One of the most common questions people have once it’s time to lose body fat, is whether they should focus on heavy weights and low reps or light weights and high reps when they start cutting
The reason why this question is so common is likely because they’ve heard some fitness “gurus” say you must train with heavy weights to maintain your muscle mass wen cutting, while others say you must train with light weights if you want to successfully get cut
Should you lift heavy or light weights when cutting?
In order to maintain (or build) muscle when you’re cutting, the most important thing that you should focus on is maintaining (or increasing) your strength, and this is most effectively done by lifting moderate to heavy weights
In this post I’ll cover more in-depth why training with moderate to heavy weights are the most important thing to do when cutting, and also when light weights can be useful
Cuts down excess fat
Fast and effective results
Fast, whole body fat burning
Preserves muscle mass
Increases muscle size
Why It’s Important to Maintain Your Strength When CuttingWhy Heavy Lifting is Better When CuttingWhen Light Weights Can be UsefulThe Two Types of Muscle GrowthExample ProgramNovice to Intermediate RoutineConclusionWhat’s Next?
Why It’s Important to Maintain Your Strength When Cutting
If your goal is to achieve a ripped and well-developed physique once you’re done with your cut, then your biggest priority should be to maintain muscle mass
There are three reasons why maintaining muscle mass when cutting is important:
Muscle tissue is metabolically responsible for much of the fat you lose when cutting
You´ll look your best after your cut is over!
In order to succeed with maintaining, or even building muscle when cutting, your main goal should be to maintain your strength throughout your cutting phase
And this is most effectively done by training with heavy weights for fewer reps
Why Heavy Lifting is Better When Cutting
Lifting heavy weights will force your body to keep its muscle since your body will assume that the strength is necessary for survival
Just think about it, if you reduce the amount of weight you’re lifting your body will assume that you don’t require as much strength anymore and it will start using your muscle mass as fuel
This is true because your muscles use up a lot of calories on a daily basis, so much that when your body assumes that you truly don´t need the extra muscle, it will see it as expendable
Furthermore, lifting heavy weights is less stressful overall to the body, which will lead to better recovery when cutting
Finally, it´s easier to keep control over your strength progression when doing heavy lifts like 4-6 rep bench presses or squats, rather than doing 12-15 rep flyes or leg extensions
When Light Weights Can be Useful
So, we´ve covered that using heavy weights is the most effective and easy way to keep muscle mass while cutting
But when and how can you use light weights to keep your muscle mass?
Using light weights can be a good way to add some extra volume which can help you burn more calories, as long as you’re not doing too much of it
Many people use a ton of light weight training just to burn more calories, but when your body is in a calorie deficit (as it should be when cutting) your body is already “handicapped” when it comes to recovery
Doing too much volume can actually cause you to indirectly lose muscle mass
In other words, your calorie deficit should mainly come from the diet, not from your training
The Two Types of Muscle Growth
The reps, sets, rest times and the amount of weight we use determine which muscle growth we stimulate the most
When doing heavier lifting between 4-10 reps you mostly stimulate Myofibrillar hypertrophy, because after you’ve made your neurological adaptation and your exercise technique is efficient, the only way to get stronger is to get bigger muscle fibers
And when lifting lighter weights you mainly stimulate Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, This type of training depletes high quantities of muscle glycogen which forces the body to super compensate your glycogen stores to better handle future workouts of similar training
So, the main point here is that only a small percentage of your muscle growth comes from Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, because your muscles quickly max out the amount of glycogen it can hold
After that, the only thing that will make your muscles grow is to get stronger
Probably around 70-80% of your overall muscle growth will come from the increased size of your muscle fibers, and not from pump training
People that are new to training often think that you can “cut up” a muscle
Essentially what they believe is that you can make a certain muscle become more visible by burning off fat around it
One example could be where someone does a ton of bicep curls day in and day out in hope that this would lead to fat loss only around the biceps
But in order to lose body fat, no matter where you want this fat to be lost, you need to be in a calorie deficit
There is no other “secret” formula to lose body fat around a specific body part than simply being in a calorie deficit
Your genetics will determine where on the body you’ll lose fat first, and once you’ve gotten lean enough, everything will look cut
Use Both Heavy and Light Weights!
