If I'm honest, I've never done a full blown cut... I've done one or two half arsed attempts but now I'm gonna go for it 100% and try to get to below 10%. As I've never done it before, I will need some advice on how you think is the best way to train, both weights and cardio.

Firstly, weights... what do you think? Split? Full body? Upper/lower? Volume? I wouldn't want to lift any more than 4 days per week, unless people think it would be beneficial?

Secondly, cardio... steady state? HIIT? Before breakfast? This is something I need more help with as I've never really done much cardio, if any, as I hate it lol. But I am willing to do it and work hard at it.

Diet is some thing I should be okay with. I plan to keep diet the same initially and create kcal deficit by increasing activity levels. When progress stalls, I plan to reduce kcals/carbs slightly. Any pointers here?

Now, I have around 12 weeks (I'm going on holiday to Vegas) in which to do this and although I'm not carry a lot of mass and I'm quite slight, I think cutting to a fairly low level of bf could create the illusion of me looking bigger than I actually am. I may try and get some pics of my current state up later so you can see where I'm at...

Any advice appreciated, cheers!

Defo Full Body 3 times per week, short rest periods.
HIIT and sprint work and you will be ripped lol.

Thats what I found worked for me.

Coop_de_Ville wrote:Defo Full Body 3 times per week, short rest periods.
HIIT and sprint work and you will be ripped lol.

Thats what I found worked for me.

Sounds about right, also look up lactic acid training.

You can take 2 approaches to this:

1. Less gym (3-4 days) time but very strict diet in terms of cals and eating clean.
2. More gym (5-6 days) time and a relatively strict in terms of cals but eating clean.

Personally I'd take the 2nd approach with more gym time if you can spare the hours as you're less likely to rebound from dieting.

With that in mind I'd go with and Upper/Lower split which would use up 3-4 days and then 2-3 days for conditioning sessions. Keep the weights sessions between 45-60 mins and the conditioning sessions 30 mins so that you have some decent recovery time.

I'd arrange the routine like this:

Day 1 - Upper 1
Day 2 - Lower 1
Day 3 - Conditioning
Day 4 - Upper 2
Day 5 - Lower 2/Conditioning
Day 6 - Conditioning
Day 7 - Rest

This is pretty much the routine I'm following so you can get an idea of how I arrange movements for each split in my journal but as a basic rule I try to train antagonist muscle groups within each session. For Lower 2 I tend to use more power type movements and also add in short circuits which double up as a conditioning session as well.

Full body three times per week intensity at around 70% VO2 max (so basically circuit style training that keeps you breathing hard but not gasping like you are gonna suffocate), as this intensity level elevates EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) for longer and with the most amount of extra metabolic calorie burn overall, even when compared to higher intensity.

I'd also do HIIT style cardio as the others suggest .

For supp's GTE and Caffiene, and for all protein shakes other than your workout one use Casein rather than Whey as its a) more anticatabolic, which is what you want on a calorie restriction and b) more thermogenic, further bumping up resting calorie burn due to increased metabolism.

Lots of coconut oil as an energy source (thermogenic) and maybe CLA as a supp too, although the research is less solid than for GTE or caffiene.

Yeah, I think I would prefer the second option. Just had a quick look at your journal Alex and seen you have chest and back, shoulder sessions, etc. How exactly do you structure your upper workouts? I.E, do you have a particular order to your upper workouts?

In regards to supps, I only have whey and fish oils and only really use whey PWO these days. I don't think I'll be buying any more supps, unless they're really cheap.

Personally.

Weights- do the same kinda training that's been building you muscle, just sligtly up the
Volume/add supersets/less rest ect. Whatever. Train just as heavy

Diet.first couple of weeks, just cut out the crap 6 days a week. Then after a few weeks
Maybe reduce carbs and/or fats slightly

Cardio. Steady state in the morning pre brekkie. Start on 20 min 6 days a week and go from there
Tweaking the diet a wee bit each week

Wee bit of hiit after weights if you have time. 10 min or summit.

Just get stricter and tighten it all as you go along as required

roadz wrote:Yeah, I think I would prefer the second option. Just had a quick look at your journal Alex and seen you have chest and back, shoulder sessions, etc. How exactly do you structure your upper workouts? I.E, do you have a particular order to your upper workouts?

In regards to supps, I only have whey and fish oils and only really use whey PWO these days. I don't think I'll be buying any more supps, unless they're really cheap.

The order is generally:

Upper 1 - Push/Pull
Shoulders/Back
Chest/Back
Triceps/Biceps

Upper 2 - Pull/Push
Back/Chest
Back/Shoulders
Biceps/Triceps

This means that everything gets a relatively even hit of the stick. I'm like with very few supps at the moment, just eating quality and varied foods.

