How to Train Muscles While Cutting

A common question is how to train muscles while cutting (reducing your fat percentage) so as not to lose muscle volumes.

Theory of cutting

You need to decide on the dates that you set aside for this very cutting. With a properly built system of nutrition, training, and recovery for 7-8 weeks, almost everyone can get 10-12% of fat instead of the initial 25%. So how to keep your muscles? No way. In terms of losses, there is no way to avoid it, but you can minimize it.

We take as the basis the fact that a decrease in the percentage of fat is possible only when creating a negative energy balance in the body. Against this background, catabolic processes will dominate, both in relation to adipose and, unfortunately, muscle tissue.

How to train muscles in this period

You need to train in the same way as when gaining muscle mass, using the optimal training modes for each muscle group (range of repetitions and weights).

What are we changing?

The volume of the training load. Why? With energy deficiency, gluconeogenesis is fully activated in order to provide muscle contractions in the absence of an adequate supply of glucose. Of course, cortisol, in all its glory, will show its qualities in relation to muscle tissue. The larger the training volume, the greater the muscle demand for glucose delivery. Why not fat? Because in the anaerobic mode, fat cannot be oxidized due to the high intensity during anaerobic glycolysis.

And why not reduce the intensity, i.e., projectile weight? Yes, because when working with 70% of intensity during muscle gain, you stimulated the growth of 70% of all muscle fibers in the first and about 90%, in the last failure. They are hypertrophied, you trained them.

But suddenly you start to work with a weight of 50%, and in order to show you the same stimulating qualities of the set, you need to do 25 repetitions to a truly complete failure, which is very important in highly repetitive training, and it is extremely difficult to do this on a diet.

We will explain it even easier. You have small bodybuilders in your muscle – 100 people. You trained 90 of them because nature does not allow us 100%, and of course, these 90 people pumped up, which led to muscle growth, but you went on a diet, reduced weight, and now train only 70 bodybuilders. What will happen to these 20, do you think? We also think that they will begin to lose muscle mass, and with it, the volume of the trained muscle will decrease.

How to train muscles? What do we recommend?

Let’s discuss practice concerning how to train muscles while cutting body fat. In the first two weeks of the diet, we reduce the number of failed sets in the exercise. For example, there were 4 exercises on the pectoral muscles with two failed sets, and we left only one, well, or one in some exercises.

In the third week, reduce the number of exercises to 2-3 in one training session. Starting from the fourth week, the total amount of work performed should be reduced by about 40% relative to the initial one, and all attention should be paid to maintaining power results. Of course, a drop in power will also occur, but you should not be the initiators of this fall.

Additionally, see the top 4 mistakes athletes make while cutting.

What is more, why not read about the reasons when to start cutting body fat?