Beating log book while cutting

[Gmm379]

Hey guys,

Been on the board a while back, just checking out other posts and logs. Was wondering how everyone handles the log book while cutting - do you guys try to maintain strength or are you trying to set PRs on your loading/straight sets. I have pushed it hard in the past when dieting, but have wondered if I should be really gunning for weight increases when I’ve got enough food in me to help facilitate growth and am I leaving gains on the table when hitting it hard regardless of where I am with calories. Wondered if you all had thoughts on this or has experience lead you to do things a certain way. Thanks

[Altamir]

So unless I am reading this wrong. You should ALWAYS be pushing for PRs. I mean, you may not get them but the effort should be 100%. So calories and recovery may not always be there to be able to allow you to hit those PRs, but you should always be pushing for them. I'm trying to gather some context from your post and hitting PRs does not exactly mean "more weight" It can also mean more reps. So pushing for 10 reps instead of 9 is plenty good for me.

Where you are going to be best served IMO to maintain strength and muscle during a fat loss phase (beyond the whole putting in 100% effort) is how you structure your diet, (I have found carb timing as Scott has laid out, works very well) how you are adjusting your training (lowering volume tiers, or cruising more often, etc), and focusing on recovery and sleep when you can. Those will IMO serve you the best.

[Gmm379]

Thanks, Altamir. I appreciate your insight on this. I’ll try to be more clear in what I’m getting at. You know, this is something that I have thought about from reading some old posts at Intense Muscle and this really great article by a guy named Kelly Baggett that I found on the Iron Addicts board recently. I think Dante may have agreed with a lot of this as well:

14. Neural Strength Gains vs Structural Strength Gains

Strength can be gained from increases in neural efficiency or it can be gained from increases in the size of your muscles. What mainly determines what you gain is how much food you eat. The main difference between whether you just gain “relative” strength (strength per pound of bodyweight), or whether you gain large amounts of muscle with strength, contrary to popular belief, is not time under tension, repetition range or any training variable, it is simply the amount of food you eat in the process of getting stronger and the amount of scale weight you gain. To illustrate, over a very long period of time, a lifter trying to stay in a lower weight class might be able to take their bench from 200 to 400 pounds whilst eating like a bird and only gain maybe 15 or 20 pounds of bodyweight. In contrast, a bodybuilder or a lifter not trying to keep his bodyweight down could train EXACTLY like the weight class guy yet gain 50, 60, or 70 pounds of muscle and take their bench from the same 200 to 400 pounds much quicker. A bodybuilder should ideally strive to get the biggest muscle mass increases per unit of strength gain possible.

[Scott Stevenson]

GMM,

Have you read the FAQ at the end of the FT e-book on this topic?...

-S

[Gmm379]

... Thanks, Scott

[Scott Stevenson]

... Thanks, Scott

Sure!

-S