T Nation

How to Lose Muscle Deliberately?

Bodybuilding
#1

This isn’t probably a goal of very many here, but I was wondering if anyone has an idea of how to lose muscle mass ON PURPOSE.

I would like to start running and become more generally fit, instead of big and bulky.

Currently I’m around 240 lbs. and 12%BF. That’s just too much weight whether fat or muscle to pound on my joints when I run for long periods.

I’m dieting now, doing 3-4 days of high intensity cardio on the elliptical along with 3 days of weights. I’m making good progress with fat loss(as determined by the mirror and waistline), but my overall weight isn’t dropping much.

Diet is around 2000-2500 kcal/day with mod. protein, mod. carbs and low to mod. fat. I don’t keep track, but if I had to guess, 40% protein, 40% carbs, 20% fat.

I’d like to be at 210 and really 190-200 eventually.

I would seriously lower the volume of weight-training, but it isn’t high now and I don’t want to lose all of my strength.

#2

weird goal…but im thinking hardcore calorie/protein restriction with high rep/low weight lifting instead of heavy would do the trick…but uh once again weird goal

#3

Do you want to lose it fast, or is there no real timeline for losing the extra LBM?

I would think that staying hypocaloric while maintaining a decent training regimen would do the trick. Well you might want some cardio in there.

I’m betting that, no matter how you wind up doing it, you will lean out quite a bit more before you start losing a bunch of muscle.

Just my opinion.

#4

[quote]ZachDelDesert wrote:
weird goal…but im thinking hardcore calorie/protein restriction with high rep/low weight lifting instead of heavy would do the trick…but uh once again weird goal[/quote]

It may seem weird to some, but I’m trying to become more “functional”…less useless(for my goals) mass to weigh me down. I still want to retain as much strength as possible, but I realize it’s probably going to be a sacrifice I have to make to some extent.

#5

Don’t sleep, eat one really crappy meal a day (preferably not breakfast) and work your muscles heavily for at least 5 days a week. I did that my SR year of college working at a Costco from 1AM to 11:30 almost every day while taking classes. I lost about 25 lbs of mass in 4 months and a lot of it was muscle.

#6

[quote]rainjack wrote:
Do you want to lose it fast, or is there no real timeline for losing the extra LBM?[/quote]

Nothing concrete…3-4 months.

[quote]
I would think that staying hypocaloric while maintaining a decent training regimen would do the trick. Well you might want some cardio in there.

I’m betting that, no matter how you wind up doing it, you will lean out quite a bit more before you start losing a bunch of muscle.

Just my opinion.[/quote]

Your probably right. I was just wondering if anyone(especially competitive athletes) had any experience with this.

#7

You might check out some of the boxers, and how they are able to move up and down multiple weight classes, and still fight effectively.

Or look at some of the old school BBers who have now gone back to looking more normal. Frank Zane, Shawn Ray, Lou Ferrigno, and Tom Platz come to mind.

#8

Use T2 in conjunction with a caloric deficit and regular endurance training while laying off the strength training.

Keeo carbs just high enough to allow you to recover and perform adequately.

#9

This is all insane.

Until you get to a weight reasonable for your joints to handle, keep the cardio up and impact free.

Preferably bike and swim. If you have a healthy pedal stroke on your bike you will really kick-in the endurance adaptations. You don’t want it to be a quad dominant pedal stroke as that will generally keep your quads relatively big.

You can be pretty functional @ 200 lbs, as there are Ironman triathletes that are 200+ (clydstale division). The severe caloric restrictions and stuff are really not that vital.

When I started triathlon training I was at about 177. On a hypocaloric diet I dropped to about 165 in a mere 1.5 months. It is all part of the training adaptation.

If you starve yourself you’ll be tetering on overtraining. Overtraining through endurance exercise generally sneaks up on you pretty good. You’ll just wake up one morning pretty damn sick and unmotivated.

Full body, endurance training should do the trick. I say look up an Ironman training guide and do the first 3-4 months. It will shrink you right up.

#10

[quote]TriGWU wrote:
Full body, endurance training should do the trick. I say look up an Ironman training guide and do the first 3-4 months. It will shrink you right up.[/quote]

Cool. This is what I was looking for. Thanks to everyone else too for the input.

#11

Yeh, any endurance training will eat up that muscle. Keep doing as much cardio as you like. As for weights, I would do low volume, heavy weights to maintain strength. If you have to, cut back on the frequency of your weight lifting, if you still aren’t losing the muscle.

You could also try dieting with a small calorie deficit each day.

#12

You don’t need to eat away the muscle to create the desired affect. Simply stimulating your slow oxidative fibers will do the trick. The more oxidative the muscle fiber the less potential for hypertrophy.

So we really don’t want him to breakdown his muscle so much as to stimulate the slow transition over to very oxidative dominant muscle fibers.

#13

Train with high intensity, low volume and train for endurance and eat less. Works every time, just be sure to really watch strength levels, if they drop much, ease off.

Rolo.

#14

Two a days full body 4 days a week, = jogging 6 days a week, Extreme low cals and carbs Lots of Soy Isolate.

with that i was very successfull at getting lean as hell and losing a shit pot of muscle, screwing my metabolism, etc…

LOL
im still paying for that one. Not recomended.

I agree dont eat as big. Dont eat to gain weight. Lift HEAVY and up the endurance work.

Good luck on those goals. Weird IMO but who the hell am I, hey to each his own.

Phill

#15

Simply run!

Nothing will peel off the muscle like long distance running. I wouldn’t worry about diet to much, just run 5 or 6 days per week. The muscle will come off faster than you can say Joe Weider!

#16

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Simply run!

Nothing will peel off the muscle like long distance running. I wouldn’t worry about diet to much, just run 5 or 6 days per week. The muscle will come off faster than you can say Joe Weider![/quote]

Ive been running six days a week already, and I dont give a damn about my size just yet.

Ive been shredding some extra rubber around my tires for two weeks and been mixing up my long distance running.

Mon, Wed, Fri -

3 min warmup (4.0mph, 4.5inc)
7 min run (6.5mph, 4.5inc)
10 min race (8.0mph, 1.5inc)
10 min run (6.8mph, 4.5inc)

Tue, Thu, Sat -

3 min warmup (4.0mph, 4.5inc)
3 min sprint (8.5mph, 0.0 inc)
4 min run (7.0mph, 2.5inc)
10 min run (6.5mph, 4.5inc)
10 min race (7.0mph, 4.5inc)

This will kick your ass, home boy.

Try doubling up, doing 30 min and 30 min for One hour.

Havent done it yet, but im looking forward to… once my Spike order gets processed…

#17

If you are 240 @ 12%, just go on a bb contest diet. In 16 weeks you should be able to drop 32 pounds and worst case scenario would be half fat half muscle. That you leave you at 208 and just over 6%! Have you seen caveman’s pics? He’s functional and lean and still carrying a good amount of muscle.

#18

LMAO!

I never thought I’d get so many responses on how to cut muscle weight. I agree with TriGWU for his rationale. I guess maybe I don’t want to lose muscle, just change it to more slow twitch, oxidative.

Looks like I’m going to be doing a lot more endurance cardio and weights, with a few heavy sets to maintain my strength.

Thanks again.

#19

[quote]ZachDelDesert wrote:
weird goal…but im thinking hardcore calorie/protein restriction with high rep/low weight lifting instead of heavy would do the trick…but uh once again weird goal[/quote]

Yes-I agree. But don’t restrict protein too much. It will happen naturally anyhow if you take your endurance training seriously. I was a middle-distance runner before I got into serious weight-training. During outdoor, I primarily ran the 800. Cross country, our races were 5k and in college 8k or 10k. Despite fitting in weight training, I would invariably lose 10 lbs between outdoor and cross-country from the demands of high-mileage running. I proabably ate 6000 calories during summer mileage buildup.

You should definitely lose both fat and muscle on your current diet as you build your mileage. Weight lifters think they eat big, but most have no idea the kind of caloric demands endurance athletes must meet to fuel their training.

#20

[quote]TriGWU wrote:
You don’t need to eat away the muscle to create the desired affect. Simply stimulating your slow oxidative fibers will do the trick. The more oxidative the muscle fiber the less potential for hypertrophy.

So we really don’t want him to breakdown his muscle so much as to stimulate the slow transition over to very oxidative dominant muscle fibers.[/quote]

I agree with this. It doesn’t sound like you want to be an endurance athlete. Just get to a weight where you can run comfortable without joint issues. Just continue lifting-watch the volume. And build up your endurance. Your body will sort itself out. You don’t have to be scrawny to do endurance activities at a recreational level.