In general, I would say that you can train with both heavy and light weights, as long as you try to maintain/increase strength on your key-lifts, such as Military press, Bench press, Squats and Deadlifts by lifting heavy
As long as you have those staples in your program you can train with various isolation exercises with lighter weights on top of that without too much struggle
As long as you´re maintaining or increasing strength you have nothing to worry about, but if you keep dipping in strength, you´ll most likely lose muscles too, especially when in a calorie deficit
So, here’s an example of a good routine for beginners:
Dips – 3 sets of 6-8 reps
Bicep Curls – 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Hanging Knee Raises – 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Train 3 times per week on non-consecutive days
Rest 3 minutes between sets
For example, change weighted pull-ups for pulldowns if you can’t manage a full set of pull-downs etc
After 3-6 months on this training routine, you can most likely upgrade to a more advanced routine
Which could be this novice to early intermediate routine (which will usually work for another 1-2 years on average):
Incline Bench Press – 4 sets of 4-6 reps
Incline Bench Press – 4 sets of 4-6 reps
Cable Rows – 4 sets of 4-6 reps
Cable Rows – 4 sets of 4-6 reps
Flat Dumbbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 6-8 reps
Seated Shoulder Press – 3 sets of 6-8 reps
Rear Delt Dumbbell Flyes – 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Skullcrushers – 5 sets of 12-15 reps
Barbell Squats – 5 sets of 4-6 reps
Barbell Squats – 5 sets of 4-6 reps
Romanian Deadlift – 3 sets of 4-6 reps
Romanian Deadlift – 3 sets of 4-6 reps
Leg Press – 5 sets of 6-8 reps
Leg Press – 5 sets of 6-8 reps
Seated Calf Raises – 5 sets of 12-15 reps
Seated Calf Raises – 5 sets of 12-15 reps
Hanging Knee/Leg Raises – 5 sets max
Weighted Pull Ups – 4 sets of 4-6 reps
Weighted Pull Ups – 4 sets of 4-6 reps
Standing Barbell Shoulder Press – 4 sets of 4-6 reps
Barbell Rows – 4 sets of 6-8 reps
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 6-8 reps
Lateral Raises – 4 sets of 12-15 reps
Spider Curls – 5 sets of 12-15 reps
And here’s how to progress and get stronger over time with this routine:
Rest 3 minutes between sets for the compound exercises and 1-2 minutes for the isolation exercises
When you hit the required reps for all sets, increase the weight with 25 kg (5 lbs) on all sets the following workout
When you hit the required reps for all sets, increase the weight with 25 kg (5 lbs) on all sets the following workout
If you lose a few reps on the upcoming workout, no worries
If you lose a few reps on the upcoming workout, no worries
Your goal for the following workout is to add back the reps in those last sets so you can increase the weight once again
Your goal for the following workout is to add back the reps in those last sets so you can increase the weight once again
Use a lifting app or paper to track your progress
Use a lifting app or paper to track your progress
This routine has more volume (amount of work) which is often required as you get more advanced
At this point, most of your strength gains will lead to muscle growth as well
*In both of the routines outlined above you’re using straight sets, for example 5 x 4-6 reps
This is where you use the same weight for all your sets
Another very powerful training style to use when cutting is Reverse Pyramid Training where you start with your heaviest set first and then follow that up with lighter sets afterwards
This is a very effective way to train
Always focus on getting stronger/or maintain your strength when cutting, as this will ensure that you´re not losing muscle mass
The easiest way to get stronger and maintain strength will be by doing heavy weight training
You can use light weight training as well, but this would mostly be to add volume and to help ramp up calorie burn a bit
Since 70-80% of your overall muscle growth will come from the increased size of your muscle fibers, which is caused by heavy weight training and not from pump training, I encourage you to focus mainly on getting stronger rather than focusing on “chasing the pump”
There are other things that can affect how well you maintain strength and muscle mass during your cut, not just how you train
On this list, the most important things and the ones you can control the easiest are your calorie and macro intake
If you want to learn everything there is to building an aesthetic looking lean and muscular physique depending on your individual starting point, then read my completely free guide called: How to build an aesthetic physique, which you can read here!
Even though the “rules” for training when cutting aren’t as clearly defined as they are for nutrition
There are still a few principles that any workout routine must be based around if you want to see great fat loss results
So, how to train when cutting?
When cutting you’re eating fewer calories, which means you’ll have a lowered potential to recover
This means that you must set up your training in a way that allow you to recover
You do this by keeping your training volume on the low end and training intensity on the high end
In this guide you’ll learn about the importance of recovery, how to set up a successful weight training cutting routine based on three pillars, and finally you’ll learn how to set your cardio correctly when cutting
Defining CuttingThe Three Weight Training Pillars For Optimal Fat LossThe Main PillarPillar #2 – The Assistance Lifting PillarPillar #3 – The Progression PillarHow to Set Your Cardio Training When CuttingWhat’s Next?
Before jumping in on the main content of this post, I first want to make one thing clear
Losing body fat
Maintaining or gaining muscle mass
As you can see, the goal of a cutting phase is to lose body fat, while maintaining or even building muscle mass
In other words, cutting is the process of improving your body composition
And to accomplish this, you need to have a well set up training program
Now, in order to understand how you should set up your training program to effectively create a better-looking body composition
What Are Body Fat?
Body fat are stored as something called triglycerides inside adipose tissue within our bodies
And triglycerides can be released in the bloodstream to provide the body with energy when needed
Why Do We Carry Body Fat?
A great way to think of your fat storage, is as an energy buffer:
When there’s absence of food, your body can turn to your fat storage to receive energy
And this is also what a calorie deficit means, ie less food coming in, which is forcing your body to use its stored energy as fuel
Which results in fat loss
Muscle are, as opposed to fat, a biologically active tissue
This means that muscles are not there to provide the body with energy, but to perform some sort of physical task
Essentially, muscles get developed by different growth factors forging together amino acids (proteins) and turning these into a functional contractile tissue
There are three types of muscle that we carry:
Skeletal muscle – This is voluntary muscle, that we can control ourselves, in order to move around and maintain posture etc
This type of muscle is typically found within the walls of different organs and other structures
Out of these three, the muscle that you are likely most interested in are number one, skeletal muscle
As this is the tissues you want to increase in size to get that muscular physique going
Skeletal muscle anatomy
How Do Skeletal Muscle Grow?
Muscle growth is achieved when muscle protein build up (also known as muscle protein synthesis) is larger than the muscle protein breakdown
And this is mainly achieved by three things, and in this hierarchy of importance:
Okay cool, but what does this have to do with me setting up my training program when cutting?
Because by knowing how fat loss and muscle growth takes place, you’re ready to learn how to set up the most effective training program, a program that will balance challenging resistance training with a calorie deficit
So, that you’re not just losing weight, but actually preserving or even building muscle while you’re effectively losing body fat
The Three Weight Training Pillars For Optimal Fat Loss
I’ve come up with three lifting pillars that will ensure you’re getting the best results possible while cutting, without having to give up on living in the process
The progression pillar
If you want to do a successful cut, then you want to base your weight training around these three pillars
How I Came Up With These Weight Training Pillars
Throughout my fitness journey so far, I’ve tried a few different training routines while cutting down to a low body fat percentage
I’ve done high volume routines, that utilizes high rep training and focuses solely on the pump
I’ve done powerlifting style routines that focuses mostly on very low repetitions with heavy weights
And in my earliest days I even tried “muscle confusion” routines where my goal was to change exercises each workout in order to “confuse” my body
Well, not only did I end up losing muscle on these routines… they were also hard to recover from and most of them didn’t allow for an enjoyable lifestyle
It wasn’t until one day when I put the term “how to build muscle naturally” in the google search bar that I began to find out what actually works for us natural trainees
I read everything I could find from websites like stronglifts, muscle for life, kinobody, think eat lift and stronger by science etc
By reading solid information which was based on science, I got extremely interested in learning the ins and outs of building a great looking physique as a natural trainee
So much that I started to look into the science behind training (and dieting) for fat loss and muscle growth myself
And that’s when my physique really started to take off as well
Okay, so now that you’ve heard a bit of my backstory, let’s look at the step-by-step process to setting up your training program when cutting in the most effective and enjoyable way possible, starting with:
To build a lean, muscular and aesthetic looking physique as effectively as possible, you should focus your energy on getting insanely strong on just a handful of lifts
And that’s exactly what the main pillar is all about
In this pillar all the fluff is cut out, meaning no time will be spent doing junk volume on unnecessary exercises
This is first and foremost so that you’re able to recover from your training while you’re stripping of the body fat
A calorie deficit, which is required for fat loss, is also a recovery deficit
And if you’re not able to recover when cutting, then it’s bye bye to both strength and muscle mass
Secondly, the fluff is removed so that you can save time and energy towards enjoying your physique outside of the gym as well
I strongly believe that building a great looking physique should add value to your life and not the other way around
Unless you’re looking to compete in bodybuilding, why else would you even build it?
Step #1 – Setting Up Your Compound Lifts
It’s been shown repeatedly that nothing beats the effectiveness of doing compound lifts for strength and physique development
You can lift the most amount of weight with compound lifts
Compound lifts stresses the whole body as one
By doing compound lifts you use a range of motion that’s very natural to the body
By doing heavy bench presses, overhead presses, pull-ups, rows, deadlifts and squats you will stress your whole body as one and in doing so get the largest stimulus for growth
Doing tons of smaller isolation exercises, like flyes, front raises and facepulls etc
Meaning that if you rely solely on isolation exercises, then you would still see results, just less of it and for a lot more effort and time invested
That’s not all… Even doing too much isolation exercises after your big compound lifts might be negative
Because you’ll likely do too much volume for no reason, which will leave you unable to effectively recover
And remember, being able to recovery is the most important factor if you want to keep your muscle while dieting for fat loss
Another important reason for utilizing big compound exercises is to create a symmetrical and proportional physique
As I’ve already mentioned, by doing large compound lifts, you’ll develop your body as one, and this is crucial for creating a great looking physique
Way too many people, especially beginners, believe that to build big arms, or a big back, or a big chest, you just have to focus on those muscle groups with isolation exercises
He will look something like this:
He will look something like this:
You see, getting strong on big compound lifts makes your whole body bigger, including any specific muscles you want to grow as well
With that said though, there are still a time and place for isolation exercises, and we’ll cover when this is later in the guide
But before doing so, let’s first take a look at the compound lifts that will best sculpt a great looking symmetrical and proportional physique:
The 7 Compound Lifts For Building a Symmetrical & Proportional Physique
The most important lifts that I always recommend are the big four, or at least close variations to them, and these are:
Overhead Press (Barbell or Dumbbell)
These are the lifts that will drive the growth of your entire body the most
Once you got these covered, you should also use a few compound exercises that’ll build your proportions up as well, and these are:
Incline Bench Press (Barbell or Dumbbell)
These 7 exercises are all you need to create an outstanding physique, except for a few isolation exercises that we’ll cover under pillar 2
Step #2 – Dialing in Your Training Volume
The main driver behind muscle growth is training volume (the amount of work that you do)
Meaning, the more work you can do, while still being able to recover, the more muscle you will grow
Now, with that said, since your goal during a cutting phase is fat loss, you must make sure that you’re not training too much
Do you remember back in the intro of this post, when I explained that I did a high-volume routine during one of my cutting phases?
The one where I used high sets and reps, with focus on the pump
How Muscle Grow – The Work to Recovery Ratio:
In order to build muscle (or preserve muscle when cutting) you must first provide the stimulus for growth
Which is done via challenging training
This is where your body repairs itself from the stress and damage inflicted by the challenging training
When these two are balanced out with each other, that’s when you preserve or even build your muscle mass
Now, what happened to me when I did the high-volume routine, was that my “work part” far exceeded my “recovery part” and hence that I lost muscle
Well, because I trained too much when my recovery capacity was greatly reduced by being in a calorie deficit
How do you get the best results from training while still being able to recover?
Well, you set up your training to do the least amount of volume you can get away with while still keeping your strength
For example, let’s say you needed 10 sets of effective chest work per week to grow your chest, but to maintain that muscle you only need 5 sets
So, reducing volume a bit will ensure that you recover throughout your cutting phase
Which means you will also spare your hard-earned muscle mass
To preserve muscle mass some research and anecdotal evidence shows that for most people, training with only 6 effective sets per body part per week, is enough to maintain your current level of muscularity
With that said, during some circumstances, it’s possible to gain a bit of muscle during a cutting phase, especially in the beginning
That’s why doing a bit more volume is favorable to start off with
Here are the training volumes I recommend when cutting:
6-10 effective sets per muscle group per week
These recommendations refer to effective sets per week, so let’s look at that now…
Step #3 – Setting Up Your Repetitions
When cutting it’s very important that you get the most bang for your buck
This is so that you can get the most amount of effective work in and still recover
There are three main factors that leads to muscle growth:
Mechanical tension (tension on the muscles created by lifting heavy weights with low to moderate reps)
Metabolic fatigue (the burn you feel when doing high reps)
Muscle damage (how much you break down your muscles during training)
So, both pumping your muscles and lifting heavy weights will both lead to muscle growth
It turns out that progressing mechanical tension over time, is by far the most important factor for muscle growth
And this tells us that, if you’re not getting stronger over time, you won’t grow bigger muscles very effectively either
Now, what’s worth mentioning is that, strength and size is correlated only when strength is gained in a medium rep range
For example: powerlifters and Olympic weightlifters train their nervous system to produce high amounts of force for one rep
That’s why individuals who aren’t that big and muscular, can still lift extremely heavy weights
To get the most effective stimulus for muscle growth I recommend training in the:
4-10 repetition range on your compound lifts
Training within the 4-10 repetition range on your compound exercises is perfect when it comes to maximizing muscle growth during a cutting phase
By training with 4-10 reps you’ll achieve the greatest balance between effectively getting in enough training volume, while also working with heavy enough weights to maximize mechanical tension on the muscles
Training with weights that are medium to heavy will stimulates more mechanical tension (stretching and contracting under load) than metabolic fatigue (the pump) and this is highly beneficial when cutting
The reason for this is that training with more mechanical tension is less overall fatiguing and energy demanding than what metabolic training is
Isn’t metabolic fatiguing training good during a cut?
Won’t energy demanding lifting that causes metabolic fatigue help me burn more fat?
Your calorie deficit should mainly come from the diet and not from the training
Putting to much recovery demanding stress from training on your body when it’s already at a lowered ability to recover, won’t be sustainable long-term
As the risk of muscle loss and other stress related problems will be a lot larger
Again, to get great, long-lasting results from your cutting phases you must be able to recover, and this is much easier done in a medium repetition range with medium to heavy weights, than what it is with higher repetitions and lighter weights
That’s not all… What makes the 4-10 rep range so great is that it’s not too heavy either
If you were to train with lower reps than 4, you would need to do more sets with more weight to reach the same volume threshold to give a good enough stimulus for muscle growth
This is in many cases not sustainable either, since a lot of sets with very heavy weights is more demanding on your joints, ligaments and central nervous system, rather than on your muscles
Finally, the 4-10 rep range is also the easiest to make progressive overload in (making your training harder over time), and there’s two reason for that:
It’s very easy to keep track of your workouts and weights, because you can typically make larger leaps in weight which are easier to track, and tracking is key behind successful progressive overload
Lots of people find it more enjoyable moving heavier rather than lighter weights
And enjoyment to training should definitely not be taken for granted, as it’s been shown repeatedly that aroused lifting causes more gains than merely going through the motion in the gym
As you can see working in the 4-10 rep range comes with a bunch of advantages, and if you haven’t trained much in this rep range before, be ready to experience a lot of strength gains followed by new muscle mass once you get started
Okay, so the rest times for your compound exercises will be 3-5 minutes
There’s a range so that you can take the rest you need to be recovered enough to perform the best you can again on your next set
Typically, 5 minutes is the top though, very few but the absolute elite individuals when it comes to strength training require more than 5 minutes of rest between exercises
Step #4 – Train 3-4 Times Per Week
There are three reasons why training 3, max 4 days per week are beneficial:
Optimal Muscle group frequency
When it comes to building muscle as a natural trainee, meaning no external help from sources like; anabolic steroids or anti catabolics etc
Then as I mentioned earier, the thing that will make or break your physique will be your work to rest ratio, and that’s the first reason why training only 3-4 days per week is very smart when cutting
Since you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose body fat, you can’t provide the body with food to recover better, instead what you can do is give the body a lot of days where it’s completely free from training (breakdown), where it can better recuperate itself even when there’s some absence of food
Number 2 – Muscle Group Frequency
When it comes to building muscle naturally, to get the best results possible you need to optimize your muscle group training frequency
This scientific review clearly shows that for a natural trainee, spreading out your total training volume (the amount of training you do) on 2-3 days throughout the week is superior to doing all the work only once per week
1 More frequent elevation of muscle protein synthesis (MPS) by training a muscle 2-3 times per week
MPS is the system in your body that synthesizes new proteins in your muscles, as the old ones has been broken down through training, and accordingly to research this rebuilding process goes on for 24-72 hours depending on your training experience
*Younger trainees have a longer MPS duration, and vice versa for more experiencedWhen your body has been through one of these 24-72-hour cycles, that’s when you’ve made all your possible gains from that specific workout
This essentially means that as a beginner to intermediate trainee, you have the opportunity to stimulate your MPS two times per week
Meaning that you can get two of these MPS cycles in, within the same week, which ultimately will result in more total growth
And as a more advanced trainee who recovers faster, then perhaps you can get greater results from 3-4 cycles per week
2 More volume can be performed by spreading out the work over multiple sessions
First of all, research shows clearly that volume is the main driver of muscle growth, but not just any volume
Effective volume is what drives muscle growth
To accumulate effective volume, it’s much better to spread out your work over multiple sessions
For example, doing 10 sets chest on 1 day per week will lead to less total effective volume performed than doing 5 sets chest on 2 days per week
As you can see, it turns out to be the same weekly volume (10 sets), but the 2 day frequency will yield more effective volume, simply because you’ll be able to perform better if you do 5 sets on two separate workouts with a few days of complete rest in between, than what you would doing all of these 10 sets on one workout
Number 3 – Time For Enjoying Life
As I said earlier, training and building muscle should add value to your life, and not steal from it
That’s a big reason why we keep training to only 3-4 days per week
So that you’re getting optimal results from the time invested
The goal when setting up a training program for cutting is to utilize the easiest strategies and methods to create that ripped physique, as this will allow you to recover and feel great during your fat loss phase
To achieve this, the best thing would be if you could only rely on The Main Lifting Pillar
But unfortunately, you wouldn’t get the best results using only that pillar
That’s why I created The Assistance Lifting pillar
Fortunately, though, I’ve found a method that makes this pillar very effective and enjoyable as well
Why We Need to Use Isolation & Assistance Exercises
The main reason why we need to use isolation and assistance exercises above only compound lifts, is because there’s one muscle group in particular that needs to be isolated in order to be trained, and this is your medial/side delts
If you leave them underdeveloped, you will lose out on a huge part of what makes up an aesthetic physique
In fact, shoulder development is one of the biggest contributors of an overall aesthetic physique
The crux with your medial delts is that they’re used in a very specific way that doesn’t let them get hit effectively by any of your compound lifts, not even overhead presses hit you medial delts well enough
The only way to effectively train them is when you extend your arms out to the sides, like this:
This movement puts your shoulders in a very bad positioning to lift heavy weights, risking injury
For that reason, you need to use lighter weights and higher reps to train your side delts safely and effectively
Another reason for using isolation/assistance exercises are for certain muscle groups that need a bit more training to grow
This is typically biceps and rear delts, which are also huge components of an aesthetic physique
A lot of people will get decent bicep and rear delt growth from compound lifts like pull-ups and rows
But to get very well-developed biceps and rear delts, these muscles typically require a bit more work
And if you were to do that extra work with more compound lifting, you would risk overtraining other muscles included in those lifts, such as the Lats, Rombs and Traps etc
Another muscle group that should be trained with isolation exercises, are the one who people think are made in the kitchen, and yes, you guessed it, your abs!
Here’s the thing, abs are revealed in the kitchen, but just as with any other muscle, they’re made in the gym!
Now, heavy compound lifts will train your abs
In order to get that six pack to really pop when you’re lean, you must train your rectus abdominis directly, which is done with ab flexion exercises, such as crunches, and leg raises for example
So, for that reason I like to do some standing or seated calf raises in every leg workout
Now, some people have very high calf muscle insertions and might not be genetically gifted enough to build their calves noticeably
Okay, so to effectively add this extra work for these muscles, I’ve found a technique that’s extremely effective, and it’s called:
Myo-Reps
Myo reps is the pet peeve of hypertrophy expert Borge Fagerli, and it’s amazing!
The main reason why I love myo-reps is because it’s a quick and highly effective method to get the work in
By utilizing Myo-reps you take advantage of rest periods to create a training stimulus that’s better than what you can achieve with a standard approach, it takes you around two thirds of the time, and it also leaves you with an incredible pump
I’ve written a complete guide about Myo-reps that you can read here
But in short, here’s how it works:
Activation set: Start with a weight that you can get between 12-15 reps with
Then do as many reps as you can until you’re 1-2 repetitions away from failure
Miniset 3: After the rest do another set until you’re 1-2 reps away from failure again
Miniset 3: After the rest do another set until you’re 1-2 reps away from failure again
Miniset 3: After the rest do another set until you’re 1-2 reps away from failure again
Repeat this process: Until you no longer can get the same amount of reps on all your minisets
For example, let’s say you manage to do 12 reps on your first activation set, then you get 3 reps on your first miniset, 3 reps on your second, 3 reps on your third, but then only 2 reps on your fourth, that’s when you stop and are done with the exercise
This way you will get an autoregulated effect from the training
Make sure that you write down the reps that you get, so that you can make progress
In the example above you got 12+11 reps with this weight and exercise today, where the first 12 is from your activation set and the other 11 are from all your minisets, the goal is obviously to beat these reps during your upcoming workouts
If you do 23 reps this workout and 4 workouts from now you do 33 reps with the same weight, then you can be sure that muscle growth has occurred
Effective Reps – The Power of Myo-reps:
What makes Myo-reps so effective is the short rest times
By using extremely short rest between your sets you will instantly work with repetitions that’ll cause the most amount of muscle growth
We know that the closer we come to failure, the more each rep will contribute to muscle growth
*Failure being the point where the muscles involved in the exercise are so fatigued that they no longer can produce enough force to perform the exercise
And there is a certain threshold you must pass in order for a rep to stimulate muscle growth
You can get these effective reps in any rep range, but according to research, the point where effective reps for muscle growth starts to accumulate seems to be at around 60% of max exertion
Just think about it, if you were to do 12-15 reps the standard way, meaning with 2-3 min rest in between, then the first 7-8 reps of the exercise is going to be so easy that you’ll just go through the motion and not actually get any productive work from the time and movement invested
Just as you can see in the picture below, when training with ligth weights for around 12-15+ reps, you will not get an effective stimulus until you reach rep #8:
With Myo-reps on the other hand, each miniset that you do will be like starting on rep 8-10
This means that immediately from the first rep you do effective work that causes muscle growth
Again, if you want a more in-depth explanation about Myo-reps check out this post
What Isolation Exercises to Use?
Here are the exercises that you’ll use to make sure you’re developing your medial delts, rear delts, biceps, abs, and calves completely:
This is all that you need to build a great looking physique
Spider curls is an exercise that in combination with heavy pull-ups and rows will cover all your bicep development
You don’t have to do a hundred different exercises for your biceps, they will grow amazingly well by supplementing your compound pulls with just one isolation exercise like Spider curls
I also recommend hanging leg or knee raises for ab development, simply because that exercise trains all your abs, both upper and lower very effectively
Okay so there we go, you’ve now gotten a good overlook of first two pillars of the training system
You’ve learned the most effective, easy and enjoyable steps you should take to get great results from your training
So, let’s look at the last and most important pillar of the entire training system, which is:
Except for a few optimalities when it comes to cutting that was found in The main pillar and The assistance pillar, most of the information covered under those two pillars are there to make your training as easy and enjoyable as possible, while also providing you with great results in the meantime
The progression pillar on the other hand is a MUST, no matter how you choose to train
If you want to effectively build, or at least preserve muscle when cutting, you must try your best to progress your training and get stronger over time
This holds true even if you’re in a calorie deficit, where progression is harder to achieve!
Getting stronger over time is known as progressive overload and it’s ultimately what will build you that muscular physique that will drop peoples jaws when your shirt comes off
Why You Must Focus on Progressive Overload!
Typically, people only uses a training split or routine, but don’t care about progressive overload
Making sure that you get stronger over time is the most important aspect of the entire training program when it comes to transforming your physique
Just think about it; if you can lift 100 lbs for sets of 6 today, and a year from now you still lift the same 100 lbs for sets of 6, then why would your body need any additional muscle?
On the other hand, if one year from now you lift 200 lbs for sets of 6, then your body had to get bigger for you to handle that
*This video explains perfectly the concept of progressive overload and how to achieve it
To get stronger over time all you have to do is just increase the weight on the bar and you’re on your road to a shredded physique, right?
