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Can You Maintain Strength While Cutting? Many things can contribute to strength. As such, you can lose strength for many reasons while dieting down. The two main reasons you lose strength when trying to get lean are: 1. You’re losing muscle. This is the most obvious one. But it should never happen unless you get down to lower than a real 8 percent body fat. If you keep training hard (but smart), have a high protein intake (1.25 to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight) and an acceptable deficit (not losing more than two pounds per week) you won’t lose muscle. 2. You’re losing tightness. This is the most common reason for losing strength. Normally what happens is that you get weaker on the big basic lifts (bench, overhead press, and squat) but your strength on isolation exercises for the muscles involved will be the same or even higher. By losing muscle glycogen, intramuscular fat, water, and fat, your strength leverage becomes worse and the joints are less “compressed.” If you accumulate a lot of glycogen, water, and fat inside the muscle and water/fat outside the muscle, you’re creating pressure around the joint which stabilizes it. This passive stabilization makes you stronger. When you lose it, the body feels less “safe” and force production is more easily inhibited as a protective mechanism. Let’s Address the Muscle-Loss Thing The reason why people lose muscle while dieting is NOT the caloric restriction. To maintain or even increase muscle, your body needs protein and enough calories to fuel the repair processes. “Yeah, but Thib, if I’m in a caloric deficit I don’t have enough calories to fuel the repair process!” Really? When you’re in a deficit you still walk, move around, and train, right? Of course! But you’re in a deficit… by definition you are not taking in enough energy to fuel all of that. How can you still function? Well, by using stored energy for fuel. And the same can be done to fuel the muscle repair and growth process. Even in a deficit, if protein intake is sufficient you should be able to repair and even grow some muscle by relying on stored energy and the ingested protein. I’m not saying you can build as much muscle on a deficit. When you eat less – especially when you go lower in carbs – you get a lower level of mTOR and IGF-1, which can make it harder to build muscle. But you should still easily be able to maintain what you have. So why then are people losing muscle while dieting down if it’s not because of the caloric deficit? Because they’re afraid of losing muscle. That fear leads to the fulfillment of that fear. So let’s say a dude decides to get shredded. He cuts calories and maybe starts doing cardio. But he heard that he’ll lose muscle when trying to get lean. At first, he feels smaller in his clothes and doesn’t look shredded yet. It’s even harder to get a pump (because of lowered carbs and sodium). So in his mind, it must be because he’s “losing muscle.” So what does he do? He trains with more volume and intensity. He goes to failure more often, uses a ton of set-extending techniques like drop sets, rest/pause, and supersets for 90-120 minutes sessions using short rest intervals. The higher volume and intensity both dramatically increase cortisol levels. Cortisol is already elevated more when you diet down (since it’s involved in energy mobilization). And this chronic output of cortisol greatly increases the risk of losing muscle since cortisol breaks down muscle tissue. You also create a lot more muscle damage. Under normal circumstances this would be fine since you need the damage to grow. But if you create so much damage that you can’t repair it all before protein synthesis comes back down (24-36 hours after your workout) you might lose muscle! When you’re dieting down, you shouldn’t try to use your lifting workout to burn more calories (by increasing volume), nor should you panic and jack up the volume. If anything, when you’re dieting your capacity to tolerate volume and adapt is lower. You need to do less, not more. Just make sure you push hard on those sets. The Loss of “Tightness” or Joint Stability This is likely the main cause of strength loss while dieting down, especially in the initial phase of dieting. The more stable a joint involved in a lift is, the stronger you’ll be. If the joint is more stable there’s less of a strength leak. Also, if the body feels “unsafe” it won’t allow you to use all of your strength potential. When you’re on a fat loss regimen you lose… Subcutaneous fat Intramuscular fat Muscle glycogen Intramuscular water Extracellular water When you lose intramuscular fat, muscle glycogen, and intramuscular water you “deflate” your muscles. As a result, these muscles aren’t pushing as much on the joints. The bigger the muscles are, the more “packed” the joint is, even passively. This makes the joint more stable. When that happens, you’ll lose strength on the multi-joint movements, mostly the pressing movements – the shoulder is an
Origin: Tip: Does Getting Ripped Make You a Weakling?

