Programming lifting for weight loss

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Hardartery
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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#21

Post by Hardartery » Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:51 am

janoycresva wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:34 am
Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:00 pm Training while in a deficit is largely about recovery management. There is no hypertrophy in a calorie deficit, so just chuck any notion of that out the window and don't worry about it. It just won't happen without chemical assistance and it is largely irrelevant if you have a weight goal as opposed to a measurement goal (Like I want my waist to be X for example). Lower reps on compound movements, higher reps with lighter weights on iso stuff because that will burn more calories and have less direct negative impact on recovery. Cardio past your health needs is largely not productive in weight loss past the direct impact on CICO, and it is not the most effecient way to burn calories unless you are really going for it and trying to run a marathon or do an Ironman thing.
Diet seemingly matters past simple CICO. I know, that's blasphemy in the current fitness belief climate for many. But, I have heard several coaches lately discuss diet approach for their non-pro athlete clients who just want to not be fat and dead. A common approach seems to be low carb/keto initially and then a gradual introduction of carbs back into the diet over time. The stated reason I keep hearing is that the no carb period helps boost metabolism and then slowly adding in quality carbs improves the training while not screwing up the metabolism. The balance of CICO still has to be maintained, but it is claimed that it pushes the needle of caloric needs up making it easier to be in a mild deficit and not killing the metabolism in the process. I am not stating that this is in fact true for you or anyone else, just what is currently being used by many professional coaches I have heard of late. It does seem to be the case for me, personally. I am back on a slow cut and my calories are higher than they have been on quite a few years. I am largely keto, with letting myself have somereasonable carbs once a week or so. Generally along the lines of one normal meal or part of a meal (Like three slices of sourdough with my normal eggs one day, or dinner out eating something not over the top). My daily intake of calories is slowly creeping up, but I am still losing.
I would disagree with lowering reps on compounds during a cut. In general higher reps (not necessarily high reps, but something like 8-12 vs. 3-5) will have higher stimulus to fatigue ratio for hypertrophy, and even though hypertrophy won't occur on a cut you still want to send the biggest signal for muscle retention with the least fatigue. Anecdotally, whenever I tried to hang on to my low rep strength for dear life, I had significantly worse results than when I shifted emphasis to higher reps.

Also, depending on how deep you get into a cut your leverages might get significantly less favorable for most big compounds, which shows up more on heavy sets IME. There's also some evidence for fiber conversion in a deficit in favor of slow twitch fibers, and conditioning in general tends to be better at lower bodyfat, so high rep work tends not to eat shit quite as hard as your lower rep work. Generally agree with what you said about higher rep isolation work for the same reasons, but I think any calorie burn that adds will probably be pretty minimal.

