I have returned to training after a long layoff, currently on the third week of your beginner template. Right now, I have been eating at maintenance. My stats are:
5’6
140lbs
34 inch waist over navel I lost all my gains from this layoff and I’m quite fat, have a round belly etc. I don’t know my BF% but i’d say 22% at the very least (I could be wrong?). My question is I’m really unsure if I should cut or bulk. This is because I’ve heard that gaining muscle is harder when your fat, and that you should lean out before trying to bulk. However I’ve heard you (Jordan) say that you can do fine bulking even when over 15%. But I just want to ask to make sure, since im rather well over that, although you did say there was ‘no cut off point’?
My goals: I was thinking, I want to adapt your beginner template around for my needs of GPP (I cannot afford the rest of the template right now - tight budget, student debt), as I want to return back to MMA training in August/September. When I return, I wanted to focus from then until 2020 on building as much muscle as possible, perhaps through the hypertrophy template, while slowly gaining weight, and then I would focus on building/maintaining strength while cutting.
Basically, by April 2020, I want to be as lean as possible while being as big and strong as possible and have decent MMA conditioning (I say decent because I have no plan to fight anytime these years, so I can focus on the opportunity to build muscle&strength, until I eventually do). But I don’t know if I should cut or bulk now and for how long, to effectively reach this goal, given my confusion with the above concern and the fact that you said in a video it’s very hard to build muscle in a deficit, but you can gain strength a bit if programming is good. So what do?
Also a bit of a different question - you say to run templates such as the hypertrophy one when cutting, due to higher volume, lower fatigue etc, but if it’s so hard to build muscle in a deficit, what’s the point in running that?
I do not think I would recommend gaining weight at this time, but rather would advise weight maintenance while your waist circumference ideally trends down.
Also a bit of a different question - you say to run templates such as the hypertrophy one when cutting, due to higher volume, lower fatigue etc, but if it’s so hard to build muscle in a deficit, what’s the point in running that?
Because the fatigue is a bit less and adherence tends to be better during periods of calorie restriction.
Thanks for the reply doc. What confuses me though is that Chris Beardsley has recently posted infographics, talking about how doing high intensity low volume results in less central fatigue than high volume, moderate intensity (something like that), and it’s overall easier to recover from. Also, thinking about it logically, wouldn’t a more strength-orientated block of training (high intensity, moderate volume) consist of less overall workload stress, which would match the reduced recovery resources an individual has while in a deficit, compared to a hypertrophy block where there’s more workload? Or am I just overthinking all this lol?
Anyway, I have the general s&c template and plan to get the hypertrophy one too. Would you still suggest running the hypertrophy template when cutting or should I run the general s&c? Also, should I minimise the accessories i.e arm work on gpp days. Also note I will also be doing while doing MMA so I will have even less recovery.
As always, things are context dependent and I think if you look beyond the infographic and to the literature they’re based off of you’ll see less disparity in our recommendations.
Not necessarily depending on how it’s programmed, which is germane to the question.
Lol, maybe?! Honestly, unless someone is trying to get “contest lean” I don’t think this stuff matters and most people would be better off if they just assumed they’ll be fine.
Either way would be fine. I wouldn’t train less, no.
Reductions in body fat while maintaining weight (more or less) happens all the time, particularly in untrained, obese, and genetically blessed individuals.