Week 1 progress

3.5 lbs lost in week 1

168.0lbs
To
164.5lbs

Daily steps?

Eat 1600 calories a day
150g of protein
-consisting of
Oats
Bananas
Carrots
Broccoli
Chicken
Ground flax seed
Peanut butter
Whey protein
Light cheddar cheese


Weight lift every other day

That’s basically it.

Specific diet details soon

My complete workout

Here’s a post of my actual routine. This is just what I do. Take what you think has merit. And discard the rest. That way through trial and error you’ll find what works for you and YOUR body. 

How I apply each of the principles within it will be mentioned as well

The main premise in terms of exercises is I pick a main compound exercise for each muscle group/ with additional variations that I rotate through, to balance supporting muscles as well.

In order to get enough volume (reps/sets)

I split these into antagonistic days (opposite) how so? 

Two workouts: rotating every other day + throwing an extra day of rest every several weeks, when something comes up or it is needed

How I set up each of these exercises. It’s a little confusing to explain. But bear with me, it’s quite simple once you understand and apply.

I warm up a muscle group, with 1 set of around 50% of my strength building set. 

Let’s take two exercises from workout A for example

Each exercise has

-warm up set (1st green dot)

(objective to get blood pumping and moving through muscle, and to get muscles and tendons stretched and ready for work)

6-8 reps, focus on slowww reps, feeling and conscious contracting through the whole movement

-Heavy Strength/Power building set (2nd green dot) 

(Pick a weight that, with perfect form, you would fail between 4-6 reps, you should be in perfect control of the weight. Form should be perfect. If you’re not in control here. You will inevitably injure yourself in time) when you hit 7+ reps with this weight, increase the weight by the smallest amount you can, and build back up to 7+ reps over the next several weeks/months. Repeat!) 

Immediately after my heavy set, I would do the warm up for the next exercise 

(1st red dot)

(I’d pick an exercise that has no common muscle group with the one I just performed. Eg. If I just did heavy set shoulder press, I’d go warm up back.)

After warming up the next exercise I’d now do a take a 2-2.5 minute rest (depending on size of muscle group (2 mins for smaller I.e. abs, biceps, etc. And 2.5 for larger I.e. Shoulder press, pull ups, incline dB press,etc. Adjust accordingly)

Moderately heavy strength/explosiveness/endurance set

(3rd green dot)

(Here I’d lower my heavy weight about 10% or so, so that I would fail at 6-8 reps, a key here is to focus on exploding the weight up as fast as you can. )

Then I’d finish that body part with a 

Lighter Explosiveness/Endurance set

(4th green dot)

(Here I’d lower my weight again by about 10% or so, so that I would fail between 8-12 reps, while keeping perfect form. Also focusing on exploding the weight up. And keeping full control on both parts of the movement.) 

After this 

I would begin my 

-Heavy Strength/Power building set for the second exercise (2nd red dot) and repeat/continue on the procedure

These three phases/rep ranges will hit most of the functional uses of the muscle group. To be clear each exercise has 

1 warm up set, and 3 working sets.

Workout A: 

Shoulders

->Shouder press

->Lateral Raise (medial head)

Back

->pull ups

->chin ups

Abs

Triceps

Quadriceps 

Workout B:

Chest

->Incline Dumbell Press

->Dips

Mid Back

Rear Deltoids

Trapezius 

Biceps

Hamstrings

Calves

Let me go into a little bit of detail into each of these muscle groups. How I approach them. And how the principles apply to each of them.

Keep in mind, for smaller muscles, I find that lighter weight and higher reps seems to work best for myself. I.e. abs, medial delts, rear delts, biceps, triceps, calves.

Shoulders:

My primary shoulder builder is seated shoulder press or standing barbell press. I also do handstand push-ups. I variate every few weeks. At times I might do my 2 heavier sets with shoulder press, and my last set with handstand push ups. 

Lateral raises: 

->dumbbell lateral raise or cable, rarely use machine but is still good. Since the medial delts are a small muscle I do my heavy set with a weight that I hit 12 reps, and the next two sets I aim for a weight I can do 15, then 20 reps. 

Pull ups:

Primarily do pull ups. With a weighted belt on my waist. Aim for heavy set, 4-6 reps, then 6-8, then 8-12. Assisted pull up machine is great if you’re building your strength up for that. Lat pull down. 

