sounds clear to me
Its true.
If you want to Re-Comp, you should train for Maximal Anaerobic Power. Blast weights for a few reps, and keep rests really short. Donāt go to failure, but never really recover.
So you go into an Oxygen Debt.
After the workout you get EPOC for hours, so you burn more fat without having to train excessively.
All the lactic acid increases growth hormone and test, so you get mass without excessive muscle damage.
This magically allows you to gain without force feeding.
Gaining muscle is already a slow process. Iāve personally found re-composition to be frustratingly slow when not paired with a performance goal, for example, decreasing my mile run time, increasing max push-up/pull-ups, or increasing deadlift.
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German Body Composition Program: Lactic Acid Training for Growth Hormone Release and Fat Loss.
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Saving this one in my library of tnation links in my notes ap
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These two photos were taken 6 months apart. I believe I gained muscle while losing about 25 lbs. I did strictly bodybuilding-style hypertrophy training during this time.
At many points during the process I felt smaller and like I was ālosing my gainsā (what gains? lol).
Stick with the cut.
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Also, this photo was taken roughly six months after the second photo. I weigh the same, but I believe I am leaner and more muscular. Hence, a recomp. I think both approaches work but you need to be at least somewhat lean first.
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And how did you eat during this period and what percentage was your calorie deficit.
It was basically the most ābroā diet you could imagine ā 5 meals a day with 40-50 grams of protein from chicken, fish, whey, or egg whites, some carbs, and a little fat. I was neither low carb or low fat, but the cut was pretty aggressive so I wasnāt eating a ton of either ā started at maybe 200 grams of carbs and 40 grams of fat (only counting direct sources) on training days, and maybe 75/ 60 on off days. Both of these macros were adjusted down as necessary to ensure continued progress. Lots of veggies throughout.
At the 5 month mark or so I started increasing macros slowly, but my metabolism adapted well and I didnāt gain any weight. At the time of the final picture I was probably eating around 200/325/50 on training days and less on off days
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what did that bodybuilding-style hypertrophy training look like? great work!
Trevor
Great work first of all. I hope to achieve similar results.
I saw you are 5ā7. What did you end up weighing at the end of your cut? How many calories were you taking in?
The thing that sticks out most to me in how different my diet is to yours is the carbs. I havent cycled any and take in a consistent 170ish g carbs per day. Those carbs are also not all starches. Mostly vegetables. Im eating a half c of oats in the morning and usually some potatoes in the evening. Checking my diet logs that is 70 isn grams per day of starchy carbs
The rest are vegetable and fruit
Thanks. I worked with a coach who wrote my workouts. They changed each month, but some constants were:
- 5 days per week of lifting
- Split routine
- Balance of compound exercises and isolation exercises, with the vast majority of my direct arm and shoulder training being isolation work
- Mostly dumbbells, cables, bodyweight, and a bit of machines.
- Fairly high volume most of the time, but this varied month to month.
I have some chronic injuries to my shoulders, hips, and knees from previous training, so I was really flexible with what exercises I did. As an example, if I had a machine press programmed and it hurt my shoulder, Iād just do pushups with a band across my back instead. If a leg press hurt that day, Iād do it single leg. If that hurt, Iād do split squat. If that hurt, Iād find something that didnāt. I was basically just concerned with stimulating the appropriate muscles without jacking myself up worse.
Hilariously enough, after about a year where I only touched a barbell a handful of times, I randomly decided to work up on deadlifts one day and pulled 425 at 150 lbs without any pain. Not a huge number, but close enough to my previous PR at a much higher bodyweight lol.
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Thanks man.
I ended up weighing about 150 lbs. If you would have told me that thatās as light as Iād need to be to get to āveins in my absā lean, I probably wouldnāt have done it, but Iām glad I did.
I actually just went back and pulled up my old spreadsheets from this time. The lowest my intake got was around the 4 month mark where training days were 235 P/ 150 C/ 40 F and off days were 205 P/ 60 C/ 70 F. Those numbers are for direct sources so I wasnāt counting vegetables or counting the protein in things like oatmeal or the fat in my chicken breasts.
Iām actually surprised I didnāt have to go lower than that. If anything, I kept getting leaner as I added more calories back in, so probably could have gotten away with eating a bit more too.
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