Howdy. I have a division-I tryout near the end of summer.
I’ve put on 40 pounds in the last 8ish months. Currently 220 @ 5’ 11. Although I’d really like to continue getting bigger and stronger, which would be of obvious benefit for d1 football, speed is of a higher importance for my position. At this point I think I ought to lean up and see what I’m working with.
I was hoping I could get some advice on cutting while maintaining strength/size. I’m sure this is a common question on a forum such as this, and I do apologize for irritating those of you who encounter these inquiries regularly, but it seems the philosophy of dieting is fairly dynamic. In other words, searching for info gave me more points of confusion lol.
I’ll leave it at that pretty much. Feel free to ask about training/current diet/et cetera for clarification.
I’ll be trying out for running back/linebacker. I’ll play anywhere.
Currently I’m doing a modified Westside Barbell program… I can get more specific if that would be helpful. I also do sprint and agility work 2-4 times per week.
Hah… kind of an unusual food day for me.
Two waffles, 1 blueberry muffin, four eggs, three sausages and ample syrup. 2 cups 2% milk
popcorn and 4 cups of 2% milk (~36g protein)
1 triple stacker from burger king
2 sweet potatoes with butter, 5 oz piece of salmon, 5 pieces of bacon. 3 cups skim milk
2 sweet potatoes with butter, 8 oz of chicken, 2 pieces of bacon, large spinach salad with a handful of walnuts. 2 cups skim milk
My diet is kind of all over the place. I ended up spending last night away from home unexpectedly so I had to roll with it. On off days my main thing is getting enough protein in; on training days I go for a bare minimum of 5k cals and sometimes i’ll do 8k+ on double days. Hell, sometimes I’ll do 8k on an off day, lol.
[quote]swhole milk wrote:
I’ve put on 40 pounds in the last 8ish months. Currently 220 @ 5’ 11. Although I’d really like to continue getting bigger and stronger, which would be of obvious benefit for d1 football, speed is of a higher importance for my position. At this point I think I ought to lean up and see what I’m working with.[/quote]
I think you ought to talk with your coach about his view of the running back and what defense he will utilize in the fall.
Did he say he needed a running back, full back, half-back? The position and utilization vary wildly, for instance, we had a huge Fullback in HS and he never went outside the 4 hole but he hit that hole like a Mack truck for 3 yards a pop unless the defense stacked the inside. If your a half-back you should probably cut. If you will do a little of both talk to your coach about the best game plan.
Defense is the same. Will you be middle or outside linebacker? Will the defense even have a MLB? Talk to your coach.
If I had to choose between the guy that could run a 40 in 4.6 but weighed 190 or the guy that could do it in 4.8 but weighed 220 the position and what I needed him to do would be the deciding factor.
[quote]deat wrote:
How is your speed and agility currently (40, pro-agility, position specific drills, have you been getting burned in 7sv7s)?[/quote]
Agility is excellent, linear speed needs to improve. 10yd - 1.59 20yd - 2.8 40yd - 4.9-5.0. My 10 is great but something is happening in my transition phase that is slowing me way down. Gonna get some video this week and study it. I began to take my speed training seriously only 3 weeks ago so I’m expecting/hoping to make some progress by the tryout. Shooting for a 4.5.
20 yd pro-agility - 4.25. Really pleased with this, and I fully expect to get below 4.1 as the tryout nears.
vertical - 31"
I haven’t been able to find anyone with a good enough arm to make positional drills worthwhile. During the summer I work with a kid that can put some sauce on it so I plan to do it then as I work in a relaxed environment lol
[quote]JLone wrote:
If I had to choose between the guy that could run a 40 in 4.6 but weighed 190 or the guy that could do it in 4.8 but weighed 220 the position and what I needed him to do would be the deciding factor.
[/quote]
Indeed, more information would be nice. I’ll try to get more info, but it’s not exactly forthcoming. It’s a d1 school that heavily recruits, they aren’t too concerned about walk-ons, recruited or not, lol.
One of my “coaches” said that going in shredded is better than going in thick for skill positions because you will be judged heavily on appearance… besides the wow factor apparently they correlate it with off-season work ethic.
I hear you though, I’d really like to know more… we’ll see.
Performance trumps appearance every time in football.
