Training Intensity While Dieting
For anyone who has trained while in a caloric surplus vs. trained while in a caloric deficit, you know the two can be quite different. This mini cut has me reflecting a bit on training intensity while dieting.
While in a bulking phase (in a caloric surplus), you may be gaining some fat and looking less aesthetic, but when strength is increasing and you're constantly adding weight and setting new PRs in the gym, you know you're making some gains. The motivation is performance based. Although your body fat may be a little higher than you'd like, your strength is at its peak. With a positive energy balance, you're able to constantly push for one more rep or for adding just a bit more weight.
Without a surplus of calories, you're really not gaining significant amounts of muscle. For someone whose goal is maximal muscle growth, this situation can feel frustrating. Even though you're aesthetically looking better/leaner (which is motivating in its own right), you don't want to lose sight of performance or let performance start slipping. With a negative energy balance, it can be a struggle just to maintain the same number of reps or weight that you were pushing before. This is what I've been mulling over during the third and final week of my mini cut: keeping strength adaptations while dieting.
You really don't want your strength dipping or performance suffering during a cut. One way to combat this is increased rest and recovery time (ie: an extra day off). Learning to listen to your body and take your own biofeedback into consideration is an important skill. Instead of shorting yourself on rest and recovery time, burning yourself out, risking injury, and half-assing your workouts, I'd opt for taking some extra rest, resulting in better performance in the gym, and better maintenance of strength adaptations.
Another approach to maintaining performance is cutting down on volume. Volume is definitely important for hypertrophy, but during a diet when no significant hypertrophy is actually taking place, total volume can be scaled back (ie: 2 sets instead of 3 on some lifts) so long as weight/strength is maintained.
You may be familiar with the myth of "heavy weight and low reps for bulking" and "light weight and high reps for cutting". While there are benefits in using a variety of rep ranges, I wouldn't recommend completely switching up your training style just because you're dieting. Whatever built the muscle is going to get it to stick around while you diet. The goal during a cutting phase is to maximize fat loss while minimizing muscle loss, therefore it's important to maintain strength adaptations made while bulking via sticking with similar training structures and rep ranges used during the muscle building phase . It should be clear that keeping the weight heavy is a top priority. You need to give hypertrophy and strength adaptations a reason to stick around, and this is done by training with the same style and intensity as was used during the building phase: heavy lifting.
Some styles of training would have you sneak cardio into your lifting routine for a greater calorie burn. One example of this is doing jumping jacks, jump squats, jump rope, etc. during your rest times. While it may make for a greater calorie burn from your lift, you're likely to see performance dip as you're not actually using your rest times to rest, so my preference is to keep lifting separate from any cardio that may be implemented.
If it becomes necessary to introduce cardio (which I want to emphasis that it's not always necessary to perform cardio while dieting, it's a tool and should be used as such to overcome fat loss stalls, not dumped on at the start of a diet before the caloric deficit is given a chance to do its work), my preference is to keep lifting and cardio separate so that each gets your full attention/full effort and neither gets half-assed as a result of trying to do both at once. This doesn't mean that cardio can't involve lifting mechanics. I actually love doing some form of high-intensity intervals using light weights or body weight exercises mixed with sprints or plyos or whatever. Anything to keep it interesting and fun and avoid feeling like you're chained to a piece of cardio equipment. Just keep in mind that these type of intervals are cardio for the purpose of increasing calorie burn, not meant to replace your lifting routine or to maintain strength adaptations. A lifting routine very similar to what you do while bulking/building should be maintained throughout the dieting phase.
So those are my thoughts for training while dieting: keep the weight heavy, keep performance high, take extra rest/recovery if needed, don't be afraid to cut down on volume so long as strength is maintained, and keep cardio and lifting separate. Besides adjusting macronutrients and possibly the addition of some cardio, not much should change during a diet.
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| Fighting for those strength adaptations. |
While in a bulking phase (in a caloric surplus), you may be gaining some fat and looking less aesthetic, but when strength is increasing and you're constantly adding weight and setting new PRs in the gym, you know you're making some gains. The motivation is performance based. Although your body fat may be a little higher than you'd like, your strength is at its peak. With a positive energy balance, you're able to constantly push for one more rep or for adding just a bit more weight.
Without a surplus of calories, you're really not gaining significant amounts of muscle. For someone whose goal is maximal muscle growth, this situation can feel frustrating. Even though you're aesthetically looking better/leaner (which is motivating in its own right), you don't want to lose sight of performance or let performance start slipping. With a negative energy balance, it can be a struggle just to maintain the same number of reps or weight that you were pushing before. This is what I've been mulling over during the third and final week of my mini cut: keeping strength adaptations while dieting.
 |
| The closest thing I've seen to abs in months. LOL. |
You really don't want your strength dipping or performance suffering during a cut. One way to combat this is increased rest and recovery time (ie: an extra day off). Learning to listen to your body and take your own biofeedback into consideration is an important skill. Instead of shorting yourself on rest and recovery time, burning yourself out, risking injury, and half-assing your workouts, I'd opt for taking some extra rest, resulting in better performance in the gym, and better maintenance of strength adaptations.
Another approach to maintaining performance is cutting down on volume. Volume is definitely important for hypertrophy, but during a diet when no significant hypertrophy is actually taking place, total volume can be scaled back (ie: 2 sets instead of 3 on some lifts) so long as weight/strength is maintained.
You may be familiar with the myth of "heavy weight and low reps for bulking" and "light weight and high reps for cutting". While there are benefits in using a variety of rep ranges, I wouldn't recommend completely switching up your training style just because you're dieting. Whatever built the muscle is going to get it to stick around while you diet. The goal during a cutting phase is to maximize fat loss while minimizing muscle loss, therefore it's important to maintain strength adaptations made while bulking via sticking with similar training structures and rep ranges used during the muscle building phase . It should be clear that keeping the weight heavy is a top priority. You need to give hypertrophy and strength adaptations a reason to stick around, and this is done by training with the same style and intensity as was used during the building phase: heavy lifting.
Some styles of training would have you sneak cardio into your lifting routine for a greater calorie burn. One example of this is doing jumping jacks, jump squats, jump rope, etc. during your rest times. While it may make for a greater calorie burn from your lift, you're likely to see performance dip as you're not actually using your rest times to rest, so my preference is to keep lifting separate from any cardio that may be implemented.
If it becomes necessary to introduce cardio (which I want to emphasis that it's not always necessary to perform cardio while dieting, it's a tool and should be used as such to overcome fat loss stalls, not dumped on at the start of a diet before the caloric deficit is given a chance to do its work), my preference is to keep lifting and cardio separate so that each gets your full attention/full effort and neither gets half-assed as a result of trying to do both at once. This doesn't mean that cardio can't involve lifting mechanics. I actually love doing some form of high-intensity intervals using light weights or body weight exercises mixed with sprints or plyos or whatever. Anything to keep it interesting and fun and avoid feeling like you're chained to a piece of cardio equipment. Just keep in mind that these type of intervals are cardio for the purpose of increasing calorie burn, not meant to replace your lifting routine or to maintain strength adaptations. A lifting routine very similar to what you do while bulking/building should be maintained throughout the dieting phase.
So those are my thoughts for training while dieting: keep the weight heavy, keep performance high, take extra rest/recovery if needed, don't be afraid to cut down on volume so long as strength is maintained, and keep cardio and lifting separate. Besides adjusting macronutrients and possibly the addition of some cardio, not much should change during a diet.
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