The Erg is the G.O.A.T. One of the major reasons people do cardio is to lose body fat. So it’s no surprise that the most common question people have is, “Which is the best cardio machine?” Let’s end this debate, once and for all. Purely considering the potential to burn the most body fat, the answer is the ergometer. The “erg” is better known as the rowing machine, and it’s hands-down the best fat burning cardio tool in the gym. Why is the erg the best choice for cardio? First, it’s one of the few pieces of cardio equipment that requires both your upper and lower body to operate the machine. This makes it literally twice as effective as only using your legs on most machines. Second, it’s low-impact so you can use it even if you have injuries or are overweight, without worrying about developing joint problems from repetitive high-impact activities like jogging on the treadmill. Finally, it’s a freakin’ brutal workout. Before I share my favorite fat-blasting erg workouts, you need to understand the basics of efficient rowing technique. The erg might be the best cardio machine, but it’s also the most poorly used piece of equipment in the cardio room. The Rowing Ergometer: Proper Technique There are two main positions in rowing: the catch and the pull. The catch: It’s basically the starting position, where you lean forward to grasp the rower’s handle. Use an overhand grip. Once you’re holding the handle, sit up tall with your shoulders pulled down and back, and your chest up. Your back should be flat, not rounded, in this position. It should maintain flat throughout your workout. The pull: Start with your legs – drive your heels through the foot-plate and use your legs for power. Next, keeping your back flat, hinge backward at the hips and lean back. Finally, pull powerfully with your arms. Since your legs are now extended, the chain should travel in a straight line without having to rise above your knees. Bring your hands into your ribs – not your throat – during the pull and keep your elbows tucked. At the end of the pull, your legs will be extended straight out, your knees will have only a slight bend, your torso should be leaned backward, and your arms will have pulled the handle toward your chest. Reverse the movement in the exact opposite manner: arms, torso, legs. You’re now back in the starting “catch” position. Repeat this at a slow pace to get the hang of the pattern: drive with your legs, lean backward, and pull with your arms; then straighten your arms, lean forward, and bend at the knees. The power comes first from your legs, then from a strong pulling motion once you’ve leaned back. Your upper body should stay straight, oscillating between “10 and 2” like a metronome when viewed in profile. Key Points Always maintain a strong core and upright posture. Avoid moving the chain up and down; it should travel in a straight line. Drive through your heels to produce the most power with your legs. Complete the movement by aggressively and powerfully pulling the handle to your ribs. Now with that technique work out of the way, we can get to the fun stuff – conditioning. The Workouts The best part about the rower, especially for someone who wants to torch fat without spending an hour plodding along on the treadmill, is that it’s well-suited for interval training. These workouts are absolutely brutal. Don’t believe me? Give these bad boys a try and let me know how it goes. Beginner: 5 x 200 meter sprints Row as fast as you can for 200 meters. When you’re finished, rest for twice as long as it took you to row before repeating the next interval. Aim for consistency across all five sets (the same pace and total time to complete the sprint). A shorter rower should complete this in 50-60 seconds, which means you should rest for around two minutes. A taller rower could complete this in about 40-45 seconds and rest for 90 seconds. Try to maintain your pace and work/rest times. Then progress this beginner workout by adding an extra interval every week or two, like this: 6 x 200 7 x 200 8 x 200 Intermediate: 4 x 250 meter sprints Row as fast as you can for 250 meters, but only rest for as long as the interval takes you to complete. A shorter rower will complete the work in about one minute and rest for about one minute. A taller or more experienced rower will take about 50 seconds and rest for the same amount of time. Progress this workout by adding more intervals each week: 5 x 250 6 x 250 7 x 250 8 x 250 Advanced: 4 x 500 meter sprints The working piece is going to take you about two minutes. The key is finding a pace you can maintain for the entirety of the set. Two minutes is taxing to your metabolic systems, which is good news for fat-burning, but bad news for your psyche. Avoid what rowers refer to as “flying and dying” – sprinting too fast out of the gate and coming to a painful halt when your oxygen consumption can’t keep pace with your energy expenditure. When starting with these longer
Origin: Tip: Get Ripped on the Rower