Alex wrote:

roadz wrote:Yeah, I think I would prefer the second option. Just had a quick look at your journal Alex and seen you have chest and back, shoulder sessions, etc. How exactly do you structure your upper workouts? I.E, do you have a particular order to your upper workouts?

In regards to supps, I only have whey and fish oils and only really use whey PWO these days. I don't think I'll be buying any more supps, unless they're really cheap.

The order is generally:

Upper 1 - Push/Pull
Shoulders/Back
Chest/Back
Triceps/Biceps

Upper 2 - Pull/Push
Back/Chest
Back/Shoulders
Biceps/Triceps

This means that everything gets a relatively even hit of the stick. I'm like with very few supps at the moment, just eating quality and varied foods.

I'm not sure I understand this... Could you explain it a bit further? I'm probably being a retard lol

Training Antagonist muscle groups as Alternating Sets but with rest in between so not Super Sets.

Upper 1
A1 - Shoulders, rest 90 secs
A2 - Back, rest 90 secs

B1 - Chest, rest 90 secs
B2 - Back, rest 90 secs

C1 - Triceps, rest 60 secs
C2 - Biceps, rest 60 secs

Upper 2
A1 - Back, rest 90 secs
A2 - Chest, rest 90 secs

B1 - Back, rest 90 secs
B2 - Shoulders, rest 90 secs

C1 - Biceps, rest 60 secs
C2 - Triceps, rest 60 secs

Work with around 4-5 sets for each set of Antagonist movements before moving onto the next. This would end up looking like:

A1, A2, A1, A2, A1, A2, A1, A2...
B1, B2, B1, B2, B1, B2, B1, B2...
C1, C2, C1, C2, C1, C2, C1, C2...

If you have the balls for it, lactic acid training is great for fat loss. Get your diet right and do some cardio and you're set. Wouldn't want to do it for more than 4-5 weeks though as it'd become counter productive.

Have a look at my journal as I'm doing it at the moment.

That looks good and I think I may give that a go.

In regards to cardio, I think I will try a mixture of what everybody has said and see how I get on. I will try and get some pics taken tonight and then I'll have something to compare them to at the end of my cut.

Have only been cutting since the start of this month and I feel it's going okay so far... One thing though, I'm not sure if it's just psychological, but I feel I look a lot smaller already. I've read a bit about cutting and noticed that some people say when the fat loss starts, you start to look smaller as opposed to more defined, and then when you get below a certain bf level (can't remember what that level was) you will start to look more defined and the illusion of having size will also come into play.

What I'm asking is have people experienced this and have you found it a bit of a mental barrier to overcome, i.e, looking smaller, for some period of time?

roadz wrote:Have only been cutting since the start of this month and I feel it's going okay so far... One thing though, I'm not sure if it's just psychological, but I feel I look a lot smaller already. I've read a bit about cutting and noticed that some people say when the fat loss starts, you start to look smaller as opposed to more defined, and then when you get below a certain bf level (can't remember what that level was) you will start to look more defined and the illusion of having size will also come into play.

What I'm asking is have people experienced this and have you found it a bit of a mental barrier to overcome, i.e, looking smaller, for some period of time?

Once you can see you abs and separation in muscle groups, you'll feel good. Losing size will happen, buts so want, you want to be ripped.

Defo feel smaller at first, and always in clothes tbh

For me...the first 6 or 7lb did little to imprive "look" and only made me feel small. feel ok now though as chasig a goal so having a bad day isnt a problem

Just reading through this as i'm looking to do a 4-6 weeks cut before the summer this year.

Thinking of training full body 3 times a week, then two days or sprint/HIIT work outside of the gym.

Then in terms of diet i'll just start by reducing the total calories especially carbs, and by eating very very clean all the time. (Weekend eating and beer is my downfall, at least eating good all through the weekend will minimise the beer!).

Rab wrote:Personally.

Weights- do the same kinda training that's been building you muscle, just sligtly up the
Volume/add supersets/less rest ect. Whatever. Train just as heavy

Diet.first couple of weeks, just cut out the crap 6 days a week. Then after a few weeks
Maybe reduce carbs and/or fats slightly
Cardio. Steady state in the morning pre brekkie. Start on 20 min 6 days a week and go from there
Tweaking the diet a wee bit each week

Wee bit of hiit after weights if you have time. 10 min or summit.

Just get stricter and tighten it all as you go along as required

thats basicaly how I do things also

I feel very small at the moment, probably because I am quite small and don't hold a large amount of mass. Training and diet has been pretty shit recently, but I'm gonna get it all back on track tomorrow. Hopefully I'll look semi decent around mid July and then re-assess from there.