Chin ups: 

This is a palms facing in movement. Works more of entire back. Rather than isolating lats like a pull up does. Same ranges as pull up. 

Abs: 

Either hanging leg raises, decline sit ups are my go to. I never do these weighted. They are delicate muscles on me. I just wear them out with explosive reps until failure. I warm up with a gentle set of about 8. Then all 3 working sets are just to failure. No need to count. You’ll continually be able to do more and become more efficient over time. 

Triceps: 

Typically rope extensions, also dips. And close grip push ups. I adapted this one a little differently because I find I never get a solid contraction my primary movement.

So I do perfect reps with the rope extension to warm up. Focusing on contraction. Then for my heavy sets I do 8-10 rep extensions, then close grip push ups explosively to failure.

The next set is 10-12, explosive push ups

Then the final is usually just tricep dips to failure.

Quadriceps: 

I don’t squat. It fucks with my knees lol. But I do functional leg movements. 

I.e my main one is single leg pistol squats. 

I usually warm up with regular body weight squats. And squeezing glutes and quads at top of movement. 

Then I do pistol squats while holding dumbbells. To build up. You can hold on to something. It’s a difficult movement at first. But performing these explosively will add tremendous strength and power to your sprints/jumps/quick movements. It’s awesome. I fail at 5 reps each leg

I just do two sets. I drop the weight, about 20 percent and do another 5 reps each leg. 

I don’t do a third heavy set for any lower body exercises. I’m thinking I’m doing cardio and walking a lot. That will take care of the endurance portion.

Now workout B:

Chest:

Incline dumbell press, basically how I do shoulder press. I rarely bench press. 

Mid back:

Either the weighted rowing machine

Barbell rows. Close grip chin ups (pulling toward my chest and angling my torso more horizontally). 

Warm up with half weight of heavy set. 

Then a weight for 6-8 reps

Second set 8-10

Third 10-12ish

Rear deltoids:

Just bent over dumbell raises, sometimes use the cables. This muscle naturally gets a lot of work from pull ups, deadlifts and most back exercises.

I treat these the same way I treat lateral raises. Make sure to stop in line with your back. No need to flap like a bird all the way back (the traps take over at that point)

Trapezius:

Primarily dumbbell shrugs. Also variate with barbell shrugs

Heavy set 6-8

Second 8-10

Third 10-12

Biceps:

Primarily curls. Or the cable machine with a bar attachment while the cable is between my legs (targets the lower portion of the movement as well) 

Make sure to do other variations with wrist facing forward, hammer curls as well 

Heavy set 8-10

Next set 10-12

Next set 12-15

Hamstrings:

Stiff leg deadlifts. Normal deadlifts

Lying hamstring curls. 

4-6

6-8

8-10

Calves:

I love a standing calf machine. But I’ll sub with single leg calf raises while holding dumbbells. Aim to get a full stretch on the bottom of the movement. 

Heavy set 10-12

Second set 12-15

Third set 15-20

Explosiveness is key on this one.

That’s mostly all of it. 

All the principles I listed are at work in this routine I use. 

Targets the entire body, in every rep range, and is filled with functional movements to balance a physique in terms of overall strength/power as well as efficiency.

The Workout Principles

Alright, so like I mentioned in my previous post. I cut a bit of volume (sets/reps) while cutting

Reasons being, your ability to recover is diminished when cutting, less macronutrients = body efficiently using whatever you consume. 

We work the body in a way that, it’s first priority is the keep you healthy. Definitely don’t want to die doing this, or cause long term health problems. Second, to preserve muscle mass over fat, you know, in case you needed to wrestle a tiger for your food like our ancestors. 

Disclaimer: none of this shit is my own. All ideas have been stolen from intelligent people who have made sense to me. Look them up if you’d like Martin Berkhan (genius), Kinobody, bodybuilding.com forums (where I am manlet), and just google in general

To prime the body for muscle preservation. I do the same method of working out as usual. Just slightly altered for a different need. 

It really doesn’t matter what workout you do. There are just principles to follow that if followed will allow the most efficient path to a desired outcome. 