I’m not going to give you any recommendations other than these:
make sure you’re sprinting, running agility drills and energy systems work, I cannot stress the importance of this enough! when you try out you want to be fast, agile and capable of going hard throughout an entire practice/tryout!
make sure you’re sprinting, running agility drills and energy systems work, I cannot stress the importance of this enough! when you try out you want to be fast, agile and capable of going hard throughout an entire practice/tryout!
make sure you’re sprinting, running agility drills and energy systems work, I cannot stress the importance of this enough! when you try out you want to be fast, agile and capable of going hard throughout an entire practice/tryout!
Lol yeah I feel you… thus my desire to trim up a little. My speed, agility and energy levels will all benefit from less weight. Only my bench will hurt a little, and I’d say benching is probably the least important test. Over the winter I focused on size and strength… now the focus is speed, plain and simple.
Looked at your training log deat, we’re about the same strength wise. You can out-bench me for sure but I got you on dl’s. Squats we’re similar. Do you/did you play college ball? Seems like you do a lot of mobility work for a lifter lol. Thanks for linking that article, interesting read.
I’m not looking to get sub 10%, more like get to 10%. I’m prob around 12-14 right now so this isn’t a huge project. Ideally I’d like to drop to 200ish (10lbs water followed by 10lbs fat) in the shortest amount of time and then try and put on muscle until the tryout, maybe come in around 210.
Looked at your training log deat, we’re about the same strength wise. You can out-bench me for sure but I got you on dl’s. Squats we’re similar. Do you/did you play college ball? Seems like you do a lot of mobility work for a lifter lol. Thanks for linking that article, interesting read.
[/quote]
I played a year of D1 as a preferred walk-on, moved up the depth chart, but by the off season had to deal with some injuries and academic stuff.
As per strength it’s good to make personal progress but if you can’t run and play the game it’s useless:
As a walk-on at 6’2" 230-245, I struggled to squat 135 ten times (didn’t do any multijoint lifts as a JR and SR in HS due to injuries). But I was the fastest in 200-yard shuttle of my position, could run a high 4.7 and was decent at pass rushing
I’ve only been lifting for a little over a year and I never lifted in high-school so I’m pleased with my strength. But yeah as is commonly suggested, if ya got the skills and the speed football is a breeze, if ya got speed but no skills there’s a track that goes around the field.
lol 4.7 @ 240 but couldnt squat 135x10? What position? If you were fastest in the 200yd shuttle at your size I assume you were a lineman? Is the 200yd shuttle a common combine/tryout event?
So… on the main topic, does anyone have any advice or links for cutting 20lbs fast? I feel like it shouldn’t be that difficult given my starting point.
[quote]swhole milk wrote:
I’ve only been lifting for a little over a year and I never lifted in high-school so I’m pleased with my strength. But yeah as is commonly suggested, if ya got the skills and the speed football is a breeze, if ya got speed but no skills there’s a track that goes around the field.
lol 4.7 @ 240 but couldnt squat 135x10? What position? If you were fastest in the 200yd shuttle at your size I assume you were a lineman? Is the 200yd shuttle a common combine/tryout event?
So… on the main topic, does anyone have any advice or links for cutting 20lbs fast? I feel like it shouldn’t be that difficult given my starting point. [/quote]
bignate - please use less detail, I find it confusing
xfactor - 'bama. lol naw, a school in the big east
Door #1) So would 2000cal per day @ 250g protein 200g carb 22g fat be a good starting point? That’s pretty low fat, does anyone think the amount is correct or would an adjustment be recommended? These numbers come from a book I have on bodybuilding.
Door #2) I have previously done what is commonly known as the ‘warrior diet’… essentially fasting all day and then eating whatever one desires at night. It worked really well for me when I used it but I was way smaller, not sure how it would work for my larger self. Anyone used this with success? I read about a lot of wrestlers using this approach. Thinking about trying it again as the nightly reward of feasting is really quite satisfying.
[quote]swhole milk wrote:
I’ve only been lifting for a little over a year and I never lifted in high-school so I’m pleased with my strength. But yeah as is commonly suggested, if ya got the skills and the speed football is a breeze, if ya got speed but no skills there’s a track that goes around the field.
lol 4.7 @ 240 but couldnt squat 135x10? What position? If you were fastest in the 200yd shuttle at your size I assume you were a lineman? Is the 200yd shuttle a common combine/tryout event?
