I've Seen Some Nice Results But I've Also Got A Problem!

Kitad

Kitad

New Member
Hello folk, Kitad here with my first post.

I've been doin HST for around 5 months now and I can happily report that, after doing a bulk and a cut cycle, I've gone from 30% BF to arond 25%ish. Could have gone even better, I think, but I way overdid the cut and I ended up losing muscle. Well, you learn by screwing up I guess.

Got a problem, though, and I was hoping you guys could provide some enlightenment. My gym only has 5 lbs. (2.5 kgs) increments, so I'm confused as to how to do the progression.

I'm not zig zagging anymore, im ziiiiiiig zaaaaaaging all the way through: I start the 15s cycle of bench at 30kgs and the 10s at 35. (My 15RM is 55 and my 10RM is 50)

What I've done with the exercises where the weight is low is to do increments every two weeks. So my Press 10 cycle progression looks like this 20-20-25-25-30-30.

What should I do? Should I just continue what I'm doing? Should I do every kind of exercise like I do the Press? Any other ideas?

Thanks fellow muscle freaks
 
Two things:

1) "I've gone from 30% BF to around 25%ish... I way overdid the cut and I ended up losing muscle" – Not sure how why think that dropping 5% body fat from 30% to 25% is way overdoing things?

2) Are you saying that you can only add 2.5kg to each end of the bar, or are you saying that you can increment by 2.5kg?

It isn't really going to make a whole lot of difference but if you haven't got access to 1.25kg plates then you could get a couple and take them with you. They'll be useful for all your smaller muscle group load progressions.
For your 15s and 10s mesocycles for bench you could then do:
15s: 22.5, 25, 25, 27.5, 27.5, 30
10s: 27.5, 30, 30, 32.5, 32.5, 35
etc.
A little zig-zag won't hurt and may help you once your loads move up a peg.
 
Nah, I meant that I was really happy going from 30 to 25 but I actually did that by bulking (at that point it was easy to make more muscle than fat). The problem was that I went overboard with the cut and ended up losing more muscle than fat (thus being at around the same BF% but a lot weaker)

I don't have olympic 1.25 kg and I have hard finding them in my country. I have tried several stores both on and offline. Amazon has them but won't ship weight bars to south-america. I have gone to 4 gyms and only one of them had 1.25's and it happens to be the one I can't subscribe to (too far away) the only option is that I steal them in a sneaky fashion.

I have been doing something similar to what you proposed for some exercises but with 5kg increments. Should I do something like this for every exercise instead of doing huge zig zags?

For example my last press
10s: 20, 20, 25, 25, 30, 30
5s: 25, 25, 30, 30, 35, 35

By the way, my account needs to be approved so that non-moderators may see this post. Would you be so kind? thx lol
 
Hi Kitad,

Just two things:

1) it's unusual to lose more muscle than fat in a cut. If you aren't mistaken about this ratio you probably didn't lift heavy enough during the cut or ingested too little protein. Totentanz e-book has good advice about cutting on HST. It's in the fixed topics.

2) did you say "south-America"? Brasil? Argentina? Chile?
 
Hey Leonardo,

1) I know, I think my theory for flopping the cut was that I overdid it: I extended it too much and went from 64 kgs to 58 (the lowest I've ever weighted). Maybe I was losing mostly fat until like 60 kgs and then the rest was muscle loss. Also on my last few weeks I had a death week of exams so I was sleeping 4 hours a day. Probably that hindered my muscle maintanance as well.

2) Chile, can't find proper weight equipment here :(
 
Totentanz said:
How do you know it was mostly muscle loss?
Click to expand...

A nutritionist measured my BF before and after the cut cycle. It showed I lost as much fat as muscle, thus maintaining my %.

My guess is that I prolonged it too much and that maybe it was mostly fat loss at first but then I began losing muscle. This reasoning comes from my intuition that you can't keep losing weight forever, and the longer you go on a cut (i'm talking more than 2 months), the most likely you are to lose muscle
 
How was it measured?

At 25% bodyfat or anywhere near there, it is highly unlikely you lost mostly muscle especially if you were lifting. Major muscle loss does not become a concern until much lower bodyfat levels.
 
Kitad said:
A nutritionist measured my BF before and after the cut cycle. It showed I lost as much fat as muscle, thus maintaining my %.

My guess is that I prolonged it too much and that maybe it was mostly fat loss at first but then I began losing muscle. This reasoning comes from my intuition that you can't keep losing weight forever, and the longer you go on a cut (i'm talking more than 2 months), the most likely you are to lose muscle
Click to expand...
@Kitad

You say a nutritionist measured your body fat levels before and after and your results would be as follows based on your original post of 30% and 25% BF

64kgs @ 30% body fat = 44.8kgs lean body mass with 19.2kgs of fat
58kgs @ 25% body fat = 43.5kgs lean body mass with 14.5kgs of fat

Based on those figures you have lost 4.7kgs of fat and 1.3kgs of lean body mass, so in summary you lost mainly fat!!
 
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I started at 30% BF at 60-62 kgs a bulk cycle. Surprisingly, I lost BF % while doing a bulk and ended at 63-64 with 25%. Then, I did a cut and that's when I went from 64 Kgs 25% BF to 58 Kgs 25% BF.

Both times were measured by the same nutritionist using the same method.

Also, I must stress out the fact that I had a shitty death week during the cut which involved poor nutrition and no sleep.
 
Again... how was your bodyfat level measured? As in what method did your nutritionist use? Many use body impedance analysis which is one of the worst possible ways to measure bodyfat when you are on a cut and experiencing fluctuating levels of water weight, glycogen storage, etc.
 
High stress and low sleep is pretty bad for your body but your muscle will bounce back once you give your body time to normalize. I wouldn't worry too much about that.
 
Totentanz said:
Again... how was your bodyfat level measured? As in what method did your nutritionist use? Many use body impedance analysis which is one of the worst possible ways to measure bodyfat when you are on a cut and experiencing fluctuating levels of water weight, glycogen storage, etc.
Click to expand...

Both times the nutritionist used normal skinfold measurements using the ISAK method
 
Kitad, both measurements were made by the same person?

In relation to your surprise to loose BF % it's not big deal. I would be surprised if you had lost BF while gaining muscle but a % can be lowered with a simple muscle mass gain by raising the lower part of the fraction. It's just a number, right?
 
Complementing...if you agree I think it's better measure skin fold at home, so you can take measurements three days in a row and find the average. That will minimize errors by fluid fluctuations as well as glycogen level stored.

PS: by the way, I'm getting to measure BF with JP7 method. With some flexibility and a mirror is possible! Lol.
 
mickc1965 said:
How do you measure your tricep accurately on your own?
Click to expand...

With the arm relaxed is possible to pinch the skin with the caliper in the other hand. At least with my caliper model. I even compared my measurement with one taken by other person and is OK.

I'm currently using two calipers, one plastic (not the Accu-measure style) with a coil and one of that Chinese models. Measurements with both are very close.
 
Guys, guys, I appreciate the advice regarding the measurement and the possible explanation for my cutting failure, but its sort of deviating from my main point. What can I do if my gym only has 2.5 kgs (5 lbs) increments?
 
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