Well, here I am staring at 6 weeks of cutting weight. 6 weeks of growly stomachs, grizzly moods and bear-ly (uh, barely) concealed bad temper. Not a nice thought.
As I mentioned on an earlier post about my workout plan, I’m going to try and maintain as much strength and muscle mass as I can during the next 6 weeks, while losing some fat. And if I can get down to 72.5kg, it should give me a good chance at hitting my goals of:
- a double bodyweight chin;
- a double bodyweight dip; and
- a 1.5x bodyweight pistol.
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So where am I starting from?
Yesterday morning, after getting back from a week away (with no garage gym), I weighed in at 76.2kg! I was hovering around the 75kg mark before I went away for a week so I am hoping that some of the extra 1.2kg is water from eating more carbohydrates. I can’t believe that I am capable of putting on over a kilo of fat in a week…
So I need to lose 3.7kg to get down to 72.5kg in 6 weeks. That’s just over 600g per week. At that point, if I have maintained my strength, I should theoretically be able to hit my goals. However, the last time I cut weight, I lost strength at the same time.
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What I did last time
Last time I cut weight was straight after the winter. I had been on a “squats and milk” programme that was quite effective. As in, it was effective in making me a lot stronger and a lot fatter. I put my back squat up 50% from 80kg to 120kg over a couple of months but also put inches on my belly. My weight went up over 80kg for the first time in my life.
In disgust at myself, I started a 12 week cutting cycle. I began with my normal 4-day workout plan of low rep pull ups and dips and tried to go for a 30-minute walk most evenings. I kept my diet as low-carb as possible and I cut back on snacks.
For 8 weeks, very little happened. My weight drifted down incrementally. My first week’s weigh in was 78.7kg and, after 6 weeks, I weighed in at 77.8kg. I got desperate and started a German Volume Training programme. The weight fell off me. After another 6 weeks, my weight had plummeted to 72.3kg and my waist was down from 31.4” to 29.2”. But the weight loss came with a heavy toll, I lost over 2” of muscle off my shoulders and my pull up and dip performance suffered horribly. It was 2 months before I regained the strength I had lost.
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What I am going to do this time
This time, I am determined to maintain the strength I have built by keeping the low rep sets of pull ups, chins, benches and dips. To burn some calories and create an “afterburn” effect, I am just going to have to do some real cardio.
I have been playing around with some dumbbell snatches and swings for a while as part of my general-messing-around-but-not-really-working-out-time. A little while ago, I came across an article about 36:36 and 15:15 protocols by Jordan Vezina. I think there are other people writing similar programmes but I haven’t done the research yet.
The 15:15 protocol requires 15 seconds of snatches followed by 15 seconds of rest. The number of snatches tends to be between 6 and 8. This is then repeated for 5 minutes (i.e. 10 sets). You then rest for a minute and repeat 4 times. Sounds great, right? Right…
The idea is that by doing a resistance exercise as cardio, you don’t lose muscle mass because the muscles are being worked, albeit at a lower intensity. My fingers are very firmly crossed.
I’ll keep you posted on progress.
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