So… on the main topic, does anyone have any advice or links for cutting 20lbs fast? I feel like it shouldn’t be that difficult given my starting point. [/quote]
Assuming he meant 20yd shuttle, just putting that out there.
Did you not hit up a school in time for spring ball? Just curious why you seem to not know much about what the coaches are expecting of you(or have need for) going into a summer tryout.
Cutting 20lbs should happen almost effortlessly as you build your work capacity to the needs of a college athlete, combined with just a little dieting. Unless you are getting newbie gains still because as you said, you’re fairly new to lifting, in which case don’t be so focused on the scale. You want to go into your tryout conditioned and fast, and conditioned(for emphasis). I haven’t read the new Wendler article but I bet it’s amazing, because Jim knows his shit.
[quote]swhole milk wrote:
bignate - please use less detail, I find it confusing
xfactor - 'bama. lol naw, a school in the big east
Door #1) So would 2000cal per day @ 250g protein 200g carb 22g fat be a good starting point? That’s pretty low fat, does anyone think the amount is correct or would an adjustment be recommended? These numbers come from a book I have on bodybuilding.
Door #2) I have previously done what is commonly known as the ‘warrior diet’… essentially fasting all day and then eating whatever one desires at night. It worked really well for me when I used it but I was way smaller, not sure how it would work for my larger self. Anyone used this with success? I read about a lot of wrestlers using this approach. Thinking about trying it again as the nightly reward of feasting is really quite satisfying. [/quote]
2000 calories a day for the work you need to be putting in would be a fucking tragedy. Nobody can give you a set calorie number, you’re going to have to do some work monitoring yourself because you may even need to increase cals to support your sprint, agility, and work capacity training on top of strength training(I say may meaning likely, but you could be eating a ton as is I don’t know).
[quote]red04 wrote:
Assuming he meant 20yd shuttle, just putting that out there.
Did you not hit up a school in time for spring ball? Just curious why you seem to not know much about what the coaches are expecting of you(or have need for) going into a summer tryout.
Cutting 20lbs should happen almost effortlessly as you build your work capacity to the needs of a college athlete, combined with just a little dieting. Unless you are getting newbie gains still because as you said, you’re fairly new to lifting, in which case don’t be so focused on the scale. You want to go into your tryout conditioned and fast, and conditioned(for emphasis). I haven’t read the new Wendler article but I bet it’s amazing, because Jim knows his shit.
[/quote]
Good point on 20yd shuttle, 4.7 is a respectable lineman time.
Regarding spring ball, lol, obviously not, but there are other factors why that wasn’t possible anyways.
I’m just getting to the point of body fat where I feel sluggish and tired. Anyone who has done serious intervals (track, football, whatever) at both lean and fatter body weights knows what i’m talking about. Not that I’m that fat right now but as we said on my track team, speed kills… all those who don’t have it.
Not to be dense, but I don’t know exactly how to define newbie gains. If I eat enough I expect to get stronger every week… and from reading about Westside and other heavy lifters this is not relegated to being new to lifting. So I kind of expect to get a little weaker every week from cutting, unfortunately. Should be easier to get it back though.
[quote]red04 wrote:
2000 calories a day for the work you need to be putting in would be a fucking tragedy. Nobody can give you a set calorie number, you’re going to have to do some work monitoring yourself because you may even need to increase cals to support your sprint, agility, and work capacity training on top of strength training(I say may meaning likely, but you could be eating a ton as is I don’t know).[/quote]
Why would that be a tragedy? I really doubt the fatigue would be much worse than eating 8k cals lol. I usually find that in a deficit i have unusual reserves of energy… at least for a month or so lol. Used to cut hard for track but those were in my distance days… alas
Anyways, I’m not really clear what you’re suggesting. I think that if I work enough/eat not enough to lose 20 #s “effortlessly”, I will stagnate and just gradually lose strength which kind of sucks. I would rather lose 20 #s in about 2 months and take the strength hit, then try and return to at least where I’m at now by the tryout. That way I’ll come in peaking no matter what. As I understand it, if you lose weight you lose strength so to prolong the process would shorten the time I have to regain my strength/power.
I’m open to suggestions but my end game is peak performance by tryout time
lol. Thanks for linking that article, interesting read.