Need help with a strength routine while on a diet!

[bird901]

It's hard to work with heavy weight when rest periods are that short. What percent should I be doing when doing sets of 5x3 or 3x3? I switched from low intens cardio because of how long, and how often I was doing it was bothering my knee. I wasn't running.

Good advice though. I tried doing stuff circuit style like southernlord said yesterday and it was Impossible to keep the weight heavy. It was a shock to my system, I feel real tight today, I'm gonna be sore tomorrow. It was a real good workout

 

[bird901]

Also if I'm swapping LBM for fat and I still have alot of fat to loose, should my scale weight still be dropping some?

 

[_cato_]

It's hard to work with heavy weight when rest periods are that short. What percent should I be doing when doing sets of 5x3 or 3x3? I switched from low intens cardio because of how long, and how often I was doing it was bothering my knee. I wasn't running.

Ya circuits are tough with heavy weight. Personally, I'm not sure my conditioning would be good enough to do that workout in the way he posted it. Even without the circuit factor, its a good workout though.

On average, a trainee can use about 85% of 1RM for a 5 rep max and about 90% of 1RM for a 3 rep max. If you were doing straight sets on the other hand (ie 5x5 at same weight), you'd multiply you're 5RM (or your 3RM as appropriate) by about 0.925. These are just ballpark numbers though. What you should do is find whatever your 5x5 max multiply that by 0.9 and use that number to start. Add 5 lbs per week as you can. Do the same for your 3x3 max.

 

[_cato_]

Also if I'm swapping LBM for fat and I still have a lot of fat to loose, should my scale weight still be dropping some?

It depends. The problem with scale weight is that you don't really know whats happening. If you are losing weight, it may just be that you lost water wait and/or glycogen, or you could even be losing muscle. Or you could be losing fat. If the scale weight goes up, you could be losing fat, but gaining muscle/water/glycogen faster than your fat loss. If the scale stays the same, you could be losing some things and gaining some things.

This is not to say don't use the scale. But use it in conjunction with a bodyfat calipers or the mirror or a tape measure. And also keep an eye on your strength levels. If you're losing weight rapidly but your strength is going down, then you're probably losing muscle. If you're gaining weight but your waist measurement decreased and your chest measurement increased, then you're probably gaining muscle faster than you're losing fat, etc, etc.