I’m my case over the last 3 or so years. In terms of lifting weights, this has been in order:

-Strength/Speed/Power/Explosiveness

-Stamina/Endurance

-Size

The good news is, when you properly balance the first two, a natural result is the third.

Now, the principles I have been following to progress to these ends. I’ll go over each of these.

-Diet (which I’ll speak about in another post)

-Stimulus for intense muscle contraction (Strength/Power)

-Stimulus for muscular fatigue(Stamina/Endurance)

-Primarily Compound movements/free weights

-Consistently increasing difficultly as adaptations occur (+weight/+reps)

-Ideal stimulus frequency (how often)

-Efficiency (gym ain’t home)

These are the main factors. It doesn’t so much matter the exact program. If these are followed, you can mix things up in your own way. And understand what works, what doesn’t. And why.

Now, the details. I will go over each point, explain the benefit, how I incorporate it into my workouts, and what happens if this aspect is neglected. (Which sadly a lot of people do, the internet has information, but it’s definitely information overload, and one must critically think, try evaluate and sort out)

-Stimulus for intense muscle contraction (Strength/Power)

Ok, I’m sure many have heard, you gotta lift some heavy ass weights to get big. And it’s true.

But why? What’s behind this, causing your body to adapt in such a way.

The human body is adaptable. Through training, there is a perfect adapted physique for every sport.

Muscle is a sign of raw, Newtonian, physical power. 

Power = force produced per rate of time. 

I.e let’s say I bench press 100 lbs x 1rep, it takes 2 seconds for my concentric contraction (pushing out/muscle shortening) 

My rate of power = 50lbs/sec

The purpose of increasing weight, and doing sets where you lift at a rep range of 4-6. Is to increase this power level (you’re literally a Pokémon)

Now consider the fact, by bench pressing 50lbs, and contracting in a quicker manner (aka explosively/yet controlled) so that the concentric contraction that’s 1 second.

The rate of power remains the same 

Power = 50lbs/sec

This tells you that. It’s not so much the weight you lift. Rather. The force of contraction. The heavier weight just naturally stimulates a greater contraction from the environment. The greater the contraction. The more fibres of each muscle are used and with more intensity.

Your body receives and through constant consistent Stimulus, adapts accordingly. (Increasing efficiency of contraction/ strength of contraction/ and speed of contraction) which naturally causes a progressive increase in muscle size.

However lifting heavy weights is only one way to achieve this intensity contraction. 

Other ways include, 

-explosively training, like I just explained, slightly light weight, faster contraction. 

-Taking slightly longer rest periods. Muscle recovers and contract harder

-using slow negative reps

-consciously squeezing the target muscle through the entire rep range (especially at the top of the concentric part of the contraction) keep in mind, you must develop a strong muscle/mind connection to take full advantage of this. A lot of slow controlled reps with light weight will usually do this (aaka THE BUURN) I’ll do a post about this later

-pausing at top and bottom of particular movements to eliminate momentum

-making sure to go through entire range of rep with proper form.

If neglected: You simply won’t adapt. You won’t be more powerful. You’ll probably have the muscular endurance of a marathon runner. And might look like one too. You’ll be able to bench 95lbs for 30 reps... but that’s probably it. You’ll probably be able to punch a guy 30 times in a fight piss him off and wear him out. But you’d probably never be able to one-punch-man him. 

Either way, something to consider, and definitely consciously utilize

Next point... 

Stimulus for muscular fatigue(Stamina/Endurance)

Real world sports and activities rarely just require raw strength and power. Most often. You require longer bouts of endurance, followed by explosive power released with timing. 

Paraphrasing poorly From the MMA trainer Firas Zahabi

“training for just Strength is like being a tow truck, you’ll be able to move heavy weight, but the time requires, speed explosiveness and agility, you’ll be left behind. A more balanced approach will make you more like a Ferrari, you’ll have the strength to move things, but also the speed/agility/stamina/power when needed”

In this way, I believe it is just as important to build muscular endurance, with muscle, cardio and conditioning. 

