Getting Weaker During Weight Loss

Background information:

Lifting seriously from age 14 to age 21, following were my main stats

5’11" 180 lbs. BF% 10%

Bench: 300
Squat: 400
DL : 375?
OHP : 185

For the last 2 years of my lifting I made very little to no gains, then I lifted sporadically for the next 10 years, maybe 6 months of consistent lifting at best in one stretch, which obviously meant I was not gaining really at all. Weight stayed fairly steady at around 185lbs but a slightly higher bodyfat.

At age 31 I was starting to gain a little bit of weight, weighing closer to 190ish, and then my lifting went from sporadic to essentially non-existent for the next 6 years.

For the first 5 years my bodyweight started increase at a moderate rate, about 15 pounds bringing me to 215 lbs. Then I gained about 30 lbs in one year bringing me to 245. Started lifting again and quickly brought my bench press and press numbers back to the 300 and 185 lbs., was going to start lifting more seriously, but coronavirus happened, and instead I didn’t lift for about 6 months and gained weight, up to about 260lbs.

I was depressed about this, and started lifting very seriously in Sept. 2020 with bench press, squat, and press. In 4 months I had amazing results!

Bench: 330
Squat: 430
Press: 230

Weight remained at about 260lbs., bodyfat was obviously fairly high, probably between 30%-35%, testosterone was quite low at this point, 2 seperate readings of 330 and 350, with corresponding low levels of free and bioavailable testosterone, this compared to a 662 reading in 2017 at bodyweight of 215. I became very concerned with this, and began eating healthy and doing 5 - 6 hours of incline walking per week, this was in Feb. 2020, while still lifting regularly with my upper body, squatting became a bit more sporadic.

In less than 3 months I lost about 30lbs, down to about 230ish! Strength obviously dropped, bench press was about 300 - 310 lbs., not too concerning. Weight loss has continued to occur to the present, bringing me to about 215 lbs. now with a bodyfat % of 20-22%.

Up until about 6 weeks ago my strength was staying fairly steady, maybe a slight decrease, weight loss was staying steady at about 1 lb per week. Then, my strength started to drop very steadily, and weight loss stayed the same, and then actually slowed down because I purposely started to eat more because I was afraid of how much strength I was losing, bench dropped from 300 to 275, despite losing only 5lbs. This is very confusing to me, despite slowing my weight loss, my strength seems to declining at a rate that is similar or possibly worse. A summary of my weight and strength changes in the past year.

Sept. 2020 BW 260 Bench 270
Feb. 2021 BW 260 Bench 330
May 2021 BW 230 Bench 305
June 2021 BW 223 Bench 300
Aug. 2021 BW 217 Bench 270

Why am I so weak right now? The logical conclusion would be that I am losing too much muscle with the drop in bodyweight, but that doesn’t make sense since my strength loss seems to stay steady or actually get worse even when I increase calories and decrease cardio to slow the rate of weight loss. Also, I don’t think I have actually lost that much muscle as a percentage of the 43lbs. weight loss. My waist has dropped from 47" to 37", which would be impossible unless most of the 43lbs was fat.

I check myself in the mirror regularly, and I’ve been taking waist measurements regularly as well, both of these seem indicate that it is primarily fat I am losing. For example, even if I lose 2 - 3 lbs, I can see some slight improvement in the mirror, and my waist measurement will also be less as well, at least 0.5 inches.

I’m reasonably happy with how my body is looking, but I am concerned that I will get extremely weak even if I just lose another 5 - 10lbs. I’m not lean enough yet to have the luxury of just trying to bulk or eat massive amounts of food, and it worries me that my weight training seems as if it is essentially a waste of time, i.e. my strength seems to be dropping at a rate that would be similar to if I just stopped training altogether.

