For the last months I have been bulking trying to get stronger and healthier to then cut. I am 5’7 started at 140 and bulked up to 175. It was not all muscle but I can now kind of see my abs. My next goal is to cut down to 160 of lean muscle.
My question is how should I go about doing this. Diet wise I will be following t-dawg 2.0. I am lost on what training would be best upper/lower, bodypart splt, full body? also how much cardio should I do weekly?
Some would say that you should work out 4-5 days per week with a typical bodypart split with higher rep ranges and shorter rest times in order to maximize sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and growth hormone release for fat loss.
Others would advise you to do 3-4 full body workouts per week in order to burn more calories both during the workout and throughout the day.
Still, some, including myself, would recommend a four day a week lower/upper, lower/upper split where you focus on mantaining or even gaining strength on the big, compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench press and military press while trimming down. You seem like you’re relatively new to lifting weights, so it is definitely possible to gain strength while losing weight. In my opinion, this will stimulate your body to hold onto its muscle and possibly stimulate sarcomeric hypertrophy while catabolizing fat for energy.
Some would say to lift a couple days per week and do a couple H.I.I.T sessions per week, which is probably the most effective means of burning fat.
It all depends on who you ask.
[quote]maverik28 wrote:
For the last months I have been bulking trying to get stronger and healthier to then cut. I am 5’7 started at 140 and bulked up to 175. It was not all muscle but I can now kind of see my abs. My next goal is to cut down to 160 of lean muscle.
My question is how should I go about doing this. Diet wise I will be following t-dawg 2.0. I am lost on what training would be best upper/lower, bodypart splt, full body? also how much cardio should I do weekly?[/quote]
I think it’s a mistake making a certain weight your goal. You should shoot for the mirror, pinch test and or a BF%. If you go after a number on the scale while cutting you can easily lose way more muscle than is necessary. A 25 or so pound gain is pretty good, it’d be a shame to waste it by becoming preoccupied with the scale instead of fat level. Also it sounds like you’ve been doing well. I’d keep going after more size if it was me. Or at the very least take a restrained approach to cutting.
–Tiribulus->
thats true but i have no calipers so no way of knowing how much bodyfat I have. If I had to guess I would say it is around 15-16 % I would like to get it down to 9-10 %. Does this in anyway change the type of training I should do?
[quote]maverik28 wrote:
thats true but i have no calipers so no way of knowing how much bodyfat I have. If I had to guess I would say it is around 15-16 % I would like to get it down to 9-10 %. Does this in anyway change the type of training I should do?[/quote]
Then you’re not seeing your abs. And who cares what the number is. No one, that’s who. Look in the mirror. How do you look. Why do you care if you are at 6.9/7.3/8.8/9.4 or whatever. The numbers game is a bad game to play.
What are some recommended exercises to increase leg size? Keep in mind that I run twice a week for speed and conditioning.
[quote]maverik28 wrote:
thats true but i have no calipers so no way of knowing how much bodyfat I have. If I had to guess I would say it is around 15-16 % I would like to get it down to 9-10 %. Does this in anyway change the type of training I should do?[/quote]
Like the guy above said, you will get a lot of different answers, maybe even from people with success to back up what they say and much of it valid.
Trial and error is the only way to be sure what’s going to work best in your case. If I were in the exact same boat you are and were dead set on getting leaner I would continue lifting like I had been because it’s working and just trim a bit off my calories each day across the board. Maybe 300-500 and see how it goes.
If you try to drop it too fast you’re guaranteed to kiss a bunch of that muscle goodbye. You may lose a little anyway, but why not make it as little as possible. Remember, your body will try to hang on to whatever it thinks it doesn’t have enough of. If you starve yourself of fat you may be shocked at how stingy it can become with what it has left.
Unless someone has a contest to prepare for I don’t see the point of trying to perform dietary liposuction on yourself. T-Dawg is a good bet imho. If you overdo the cardio you may wear yourself out and also lose more muscle than necessary. I’d shoot for short HIIT routines 3 or maybe 4 times a week.
Having said all that, if it actually were me and I was in the middle of a good growth spurt like it appears you are, I’d ride that for all it was worth. Seriously, what you’ve gained is good, but why stop there when you’ve got some momentum going? You only go around once friend.
I’m not trying to come off the wrong way, but a lot of us older guys (including me) would kill for an opportunity like you’re in the middle of right now.
–Tiribulus->
[quote]jimmyl24 wrote:
What are some recommended exercises to increase leg size? Keep in mind that I run twice a week for speed and conditioning.[/quote]
Dude you will get a lot further if you start your own thread and look around this site for the multitude of articles and threads on leg training. Just a friendly piece of advice.
[quote]sasquatch wrote:
Then you’re not seeing your abs. And who cares what the number is. No one, that’s who. Look in the mirror. How do you look. Why do you care if you are at 6.9/7.3/8.8/9.4 or whatever. The numbers game is a bad game to play.[/quote]
He makes a good point that I should’ve thought of being just the compulsive type to get hung up on numbers that don’t actually mean anything afterall.
when doing an upper/lower body routine how many exercises should one have in each session?
[quote]maverik28 wrote:
when doing an upper/lower body routine how many exercises should one have in each session?[/quote]
I don’t usually feel comfortable giving specific training advice like this. All I know is what’s working for me at the moment. Some guys swear by full body routines and others like splits. Personally I’ve never been a big fan of full body routines, but it’s not really practical to say what’s going to work for somebody else.
I’ve been liking 3 sets of 5 or 6 done to last rep before failure, with 6 or 8 exercises a workout depending on what I’m doing and how it goes. After 5 minutes on the bike and stretching.
You’ll have to see what works best for you and that will likely change from time to time as well.
–Tiribulus->
Yea I think I will take Charles Staley advice and do 4 fullbody routines weekly. Focusing more on upper body on 2 days and lower body on the other 2 days. I am still not sure how much cardio I will be doing.