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The biggest cut I've ever done (years ago, maybe 2017 or so) was 235->185 @ 12% bf. I retained most of my muscle mass, but I could have done it much better than I did. If I had to do that cut again (hopefully not in this lifetime), I would change a few things (pretty much all based on Renaissance Periodization recommendations combined with my observations during that cut):
1. Phasic dieting. I would have gone 235->215, then 215->200, then 200-> 190, then 190->185 (maybe). These phases would be interrupted by maintenance periods equal in length to the time spent dieting. I imagine the final cut from 190->185 would not have been so brutal if I had done this, it turned into some kind of fucked up 1800 calorie pseudo-PSMF deathmarch. It probably would not have taken any longer either, since my TDEE became so incredibly low towards the end due to the almost year spent in a deficit (I was eating 1800 cal/day at 6'3" 190lbs, training 4x/week, and losing maybe 0.5lb/week).
2. Deload in a more structured way, and make sure my deloads were at maintenance calories. There were periods where I really accumulated way, way too much fatigue and it compromised my training.
3. Abandon powerlifting style training entirely deeper into the cut (maybe once I dropped below 210, for sure below 200). Train in bodybuilding rep ranges with bodybuilding exercise selections (maximizing stimulus to fatigue ratio, minimizing technical demand, minimizing mental focus required to execute the lift - lots of machine and cable shit, dumbbell work, some higher rep barbell compounds but only those I tolerate well and don't beat me up). I would also have thrown in some bodyweight shit and set goals based on that, like Hanley suggested earlier. Doing things that improve with leanness is always a good psychological boost on a cut. I was doing heavy sets of fahve on squats and deadlifts on extremely restricted calories and stimulating basically nothing but my joints and involuntary hardship organelles, this was extremely stupid.
4. Be cognizant of reductions in NEAT and actively try to fight them. If I find myself almost subconsciously parking my car super close to the office, or taking the elevator instead of the stairs, or just sinking into the couch when I could be moving around and doing something, try to fight that. That shit definitely adds up in terms of calorie expenditure, and it's less fatiguing than pretty much any cardio modality for the amount of calories burned. I'd get more done, too.
I think if you want to go higher reps on the compounds during a cut, you have to back off of the iso work a little. Doing both is probably going to be too much in a cut for most guys unless the RPE/RIR is so low that it's basically pointless work. My body does not like anything above 5 reps on compound work, period, so that plays into it a little. But, Pushing an intensity that puts most guys into 3-5 reps is going to limit strength loss during the cut and also not cap out the recovery. It's an attempt at going just hard enough to keep the fibre recruitment while not driving you too far into overtraining. For some guys that may be a higher rep range, but most guys are going to see a big fall off at higher ranges. You can get it back fairly quickly, but that generally requires a surplus for a while. I also think that talk of leverages is mostly overstated. The average guys is not going to fell much if any difference going up or down 20 lbs as far as leverages go, unless they are discussing how it affects a Squat Suit or a shirt maybe. But it really doesn't affect Raw leverages much if at all.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#22

Post by janoycresva » Mon Nov 28, 2022 8:48 am

Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:51 am I think if you want to go higher reps on the compounds during a cut, you have to back off of the iso work a little. Doing both is probably going to be too much in a cut for most guys unless the RPE/RIR is so low that it's basically pointless work. My body does not like anything above 5 reps on compound work, period, so that plays into it a little.
I don't agree with this in general. Higher reps on compounds are not going to be inherently harder to recover from assuming you dose the volume correctly. For example, if you were doing 5-6 submaximal sets in a lower rep range (let's say you were doing something like Sheiko, hitting 5 triples at 80%), you may only need 2-3 sets with higher reps and lower RIR to achieve the same hypertrophic stimulus, and those 2-3 sets would probably be less centrally fatiguing than those heavier triples. Then you could move on to your isolation work. That being said, I think you hit on something important there with "my body does not like anything above 5 reps" - individual differences and patterns that someone has teased out over years of lifting trump everything else IMO. I also think this is something that matters much more when you're deep into a cut and very fatigue constrained. Heavy work only started noticeably feeling like dogshit for me when I was dipping into the mid-low teens bodyfat %, heavy low rep sets would just absolutely fry me and felt terrible. If I were just going from 235->215 or something, it would not have mattered.
Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:51 am But, Pushing an intensity that puts most guys into 3-5 reps is going to limit strength loss during the cut and also not cap out the recovery. It's an attempt at going just hard enough to keep the fibre recruitment while not driving you too far into overtraining. For some guys that may be a higher rep range, but most guys are going to see a big fall off at higher ranges. You can get it back fairly quickly, but that generally requires a surplus for a while.
I think any loss in strength from sticking to higher rep ranges during a cut will be almost purely neurologically mediated. It always comes back fairly quick for me and I'm not convinced there will be a difference in strength retention between the two approaches like 6-8 weeks post cut (enough time to get in some solid lower rep work). Sets of 8-12 is still a pretty moderate rep range, so the transition usually isn't that bad.
Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:51 am The average guys is not going to fell much if any difference going up or down 20 lbs as far as leverages go, unless they are discussing how it affects a Squat Suit or a shirt maybe. But it really doesn't affect Raw leverages much if at all.
I think this is highly dependent on what percentage of bodyweight 20lbs is for that person, how much bodyfat they actually dropped and their fat distribution, how their leverages are to begin with, etc. Cutting from 235->185 significantly changed how certain lifts felt for me leverage-wise. Deadlifts and overhead press felt fine, bench press felt a little worse, squat felt drastically worse.

