Quote:
Originally Posted by Mega Man
Does anyone cycle between gaining mass and cutting up?
Do you guys mix in a lot of cardio with your lifting?
I'm thinking about this summer only going to cut up, very little lifting at all, and lose all of that ab flab.
If anyone is local to my area, let's get some work outs in together!
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Yes, I bulk and cut where I will focus on one or the other to see faster results than if I tried to stay as lean as possible all year round. If you are going to cut then the idea is that you will want to preserve as much muscle mass as possible, while losing fat, and the way that it is done is through maintaining your lifts, while slightly lowering your caloric intake for the day (I would never go lower than 500 cals under maintenace, especially if you already fairly lean), and increase cardio if needed (only do this when your weight loss stalls, but if you diet is right then you probably won't have to go crazy with cardio). I definitely wouldn't drop your lifting routine though, that won't end too well IMO.
To get a little more detailed, when I cut, the only thing that changes is my diet. Although towards the end of my cut my strength did take a small hit, my lifting routine was mostly unchanged (5 day push/pull type split), I did the same amount of cardio (3 days per week), and I ate 490-500 cals less than what I needed to maintain my weight where I was aiming for a max of 1lb loss/week. I went from 170@13%bf to 159@9%bf after around 8 weeks. Now, I'm back to bulking where I'm aiming for .5-1lb gain/week, but unfortunately I pulled a muscle in my upper back around 2 weeks ago so it put the brakes on my bulk until its healed up.