Cutting Specific Training

Peak_Power

New Member
I was just thinking someone should do the same thing for cutting that Bryan has done for hypertrophy, namely study research about what actually causes fat loss while maintaining muscle, and create a training program and diet to maximise its effects.

So far cutting programs have been based on commonly accepted knowledge what has worked for someone else, like eating 500 cals below maint and lifting heavy to keep muscle. However, if we just worked out with "commonly accepted knowledge", we'd still be doing 4 day splits and only working a muscle once a week instead of doing HST, or worse doing some joint busting routine like HIT (which we now know isn't necessary for growth, thanks to Bryan).

So does anyone know how we can come up with a Cutting Specific Plan (losing body fat as quickly as possible while maintaining as much muscle and strength as possible), by using the same scientific approach that Bryan used to create HST, and has this already been done by someone?

More specific questions, we know cardio is good, but how much? Is HIIT better than continuous, or not? What is the ideal weight training regemine for cutting?

I'd like these questioned answered by the same kinds of research that has gone into hypertrophy and strength.
 
Lyle's book - "Ultimate diet 2.0"... a search on the HST forums will provide a bit of info of what it's all about
 
UD2.0 is good, but it's not really a workout, it's a workout and diet, and you have to do both to ge the results.

I think a good, basic plan would be to lift heavy twice a week fullbody, or else do an upper/lower or push/pull split, which would make it four days. Add in cardio two-three times a week, and maybe a light day in the 10-12 rep range, full-body, if they want to do some extra work. That usually seems to keep people motivated a little better. Me? I'd rather throw in another heavy day, but I'm sort of psycho.
 
I'd love to read some definitive principles of cutting (if they exist). Like "You must only do light to moderate cardio," or "you must not lose more than 2 pounds of body weight per week," or whatever else, if it exists. I've looked around the web for cutting success stories, and all the really good ones involve guys who were using some sort of drugs (and I'm not talking about caffeine and ephedra
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Is there anything difinitive out there?

Personally, I'm going to lift three days, and do cardio three days. Not sure what type of cardio. I'm going to taper calories down slowly, and eat what seems to give me 1 pound per week of loss. I'll probably start drinking green tea again too. I'm hoping that does the trick.

Also, what should happen to my 5rms if I lose 10 - 15 lbs? I'm doing 3x5 training right now to get as strong as I can. Compared to most guys, I'm pretty weak -- not that that bothers me. I've only been lifting a little less than a year -- but I know HST is easier to implement when your maxes are higher. I'd be really dissapointed if I get my dead lift from 185 to 225, and after cutting, it's back down below 200 lbs again.
 
What I really want is a set of principles to follow, like HST's "progressive load, frequency, and SD".

I figure with regards to lifting, maintainance of strength will pretty much guarantee maintainance of muscle, since they are correlated, and with cardio the idea is to burn as much fat as possible. Anything after that is calorie burning (so focus on big lifts with big weight).

I figure HIIT is better than continuous cardio because the "rest periods" give your body a chance to break down fat into usable energy inbetween bouts, whereas during continuous the body is forced to go to muscle sooner?

This is just based on logic though not on the same extensive research and experience that HST is based on.
 
well if your cutting there is no point in doing cardio at all,your on a deficet anyway so you will lose fat doing cardio can just be catabolic.
if you were to do cardio on a deficet i would say ss cardio is better no more than 40mins at say 65%,jog,fastwalk,etc.
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I would have thought you had to do cardio to create a deficit. Or at least a deficit on the amount of food you need to eat in a day to not feel completely starving all day long!
 
If you eat well before and after cardio, catabolism shouldn't be a factor. Do normal pre and post workout nutrition for cardio, liquid and later solid food, and all should be well.

This doesn't seem to be popular around here, but I've been reading a lot of Berardi's articles, and he gets interesting results with nutrient timing, eating certain types of food, etc. He also advocates high calorie and high activity levels, whether bulking or cutting.
 