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Hardartery
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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#23

Post by Hardartery » Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:49 am

janoycresva wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 8:48 am
I don't agree with this in general. Higher reps on compounds are not going to be inherently harder to recover from assuming you dose the volume correctly. For example, if you were doing 5-6 submaximal sets in a lower rep range (let's say you were doing something like Sheiko, hitting 5 triples at 80%), you may only need 2-3 sets with higher reps and lower RIR to achieve the same hypertrophic stimulus, and those 2-3 sets would probably be less centrally fatiguing than those heavier triples. Then you could move on to your isolation work. That being said, I think you hit on something important there with "my body does not like anything above 5 reps" - individual differences and patterns that someone has teased out over years of lifting trump everything else IMO. I also think this is something that matters much more when you're deep into a cut and very fatigue constrained. Heavy work only started noticeably feeling like dogshit for me when I was dipping into the mid-low teens bodyfat %, heavy low rep sets would just absolutely fry me and felt terrible. If I were just going from 235->215 or something, it would not have mattered.


I think this is highly dependent on what percentage of bodyweight 20lbs is for that person, how much bodyfat they actually dropped and their fat distribution, how their leverages are to begin with, etc. Cutting from 235->185 significantly changed how certain lifts felt for me leverage-wise. Deadlifts and overhead press felt fine, bench press felt a little worse, squat felt drastically worse.
I think hitting 5 triples at 80% can be quite taxing, depending on where you are in the cut and how much weight 80% is. Cutting from 285 to 245 lbs made very little difference for me, except that I could get a little deeper on Squats maybe. If I had continued to cut and managed to hit 225 lbs maybe I would have seen a bigger difference, but most guys cutting 20 lbs are really not going to notice any measureable change in leverage unless they were 15% before the cut. I was not benching at the time, so maybe that might have been noticeably affected, but my overhead lifts were not dramatically affected.

You are going to get the same hypertrophic stimulus in a cut with any of the above rep schemes, which is none. You are simply not going to grow in a deficit unless you are using chemical aids so hyoertrophic stimulus becomes a moot point, it all becomes calorie expenditure and a consideration of how much it impacts your overall recovery. The further into a cut you get the worse you feel because you are pushing into ovetraining and you are simply not fully recovering. It's really a matter of how you burn the calories past trying to maintain your gains, while not having too big an overall negative impact on your recovery.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#24

Post by janoycresva » Mon Nov 28, 2022 2:31 pm

Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:49 am You are going to get the same hypertrophic stimulus in a cut with any of the above rep schemes, which is none. You are simply not going to grow in a deficit unless you are using chemical aids so hyoertrophic stimulus becomes a moot point, it all becomes calorie expenditure and a consideration of how much it impacts your overall recovery. The further into a cut you get the worse you feel because you are pushing into ovetraining and you are simply not fully recovering. It's really a matter of how you burn the calories past trying to maintain your gains, while not having too big an overall negative impact on your recovery.
The hypertrophy result will probably be none, yes, but the same mechanism that grows muscle in a hypercaloric state is what retains muscle in a hypocaloric state, otherwise we would only be doing cardio and muscle retention would be the same either way. Those low rep sets have a hypertrophic stimulus too, it's probably just not as high for the amount of fatigue.

RP has a video that talks about a lot of this stuff:


I think Nuckols also has talked about biasing higher reps on a cut, iirc his SBS 2.0 program write up recommends doing the hypertrophy template while in a deficit.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#25

Post by Hardartery » Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:18 pm

janoycresva wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 2:31 pm
Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:49 am You are going to get the same hypertrophic stimulus in a cut with any of the above rep schemes, which is none. You are simply not going to grow in a deficit unless you are using chemical aids so hyoertrophic stimulus becomes a moot point, it all becomes calorie expenditure and a consideration of how much it impacts your overall recovery. The further into a cut you get the worse you feel because you are pushing into ovetraining and you are simply not fully recovering. It's really a matter of how you burn the calories past trying to maintain your gains, while not having too big an overall negative impact on your recovery.
The hypertrophy result will probably be none, yes, but the same mechanism that grows muscle in a hypercaloric state is what retains muscle in a hypocaloric state, otherwise we would only be doing cardio and muscle retention would be the same either way. Those low rep sets have a hypertrophic stimulus too, it's probably just not as high for the amount of fatigue.

RP has a video that talks about a lot of this stuff:


I think Nuckols also has talked about biasing higher reps on a cut, iirc his SBS 2.0 program write up recommends doing the hypertrophy template while in a deficit.
Fair enough. I have never been focussed on hypertrophy particularly, and in a cut I am concerned with strength loss so my priorities may skew different than others. Not losing mass is a nice bonus though, I think my fibres are fairly heavily fast twitch which probably has an effect on what works better for me than some others. I end up much more focussed on recovery, and Sheiko would be deadly on a cut as far as I am concerned. It's just crazy volume overkill for me on a deficit. It is too much volume even in a surplus for many.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#26

Post by janoycresva » Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:57 am

Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:18 pm It's just crazy volume overkill for me on a deficit. It is too much volume even in a surplus for many.
I had good success for squat/dead with the over 80kg intermediate program that was popular a while back, but that's one of the lowest volume versions of Sheiko, and it was pretty difficult for me. Some genetic anomalies thrive on that sort of training though, a friend of mine who went on to be top 100 nationally in his weight class for a time ran the way higher volume version while resting only 60-90 seconds between sets and hit huge PRs, but the fucker also squatted 405 his second month of lifting.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#27

Post by CheekiBreekiFitness » Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:49 am

As far as I know Mike T's approach is to do higher reps, lower weight, lower specificity during the calorie deficits (aka pivot cycles) and lower reps, higher weight, higher specificity during the gaining phases (aka development cycles).

Now the caveat might be that this only works if your weight stays quasi-constant i.e gain 1-2 kgs during a development cycle and then lose 1-2 kgs during the pivot cycle that follows and repeat this for years on end. I don't know about situations where you have a lot of weight to gain or lose, say 10 kgs.

But now I'm more and more convinced that the easiest approach for long term weight management is to make sure that your weight is quasi-constant. Muscle growth rate is absolutely glacial anyways, and I have a hard time believing people put on more than a few kgs of actual muscle each year, and that is if you're training your ass off. People tend to be delusional about how much actual muscle they put on.
Last edited by CheekiBreekiFitness on Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Programming lifting for weight loss

#28

Post by Hardartery » Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:54 am

janoycresva wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:57 am
Hardartery wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:18 pm It's just crazy volume overkill for me on a deficit. It is too much volume even in a surplus for many.
I had good success for squat/dead with the over 80kg intermediate program that was popular a while back, but that's one of the lowest volume versions of Sheiko, and it was pretty difficult for me. Some genetic anomalies thrive on that sort of training though, a friend of mine who went on to be top 100 nationally in his weight class for a time ran the way higher volume version while resting only 60-90 seconds between sets and hit huge PRs, but the fucker also squatted 405 his second month of lifting.
That's my impression of it, it is magic for the some guys but for most it's just too much to recover from. I think it really was developed working with outliers that were made for it, but everybody thinks that what works for one guy must be the key to success for everyone. I know that much volume will put me solidly into overtraining after a while, which I don't mind if I know I'm also going to have a bit of a layoff coming up so I can fully recover and rebound. I intentionally pushed that envelope before my last trip and I came back stronger after a month of no lifting. But I wouldn't want to try and use that high of a demand all of the time.

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