Can someone help me with my lifting and cutting routine?

[siamesedream]

I've recently decided I'm going to take on a very cardio-intensive program in order to lose weight and am going to do HIIT 4-5 times a week which will make weight-training my lower-body very hard. Therefore, I was thinking about doing a twice-a-week lifting program meant solely to keep the mass that I have now and to not let my muscles get used to not lifting. I was thinking of doing an upper body/lower body split that emphasizes lower-reps/higher intensity. Something maybe like

Upper body:
Bench press - 5 sets of 5 (same weight)
Bent-over rows - 5 sets of 5 (same weight)
Military press or Incline Bench Press - 5 sets of 5 (same weight)
Curls - 5 sets of 5 (same weight)

Lower body:
Squats or Deadlifts - 5 sets of 5 (same weight)
Stiff-legged Deadlifts - 5 sets of 5 (same weight)
Calf-raises - 5 sets of 5 (same weight)


As you can tell, I've kind of got 5x5 fever since that's what I was formerly on. I'm not going to be periodizing, but since I'm only doing these exercises once a week, I shouldn't have to worry about overtraining, right? I'm just trying to keep the mass I have while losing the immense amount of fat I need to, and I'll worry about bulking later once I have abs, at which point I'm doing the full-out 5x5 again. I'd be willing to do some rest-pause cluster training as well to make myself go even heavier. Advice?

 

[BiggT]

It's a solid setup. Sort of like some "in-season" weightlifting routines for athletes.

I will say that in order to drop fat, you don't need to put lifting on the back burner and focus solely on cardio and 'get cut first' then bulk. With proper diet and the RIGHT kind of cardio like sprints, sled dragging, sandbag carries, some strongman event-type training, you can continue training intensely in the weightroom and progressing in strength. While you do this, you can cycle in maybe 10 days of ultra strict dieting every couple of months possibly during a deload to really accelerate fat loss.

What does your current diet look like now?

 

[siamesedream]

It's a solid setup. Sort of like some "in-season" weightlifting routines for athletes.

I will say that in order to drop fat, you don't need to put lifting on the back burner and focus solely on cardio and 'get cut first' then bulk. With proper diet and the RIGHT kind of cardio like sprints, sled dragging, sandbag carries, some strongman event-type training, you can continue training intensely in the weightroom and progressing in strength. While you do this, you can cycle in maybe 10 days of ultra strict dieting every couple of months possibly during a deload to really accelerate fat loss.

What does your current diet look like now?

Well, here's kind the story of my life for the past 6 months. 6 months ago I was 256 lbs. at who-knows-what BF%. I'm 5'10", so it was unbelievably high. I finally found it within myself to get my life in shape, so I started lifting weights and dieting and, today, I'm less than 200 lbs. Since, I've gained more muscle mass than I've ever had in my entire life and weigh less than I have since around a decade ago. Now I'm at the point where my original plan to both lose fat and gain muscle has sort of turned into fork in the road and I have to make the decision to either lose fat OR gain the muscle. I've decided that I'd like myself a lot better in the gym with a six-pack than with more muscle but still a fat gut, so I've decided to take it upon myself to focus on losing fat more than anything. I WILL definitely bulk using the 5x5 once I'm lean, but right now getting lean is my real concern.

My diet right now has been 6 meals a day at 1600-1800 calories since I've been following that body-for-life thing and he never even mentions calorie counting but rather portion size, so my calories are unintentionally far below even my cutting number. I'm thinking about changing and doing a targeted-ketogenic-diet, which is a low-carb diet specifically made for athletes trying to lose weight. Basically, I eat carbs post-lifting and post-cardio and also pre-lifting, but not pre-cardio. HIIT is extremely intense, so it will strengthen my legs, and, in order to do it, I have to focus more on either the HIIT cardio or the weightlifting. That's why I decided to focus on the HIIT cardio for maximum fat-loss, but I want to keep in 2 days of heavy, heavy lifting to maintain the mass I've worked so hard to gain.

 

[BiggT]

Whats your goal weight? 1600-1800 calories is nowhere in the ballpark of what a 200lb guy who works out intensely should be eating. Sure, HIIT is a leg workout, but in terms of development and strength, it can't compare to squatting. I like to keep things simple....If I were you, here is what I would do.....but again, this is just what I would suggest....

Continue a solid lifting routine. If you lifted Mon-Wed-Fri, keep doing that. For the diet, I would recommend something along the lines of egg whites and oatmeal in the morning, then another 3 solid meals of either lean beef/chicken/or seafood with either a yam or brown rice with some type of green veggies, between meals I'd go with a MuscleMilk Shake mixed with water (maybe 2 of these a day).....simple as that....you will NOT get fat eating like this. For cardio, I would do sled dragging and/or sprinting after every workout, then on Saturday do some HIIT or preferable some sandbag carries, farmer's walks, more sled dragging, etc if u have access to such equipment, if not do a HIIT session. Every 10 weeks or so, during a deload/decreased intensity of training period, you can cut out all carbs except the AM oatmeal for about 10 days to accelerate fat loss.