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(Peak_Power @ Oct. 24 2006,00:14)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I would have thought you had to do cardio to create a deficit. Or at least a deficit on the amount of food you need to eat in a day to not feel completely starving all day long!</div>
no you just have to eat below mantainance to get a defecit.
thats my point why burn more cals and muscle when you want to burn fat and keep as much muscle as possible.
save the cardio untill you are of the cutting then you can eat more and burn extra cals without worrying about catobolism
 
I dont know if I´m qualified to give my 2 cents but...
I have tried cutting before, never with any good success, but I can tell what wasn't good:
I ate 2000 kcal and made cardio almost 4 times a day (34 km on bike outside) I also did weightlifting to spare muscles. After about 10 days my legs were so weak from the constant biking in high tempo that i couldnt do cardio anymore. So i ate at maintenance level again and it took me 1 month before my legs felt strong again.
I simply overdid it and used up the little glycogen I had and needed for weightlifting. So the next time I will try cutting, I will skip cardio since my mindset just doesn´t allow me to do light cardio. I will stick to do weightlifting(to save muscles) and eat a calorie deficit and let it take the time it needs.
 
Maybe you should change your mindset then. If you are doing something and it doesn't work or is harmful, then stop.
 
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(faz @ Oct. 24 2006,03:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">no you just have to eat below mantainance to get a defecit.</div>
Obviously, but my point was that is its actually very hard to eat a low volume of food, because you feel starving all day. My belief is that its better to eat the normal amount of food you would eat to feel full/satiated all day, and then do as much exercise as you need to do to burn more calories than you eat.

Much more satisfying way to lose weight than starving yourself imo.
 
Two books worth reading are:

&quot;Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle&quot; by Tom Venuto

&quot;The Metabolic Diet&quot; by Dr. Maruo Di Pasquale

Both have great information on cutting fat and maintaining muscle.
 
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(Bulldog @ Oct. 25 2006,19:38)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Two books worth reading are:

&quot;Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle&quot; by Tom Venuto

&quot;The Metabolic Diet&quot; by Dr. Maruo Di Pasquale

Both have great information on cutting fat and maintaining muscle.</div>
If only one of those books was to be read, which one would you recommend?
 
It depends on your preferences. The &quot;Metabolic Diet&quot; is based on a cyclical ketogenic diet. &quot;Burn the fat feed the muscle&quot; is mostly just based on eating good healthy clean foods in the proper amounts but mentions ways to utilize a keto diet to loose more fat faster.

That being said you can learn a lot about the “Metabolic Diet” and its principles directly from the web site without buying the book. http://www.metabolicdiet.com

&quot;Burn the fat feed the muscle&quot; you will have to buy because he doesn't really tell you anything at his web site. http://www.burnthefat.com/

Both Tom Venuto and Dr. Di Pasquale know their stuff so you can't really go wrong with either one of them. But if you really want to strip the fat I would recommend the Metabolic Diet first. I will caution you though that Dr. Di Pasquale does have his own supplement line and he does push them in his books. He also has a book that is written specifically for body builders called &quot;The Anabolic Solution&quot; but I have not read that yet. I definitely recommend you at the very least check out Dr. Di Pasquale's web site. The is a ton of good info there.
 
Sorry, I just realized that I posted off topic and didn't post about &quot;Cutting Specific Training&quot;. But both of those books do talk about training as well as diet.
 
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(Peak_Power @ Oct. 25 2006,23:44)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(faz @ Oct. 24 2006,03:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">no you just have to eat below mantainance to get a defecit.</div>
Obviously, but my point was that is its actually very hard to eat a low volume of food, because you feel starving all day. My belief is that its better to eat the normal amount of food you would eat to feel full/satiated all day, and then do as much exercise as you need to do to burn more calories than you eat.

Much more satisfying way to lose weight than starving yourself imo.</div>
yes this can work mate and is probably better..but i was answering the question based on cutting,which by definition means below mantainance.
the only problem with adding cardio and eating at mantainance is working out how much cals,cardio,etc, to do..whereas cutting you just drop the cals untill you start losing fat.
your idea would work and i would rather go that way personaly,but if you are cutting for a comp you have to be bang on with your diet.
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If you were cutting for a comp, you'd have to be retarded not to be doing cardio, or have sick genetics. Almost any competitor with half a brain does plenty of cardio precontest.
 
i know 2 top naturals dean garrat and jay rikkaby,who never do cardio.
they just increase there weight sessions to hold onto the muscle and a calorie deficet to lose the fat.
cardio will just burn more cals if your on a cal deficet already whats the point of doing an exercise that will not gain or hold onto any muscle
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