At first I thought it might be due to low testosterone, but this doesn’t make sense because my testosterone actually increased after losing the initial 30 lbs to a 440, and I was actually stronger when it was lower. I haven’t had my testosterone checked lately, but I assume it is either in the 400ish range or higher, since my bodyweight is lower and the other indicators of testosterone such as sexual health seem to actually be better than they were when I had the 440 reading, and my body seems to be conserving its muscle fairly well, even though I have lost weight. My body transformation has actually been incredible, I used to be look very fat obviously at 260lbs, now I am still 215lbs, but I no longer have a belly and my arms are almost as big as they were when I was 260lbs, so I feel very confident that I have retained most of my muscle mass, I just feel like I am very weak for the amount of muscle that I do have.

Cliff Notes, since this was a really long post.:

Gained about 60lbs in 3 years

Got really strong with only 4 months of lifting after a very long layoff.
.
Lost 30 lbs in 3 months, got somewhat weaker

Lost 10 lbs in 3 months got slightly weaker

Lost 5 lbs in 1.5 months got substantially weaker

Have got some other lifts to gauge strength gain or loss?

It is possible that you have injured your rotator cuff to the point that your prime movers will not fire at 100%. You might not necessarily feel the shoulder injury.

What about the squat and deadlift? Pull ups is a fun gauge, as you should be able to do more pull ups as you lose weight. A true pull up gauge would be add weight to waist to equal the amount of body weight you lost.

Squat had declined a bit as well, but this is easily explainable due to less squatting in general over the last 6 months, deadlift has gotten a little weaker, but I didn’t make large gains in deadlift or train it that much in the past year.

I actually had trouble training back muscles for the 1st 4 months due to some tendon issues, probably golfer’s elbow. Started training back muscles when I first started losing weight, strength increased somewhat and then plateaued.

Couldn’t have even tried to due chin-ups initially due to golfer’s elbow, and was afraid I couldn’t even do 1 at all when I weighed 260lbs. First tried doing chin-ups when I was 235 lbs. and was able to work up pretty quickly to doing 3 sets of 10 at body weight of about 225 - 230 lbs, which is actually pretty impressive.

However, chin-ups progress seems to have stalled as well, even though I have lost weight, I can’t seem to improve my chin-up performance, stuck at the multiple sets of 10 with my bodyweight, tried doing sets of 8s with a 10lbs plate, was able to do it, but I think that my form was pretty sloppy.

The only lift that seems to be largely unaffected is my biceps curls, I have been able to steadily maintain and make slight gains with my curls.

Don’t worry dude, you’re just tired!

Also, don’t feel bad, it’s completely normal. You’ve been busting ass, lifting hard and gaining strength for months. On top of leaning out, losing a ton of weight for months. Your body is just getting worn out.

I have no clue how long exactly, your post is super confusing! But let’s say you’ve been killing it for between 4 and 7.5 months. Trying to to progress and “push it” for that whole time.

Ed Coan, the best Power Lifter and Dorian Yates, the best bodybuilder could only “train” or “contest prep” for 12-14 weeks at a time before they’d need to back off a little and rest/regroup before ramping things up again.

Chill out for a couple weeks and let your body acclimate to the new weight. Go easy in your workouts and let that sore elbow recover. Maybe start recording your resting heart rate and look for it to drop, indicating that your body is “normalizing” or achieving homeostasis or some shit.

Then lay out a 12 week plan where you start lifting like 65-70% of what you used to lift, slowly building up. Figure out how much you need to eat to maintain your new body and properly fuel your workouts.

Get some steady trainings and eatings in a for awhile. Then, when you’re not half dead anymore you can ramp up to hit some new big numbers. Before you back things down for a couple weeks then start the process again.

2 Likes

If you are losing weight, then obviously you are in a caloric deficit.

How long have you been at a deficit? As noted above, a break is likely going to help you.

What about your macros? Are you doing a very low fat diet?

Last question - What is the goal of your training? Bodybuilding/aesthetics or power lifting?

The author has not written on the topic for almost 1 year. Even his last two opinions in 2021 are in this topic. I doubt he will answer, and many things may have happened during that period :slight_smile: