Lift Progression whilst Cutting

[Petey1]

i am on a cut at the moment and am finding that limiting my food is seriously affecting my lifting is this normal does anyone else experience this.

i am eating good macro's and on WBB1, so resting enough. i train hard but nearly all my lifts have now come to a plateau i just cant move the numbers up. maybe im eating too little?

Are there any 190lbs out there, what is your maintenance?

will i see this reveresed once i start bulking?

thanks folks

[Steele]

During a bulk, the extra food equates to spare resources to build and maintain muscle, so under the right condition hypertrophy occurs. Once you shift from bulking to a cut, muscle is the first thing your body wants to drop, although this varies from individual to individual depending upon genetics.

It should be your target to drop to your target bodyfat% whilst retaining as much muscle as possible, I wouldn't expect strength gains during this, unless you shifted rep ranges from 6-8+'s to 3-5's. That's where my expertise ends

-Steele

[Unreal]

While cutting, don't expect to make big gains, if any at all. If you don't have the calories to support gains, then how do you expect to make them. Concentrate on holding on to what you have.

As for other peoples 190lb maintence, who cares. Track your cals, and find out. Everyone is different. I'm 212 and maintain around 2900, other people around my weight maintain on alot more, and some alot less.

[JConrad]

While cutting the best you can do is maintain your muscle gains as much as possible. This means its unlikely that you wil be able to add more weight to the bar, in fact it can be a struggle to keep using the same weight because you will inevitably lose a little muscle while on a cut so you may lose some strength, add to this the fact that your eating below maintenance which can make you feel very lacklustre.
If you cut too quick (say by 800 calories a day below maintenance) then you will lose too much muscle, and if you cut too slow it will take you longer to get back to bulking, which is where we all wanna be. God this bodybuilding malarky is a pain in the brain lol.

[Petey1]

thanks a lot for this.

i wont beat myself up quite as badly after each session then..

[Steele]

Mate, don't beat yourself up at all. Unless you have superhuman genetics I wouldn't give it a second thought =)

-Steele

[ShockBoxer]

I see my best gains in strength when at maintenance or just under (as I am right now) but I've only been lifting a year. I don't know why but hey... as long as more weight is going on the bar I don't CARE.

[DokterVet]

I've been cutting on WBB1 recently as well, and my lifts have gone down more than I would have liked. Hopefully the strength returns fairly quickly when I return to bulking. I'll let you know.