I tackle this by incorporating sprints/longer runs/ stready state cardio at a heart rate between 120-160bpm

And also in my weight lifting routine, by lowering weight, and aiming to fail between 8-16 reps (instead of 4-6 for strength) 

Also focusing on speed of contraction

Other things you can do

Higher reps (feeeelin more of the buuurn) aka lactic acid build up, which your body will learn to efficiently work with the more you do it

Longer sets, taking time on both the lengthening and contracting portion of each rep, eg. taking 3 sec up 3 secs down

Shorter rest periods between sets eg. 30-1 minute

Neglecting this aspect: I pretty much explained it but 

-winded and out of breath easy

-Can’t keep up in sports

-You’ll be the pissed off guy in a fight, who got jabbed in the face by a marathon runner 30 times while waiting for the right moment to one-punch-man the guy, but get inevitable exhausted and knocked out LOL :( 

-simply can’t move that fast 

Next point... number 3 here we go

-Primarily focusing on compound movements/ Free Weights

There’s definitely a time and a place for isolation exercises and machines, however in my opinion it definitely should not be making up the bulk of your routine.

-first it’s a damn inefficient use of time

the time it takes could have been used to stimulate a whole string of muscles in another compound movement

-there are very few real world movements/sports/martial arts/etc that require use of a single muscle eg. Doing a dumbbell front shoulder raise, it’s definitely a good exercise to add to your repertoire. However most of your strength power, and efficiency will likely come from seated or standing dumbell/barbell shoulder pressing. In addition, it will work your core/triceps/back/midback/medial delt/posterior delt as well.. as well as many stabilizer muscles.. which brings me to my next point

Isolation/machines can neglect important stabilizer muscles, which if not properly balanced will very likely result in injury down the road, especially when the main muscle targeted gets stronger and weight is increased over time. This also results in your body being really efficient in specific movements from a specific angle. However in the real world, the body is used in almost every direction. To lift the arm in a front delt raise manner would likely show up significantly less frequently than pushing at all angles above the head (the way a shoulder press would resemble)

Sticking to mostly compound movement will result in a mostly balanced physique. With less “chinks in your armour” so to speak. 

Negative aspects of neglecting this: 

-you’ll only be efficient and powerful and specific angles (youlll be doing the robot all the time)

-You have a much higher likely hood to injure yourself if exercising from other angles

-You’ll find muscle imbalances that will become more pronounced over time

-You simply won’t make as much progress as someone who focuses on compound movements. One reason being you wasted all your value time doing less bang for your buck exercises

-you’ll probably injure yourself opening a can of peanut butter

Next point... point four..

Consistently increasing difficultly as adaptations occur (+weight/+reps)

I can hear you say “no shit” in your head.

It’s hugely important to always push for progress. And track and remember your previous personal best, and push to either increase weight/reps/speed of contraction etc.

I don’t know if it’s best, but I typically push till I fail. And after weeks or months at a specific rep range, when I finally hit the top of it let’s say 4-6 reps for dumbbell incline press. When I hit 6 reps, I increase the weight and build up again, up to 6 over time.

I do this as well for my higher rep sets focused on explosiveness. 

Negative aspect of neglecting this:

You’ll stop progressing. You’ll literally be wasting your time and won’t get anywhere

You are not giving your body any further reason to adapt. 

Next point... number 5..

-Ideal Stimulus frequency

Now for this. Everybody is different. And you’ll find as you progress, your body will adapt to things differently as well. When I started I did more whole body routines every other day. I progressed quickly and the frequency of hitting each muscle group every other day was perfect for me to make my “noob gains” however over time, my body adapted for this.

I stopped making gains, I had to put more intensity and volume in each body part to continue to grow and adapt. I took a two day split from Martin Berkham, focusing on opposing muscle groups each day. Hitting each muscle group harder, but giving up each group 4 days or so to recover between Stimulus (besides heavily taxed muscle groups used in a lot of movements like abs/forearms/some biceps triceps etc)

Each person has to experiment and find their own frequency for themselves though. Some recover quick, other are a bit slower/more likely to injure themselves. 

You can optimize this by keeping your diet perfect. Usually when you’re bulking your frequency can afford to be a little higher than when you can cutting. Because of the extra resources your body has for recovery. 

Negative aspect of neglecting: 

Too frequent-> won’t recover well. Will be wasting time. Won’t progress. Susceptible to injury. Higher resting heart rate all the time. Constant lethargy. Low motivation to train

Too infrequent-> won’t be progressing at the optimal rate you could be. Progress will likely half because of infrequent Stimulus. Soreness after most workouts (like first time back in the gym)

Final point..

-Efficiency

You likely have a job and other things to do, you  likely don’t want to live in the gym. 

If you’re like me, you want to push hard, give your all and be in and out 60-90 mins max. 

And don’t want to go every day as well. I typically go every other day. But if circumstances call for it, I’ll throw in an extra day of rest every few weeks.

Well. These are the principles. The main ones I know at least. Do whatever you want, but if you follow them. I promise definitive progression. 

However I’ll put my workout in the next post. So you can take what you want and add to yours.

Good day folks.

Great, now what? What the plan?

That is exactly what I’m cutting to right now ( haaah get it)

Ok let’s get into the clarity of the details.

Let’s simplify it to the principles that work. And effective ways to use them. No bs. I’m not selling you supps.

Over the years. I found this to be the basis of all that works. I’ve stolen a lot here from LeanGains, Kinobody, Lyle Mcdonald. Hell, anyone who things clearly on the internet about this topic.


1. Caloric deficit. From my past experience and experimenting with my own body. I have been able to consistently lose 2-3 lbs a week with just lifting, no cardio and with a slightly higher proportion of protein over fats and carbs (which I eat in a decent balance). This number I have tested and found through trial and error. 1600 calories is my golden number.

I lose the perfect amount of fat, I never feel groggy. And I am able to maintain strength while cutting

You gotta find your golden number too! Online calculators are not optimized for the individual. Only you must find that.

How?

Try a moderate caloric deficit, perhaps. 1900. If you are losing a pound a week. (Based off of random internet knowledge 3500 calories is a pound of fat) you are averaging a 500 calorie deficit a day. Meaning your total daily caloric expenditure is around ~2400 calories, doing whatever the hell you do all day.

Keep height into account, the shorter you are, the less calories you need. Good for us lil folk, if we ever need to survive in the wilderness we got a couple more hours over those giants.

Find that sweet spot. Where you lose fat easily but are still maintaining or even increasing in strength.

2. Maintain strength with your heavy lifts

Keep intensity high. But lower volume. Your capacity to recover is hindered when losing bodyfat.
Keep heavy sets. But consider reducing volume (amount of reps and sets) if recovery begins to get difficult aka lethargic, achy, low sex drive.

Your goal here is to send a stimulus to your body, letting it know that the muscle is an effective adaption, and worth keeping. This stimuli is best communicated with strength based sets where your body will be using and firing all muscle fibres in a given group.

The greater the output of power. The greater NEED for the output of power = Muscle preservation.

The CUT

Let’s start here, my name is Bryson. I’ve been weight lifting for about 5 years. Gained some extra pounds over the last year. And finally deciding to cut.

This blog is going to be reflecting my slow.. tedious.. incremental progress on my various projects. I hope you enjoy and find inspiration in the day to day little tasks that over a notable period of time = success

I will start with well... where I am starting from. These updates will be focused on what I did. I hat I will do. My reasoning for why I do it. And rationale for the underlying principles. I’ll try to cite sources when I can, and if any viewers would like to know more information about anything I say. Please shout out! Ok, let’s get into it.

I am about 5’9”. My current weight is 168 lbs. I have been lifting weights for 5 years.
Focusing on strength/power and stamina. Based of my previous weight about a year and a half ago
Where I was extremely lean overestimating my body fat a bit. At around 8-9 percent. I was 145lbs.

Also using this chart, I also had a 28” waist at that time.

Using a very rough estimate, and plugging into the formula for LBM

LBM = bodyweight - fat weight (obviously)

Fat weight? How do I calculate that??

We’ll do what you can to figure out your bodyfat percentage, or the ball park of its range

I estimated 9% when at 145lb, 9% of 145 AKA (145 x 0.09) is 131.95 lbs.

And since I’ve been weight training, steadily since this rough measurement.

I’ll add 2 lbs of lean mass to this. So let’s roughly make it 134 lbs of LBM.

Great. Now at my weight of 168 lbs, and 134 lbs LBM, let’s see my current body fat percentage.

1 - (LBM/bodyweight) = bodyfat percent

1 - (134/168) = 0.20

Great I’m at ~20 percent bodyfat

Which looks about right