

Yes, I have longer arms than average, which is probably why I struggle with bench... I haven't front squatted in a while, but I was approaching 300 when I was doing it before, but that was for several reps, I don't remember how many, but I don't do low heavy reps on front squat because I always get worried that I am going to drop the bar or have it roll back and choke me.

I think I might try out some front squats tonight for fun when I head to the gym in a bit here.
 
After a long summer of testing out, tweaking and refining my diet and routine for cutting, I am finally sick of dieting. I'm down to 9% bodyfat and after carbing back up, I still weigh in at 220 lbs. I think I may have lost a few lbs of lean mass but my arms the same size, so I consider it a success. I did want to get to the point that I had visible striations on my delts and better quad separation than I do now, but oh well.
I've got a few normal people running my program and so far most of them are having great results, one is having decent results but she isn't consistently working out, so I imagine that's effecting her results. Although one of the guys started out around 290 lbs (he's my height, so that's not enormously obese) and is down to 250 already and he hasn't started lifting yet, though I told him he should definitely start as soon as he can. He's got around 180 lbs of lean mass so if he can maintain that and get down to 200 lbs, then he will look really good.
Obviously anyone can say "eat this many calories, eat these macros and then lift some weights" but I've been actually putting together meal plans with recipes and a schedule for when to do cardio and weights, and what to do for it. The point is to make it easy for them to follow. Hell, my basic meal plan I have been giving them even includes a shopping list... Anyway, it's been keeping me really busy, and I'm starting to make a little tiny bit of extra income (nothing remarkable yet) so it's cool. I guess all that self-experimentation paid off.

Anyway, I want to start bulking up come november but I have to consider my options first. Obviously at 200 lbs of lean mass, I probably won't be able to gain much more muscle mass (if any) as a natural unless I get hugely fat. So. We will see what happens.
 
Based on your experiences cutting do you have any general recommendations you can make. I’m trying a slow cut for the first time with the goal of getting down to 10% BF and then start bulking again. At that point I would like to alternately bulk and cut for a while trying to stay between 10% and 15% BF.
 
The thing that made a big difference to me, and was the hardest to wrap my mind around, was reducing volume. I usually end up increasing my volume back up when lifting just because of the mental aspect of it, but I get better results when I trim volume back and only lift 2-3 times a week, then do cardio 2-3 times a week. Also, the other hard part is not getting discouraged and quitting because I feel like I am shrinking. There is a long period when cutting when you cannot visually see a lot of changes.

I also try not to push for strength increases but just maintain my strength. It is also a bad idea to get too close to 1 RM on anything, but most especially deadlifts or squats. That can destroy you and also for me, it hits my immune system hard and if I end up getting sick, then of course that compromises the diet...
 
Thanks for the info.

How much did you end up restricting calories after all the tweaking was done?

I think I am going to give UD2 an honest try this time. My BF% isn’t up much from my last cut I just thought I really need to do some cardio to get ready for my fitness test however I now realize I was mistaken, but I think I’m going to go ahead and cut anyway just so I can bulk more effectively next cycle.
 
I actually ended up about 1500 under maintenance on my diet days.. . sounds kinda crazy, but I was getting around 400 grams of protein which with all the tag along carbs and fats ended up at about 2000 calories. I just estimated my maintenance at around 3500. However, as I got leaner, I had to add refeeds more frequently to the point where I was doing a carb up after every session of weightlifting, which was basically every third day. I got close to maintenance if not slightly over maintenance on some of those days. The crazy thing is that my final weight after I carbed up has me at not much lighter than when I started my cut, but significantly leaner...
 
Did you find that 1,500 under on non-workout days and maintenance, or close to it (how close BTW?) on workout days is more effective than a stead but smaller drop like 500/day including workout days?

I understand the need for more frequent refeeds as BF% gets lower but how it sounds like you judged this by feel, if so did you go by?

Also, about how long did you spend cutting?

Sounds like you did the elusive recomp, which is sort of what I’m hoping for if I can stick with UD2. I should be close to 1,500 under on my days 1-4 especially if I include cardio. However, I do plan to eat over maintenance on the tension and power workout days (days 5-6) but probably maintenance on Sunday day 7.

Did you do anything else diet wise like intermittent fasting or even just cutting back calories at night? I’m trying to eat more of my calories during the day and tapering off but not totally fasting at night, but I’m not sure if it’s going to make a difference.
 
