I’ve recently cut down from 213 pounds to 200 pounds while running the legacy hypertrophy template. This puts me somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 percent body fat according to the U.S. Navy formula. While I’d like to eventually reduce that by a few more percentage points, what I’d like to do for the next few months is focus on getting stronger while maintaining my weight.
What I’d like to know is this: At this level of body fat and with about a year and a half of dedicated barbell training under my belt, is it reasonable to expect that I might gain some amount of muscle mass during this period, even though I’m eating at maintenance rather than at a surplus? I suppose that might be what’s considered “recomp,” but I hear conflicting things about whether that’s possible for all but brand new trainees.
Thanks in advance for your insight, and for the high-caliber content you folks are producing. It’s nice to have sane, holistically-minded strength and fitness content that’s based on evidence, rather than narrowly-focused dogmatism based on anecdote and pseudoscience. It’s saved me from going down a few rabbit holes over the past year or so.