Increasing weight on the bar each workout while also being in a calorie deficit, will only be possible for complete beginners, who have a very sedentary lifestyle, and has never set their foot in the gym before
If you’re a more experienced lifter, then some sort of more advanced training progression scheme rather than simply adding weight to the bar each workout, will be required to ensure that you increase your strength on a regular basis
Double Progression – The Perfect Model for Beginner to Intermediate Trainees
My definition of a beginner to intermediate trainee are someone who’s within their first 0-4 years of solid strength training
And with solid I mean you’ve trained with compound lifts and tried to improve your lifting performance every time you’ve hit the gym so far
If you’ve gone to the gym for 1 year already but have only trained with “easier” isolation exercises or not tried to push the weights hard in the gym, then you’re still considered a beginner
Okay, so let’s look at double progression, the ideal progression model for a beginner to novice trainee
Double progression is done by first increasing reps then increasing the weight when you reach the highest rep within a repetition range
Here’s a more exact outline of how to do double progression, which I’ve discussed more about in this post
How to implement double progression with reps before load:
2 Use the same weight on the bar every session until you reach the high end of the rep range on all your sets, which would be 6 reps in this example
3 The session after you’ve reached the high end of the rep range (6 reps) on all your sets, increase the weight on the bar by the smallest increment possible
This will likely have you lose a couple of reps per set
But that’s fine, your goal is to now add back these reps over your upcoming workouts
4 Repeat this process until you no longer can increase weights without dipping below your rep range
So, if you increase weight and start getting 3 instead of 4 reps on your sets in this example, it’s time to change something
5 If you start dipping below your target rep range using 4-6 reps for example, simply increase your working rep range to, 4-8 reps, once you plateau on that, increase the range again to 4-10 and so on
Essentially what you’re doing is prolonging your time to progress in weight by getting an extra rep here and there
This is a very powerful strategy that will allow you to make progressive overload for a long time
And here’s an example of double progression in action:
Let’s say you did bench press and it went like this:
Now, your goal for the next time you do bench press is to try and get more reps
As that day comes, it goes something like this:
Awesome, you added 2 reps to your bench press, sure you didn’t get 6 reps on all your sets
But you should still view this as a very successful workout, because it’s still progressive overload!
Then as you come back to your next bench press workout, the following happens:
Set 3: 180 lbs – 6 reps (even felt easy! )
And then the next bench press workout after that…
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
Set 3: 185 lbs – 4 reps
You increased the weights, and dropped a few reps, which is completely fine
You now have the goal to add back these reps over your upcoming workouts again
If you train like this by focusing on adding reps each time you hit the gym, your fat loss results will be A TON better than what they would if you just haphazardly move some weights in the gym
Okay, so there you have it, the three pillars required for setting up a successful weight training routine when cutting
Sample Training Program
Barbell Bench Press
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
Workout C – Upper Body
Workout C – Upper Body
Workout C – Upper Body
Flat Dumbbell Bench Press
Workout D – Lower Body
Workout D – Lower Body
Workout D – Lower Body
Sets
Sets
Sets
Sets
Reps
Reps
Reps
Reps
This is a 4-day balanced upper/lower routine
If you want to train less legs, you can remove the last leg workout and add a bit of that training volume to your one remaining leg workout instead
If you want to learn more about which routine or split to train with, check out this post
How to Set Your Cardio Training When Cutting
Before finishing up this guide, there’s one more thing we need to cover, which is cardio
The reason for this is that most types of cardio is highly stressful to the body
With that said though, cardio can still be very helpful for calorie burn, but it needs to be controlled and done moderately for it to be effective
A good recommendation is to let your diet stand for 80% of your calorie deficit and cardio only 20%
By doing this you will make sure that you’re not bumping into recovery problems and start losing muscle mass
To avoid making this into a book rather than a blog post, I recommend that you read about cardio when cutting here
In that post you’ll learn exactly how much, what types, and when you should do your cardio when cutting
You’re now equipped with what I believe to be hands down the best training system that you can use during a cut
It sure has suited me well over my last few cutting phases
Now, if you’re unsure about where to take it from here, or if you simply want more meat on your bones before starting your own cut, then I recommend following The ShredSmart Program
The ShredSmart Program is a fat loss and muscle building course created by Radu Antoniu
In the course you’ll learn exactly how to set up your cutting phase depending on your starting point and also how much strength you must build to reach the physique of your goals (and so much more! )