I think that it was more effective to do the huge differences in calories between diet days and refeed days, but I can't be certain. For sure this was definitely one of my most successful cuts ever, but I haven't been able to run anyone through what I did myself yet. So I won't know for sure until I get someone to get lean enough to try it out. I've got the guy doing basically what I did in the earlier part of my cut, but he is currently around 250 lbs with 185 lbs of lean mass, so it's going to be quite a while before he is lean enough.

I was basically experimenting with all of this, to use for the people I've been coaching through diets and for my own future reference. I think my cutting probably was May through the end of August, but I wasn't logging things properly at the beginning so I don't remember clearly when I started for sure. It might have been April. Keeping in mind that I was like 240-250 after wintertime, that probably sounds about right for the time frame. I had to keep changing the diet as I got leaner, and the way I was doing it in August was definitely a lot different than what I was doing when I started the cut.

I didn't do real IF but I did definitely concentrate calories more toward the end of the day. On non-cardio diet days, I would have a large omelet for breakfast then not eat for most of the day until later on. Not sure if that really made a difference yet. Also on days I did cardio, I was mostly doing Lyle's Stubborn Fat Protocol so no food to start the day, protein only an hour after the cardio, then no food for another 2-3 hours after that.
 
So... I have been out of the gym for about a month due to constant sickness and lack of time. November is always a crappy month for me and working out. I always get sick and I'm always busy as hell with work and home. I hate November. So after having bronchitis almost becoming pneumonia all month, I'm finally starting to feel better and I finally have a little more time. It's hard to find time to workout with working 50 hours a week and being a single father of three children of whom I have custody of. Haha.
So the plan is to go back to a fairly standard HST cycle. I actually started the loads of extremely light and am just doing 15s for a couple weeks to try to get my conditioning back before I start using real weights. Tonight was the first night of the 15s. Here is what I did:

11/21/2011 217 lbs bodyweight
Back Squat 165 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets
Flat Bench 115 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets
Chins 115 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets
Shrug 195 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets
Dips 165 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets

I'm not going to lie, I felt like puking afterward. I've lost about 10-15 lbs this month but I'm sure some of that is loss of water and carbs in my muscles, they usually fill in after the first week of lifting and I gain back 5-10 lbs. But wow... after a month away from the weights, a measly 165 lbs on the squat wiped me out. Felt like I was doing intervals or something.
 
Chins 115 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets

Dips 165 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets

So, you're hanging 115 lbs on your belt for your chins? And 165 lbs for your dips...?

Impressive -- especially after a month or so off.
 
[FONT=&quot]That explains why you haven’t had much to say about your workouts for so long. It sucks to be sick. [/FONT]
 
TunnelRat said:
Chins 115 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets

Dips 165 lbs x 15 reps x 2 sets

So, you're hanging 115 lbs on your belt for your chins? And 165 lbs for your dips...?

Impressive -- especially after a month or so off.
Click to expand...

Sorry, haha no I wish... I should have specified - I used the assisted machine and figured out what the actual load is based on what I weighed in at that day. They were absurdly easy though but it's ok, I decided it's better to start out too light than too heavy. I can just keep increasing the load each workout while I regain my work tolerance.
 
Little bit of an update... Squat 1 RM is now 485, hoping to hit 5 plates raw soon, I have done 585 with a suit though. Deadlift - 635 raw but using versagripps but going to attempt it with a mixed grip in another month or so. Bench still hasn't gone up though.
My goal right now is the elusive 1500 total.
 
Very impressive Tot! Good to see you progressing. At some point I might have to try a suit, considering how much it adds. Your quest for 1500 makes my quest for 1000 seem somewhat anemic. ;)
 
Well relative to bodyweight, 1000 would be a pretty impressive total for you. 1500 isn't that great considering I'm close to 250 now. If I could cut down to 200-210 and keep a 1500 total, that might be impressive but right now, well there are plenty of 250+ guys with totals of 1500 or more.

The suits are a pain in the ass at first. It is especially scary to squat in at first until you get used to the different groove. My first time, I couldn't even get to parallel with five plates on each side. I was scared to do more. You also have to do several warmups raw and then suited but without the straps up, then with the straps up for your heavy 1 RM attempts... yeah, it's fun. I've also started using knee wraps even though I don't have knee problems yet. I have noticed pain rarely from squatting heavy... I don't want to wait until I have a problem to start paying attention to safety. And I'm pretty sure I'll never squat 600+ raw, so... wraps and suit it is.

People who claim that suits make the lift easier are full of it. After my first few sessions of squatting in a suit, I felt a very different soreness from the squats and they definitely hit my quads a lot harder than they ever have in the past. The squat suit enhances my deads as well. Especially deadlifts from the top. I pulled 600 barely even warmed in my suit.
 
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