I think you'd get strong, functional, muscular, and be lean with this. I just never went for the idea that you have to starve yourself and get weak and focus on cardio only to drop fat, and then and only then is it okay to bulk again until you get fat, then cut again, and keep going in circles.......and honestly, I couldn't get out of bed, much less train on 1600 calories.

I hope this was helpful.....even if it is just for you to look at an alternative plan...This is a good long-term plan, if you did this for 6 months, you would get strong, athletic, and lean ....but whatever you decide to do I wish u the best of luck and keep us posted.

 

[siamesedream]

Whats your goal weight? 1600-1800 calories is nowhere in the ballpark of what a 200lb guy who works out intensely should be eating. Sure, HIIT is a leg workout, but in terms of development and strength, it can't compare to squatting. I like to keep things simple....If I were you, here is what I would do.....but again, this is just what I would suggest....

Continue a solid lifting routine. If you lifted Mon-Wed-Fri, keep doing that. For the diet, I would recommend something along the lines of egg whites and oatmeal in the morning, then another 3 solid meals of either lean beef/chicken/or seafood with either a yam or brown rice with some type of green veggies, between meals I'd go with a MuscleMilk Shake mixed with water (maybe 2 of these a day).....simple as that....you will NOT get fat eating like this. For cardio, I would do sled dragging and/or sprinting after every workout, then on Saturday do some HIIT or preferable some sandbag carries, farmer's walks, more sled dragging, etc if u have access to such equipment, if not do a HIIT session. Every 10 weeks or so, during a deload/decreased intensity of training period, you can cut out all carbs except the AM oatmeal for about 10 days to accelerate fat loss.



I think you'd get strong, functional, muscular, and be lean with this. I just never went for the idea that you have to starve yourself and get weak and focus on cardio only to drop fat, and then and only then is it okay to bulk again until you get fat, then cut again, and keep going in circles.......and honestly, I couldn't get out of bed, much less train on 1600 calories.

I hope this was helpful.....even if it is just for you to look at an alternative plan...This is a good long-term plan, if you did this for 6 months, you would get strong, athletic, and lean ....but whatever you decide to do I wish u the best of luck and keep us posted.

My goal weight is whatever weight I'm lean at, really. I don't know what that is, but I assume I have at least 30 pounds of fat I still have to lose.

Also, make no mistake, I am DEFINITELY not trying to substitute HIIT for squats. Squats are an incredible workout and, as I've learned from all the 5x5 stuff, it's the foundation of all strength gain. I'm merely saying I want to focus more on losing fat right now than gaining muscle, but I don't see myself getting weak because I'm not going to starve myself in any manner and I'm still gonna be doing heavy, compound lifting. I want to go heavy, heavy, heavy on lifting 2 days a week and use the rest of the days to lose fat until I lift again. The only cardio I have access to is your basic cardio stuff like ellipticals, treadmills, and bikes. I prefer bikes since I like to use the resistance levels to make the HIIT a bit more like weight-training.


Also, I was lifting M-W-F, but all that squatting left my legs in too decrepit of a state to do the intensity of cardio that I wanted to do, if any at all. As for my diet, I'm not intentionally starving myself. I was just following this portion diet of Bill Phillips' and actually began counting it and saw that my calories were extremely low which is why I'm going to up the calories and do some sort of ketogenic diet.


As to your plan, it definitely is helpful and is a great plan. What I'm saying, though, is it's kind of exactly what I have been doing. I've been doing heavy lifting and eating on a diet to lose weight but not quite starving myself (I think), and I've gotten much more muscular and lean than I've ever been. However, by no standards am I actually lean yet. My gut really, really needs to go, and I'd imagine on a 2-day-a-week lifting plan and a 4-day-a-week HIIT plan, I'd be focused on fat loss for no more than 12 or so weeks at which point I'd be back to focusing on muscle gain.

 

[blut wump]

Is there any good reason to stop doing what's working? Have the gains/losses slowed down to a crawl or stopped? The periodic blitz dieting can be highly effective.

 

[siamesedream]

Without the cardio, the fat loss has come to a halt, yes.

 

[siamesedream]

Bump. Anyone else want to tell if this program looks solid or not?

 

[Guinness5.0]

Bump. Anyone else want to tell if this program looks solid or not?

I'd do this (actually i AM doing this ):

Mon:
Squat
Bench
Row
abs/low back

Thurs:
Dead
OHP
chins
abs/low back

You're hitting pretty much everything 2x/week this way (though obviously w/ different movements) and it leaves plenty of time for cardio/flexibility work whiel maintaining size/strength.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Also, you could use this time to learn some new lifts. For example, you could warmup and do a few work sets of normal squats, then switch to fronts, zercherrs, hacks, etc. Or you could work on learning power cleans as you warmup for deads. Or if your weak at lockout on bench you could do rack lockouts for a session.

IOW this could be a very valuable time to do some experimenting and put new movements in your arsenal.