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Thread: First Time Cutting, Lost A Lot of Strength

  1. #11
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    Hey Robert,

    I'm reporting in with an update and a new question. I'll try to keep this as short as possible.

    I did as you recommended and upped the carbs while cutting fat. I was only taking in around 100 grams of carbs so I doubled that to 200 to see how it goes and my squat strength stabilized to 225 lbs for 5 reps/4 sets on heavy day. That's 40 lbs down from my regular 265, but again it stabilized. So far so good.

    I weigh myself almost every morning (I'm OCD about it right now so it just satisfies that) after I pee but before I eat or drink anything. It's been about 5 weeks now and I'm flunctuating anywhere from 199 to 202 lbs. I was 204 5 weeks ago so that means I've lost 5 lbs at the most and 2 lbs at the least in 5 weeks. The 199 lbs has only been observed a couple times, though, and I could have been dehydrated more than usual. That happens to me.

    I actually wasn't going to have any problems with this. I was going to cut back just a little on the carbs again (that's the only thing I have left to cut) and see how the weight and strength goes, tweaking it. But now I've run into problem and here's the new question.
    Ever since I cut calories and have been on this cut I started getting this pain in my left patellar tendon. It's the first time I've had this type of pain in my life, but it is my weaker knee that has had a prior childhood injury and have had other troubles with it ever since when lifting. The whole time all the way through my novice linear progression I have zero issues with my knees (which I found downright miraculous) but now all of a sudden boom.

    Yesterday was light day and the pain now all of a sudden hit me on my first warm up set with only 50 lbs on the bar. It was quite pronounced all the way through my couple of light sets. I noticed I could shift the weight off of that leg just slightly and the pain could be avoided, but that was tricky and it is very sore afterwards, to the point it hurts moving around in bed, a chair and pressing on it to massage it (tendon around the kneecap). I know this type of soreness enough NOT to squat with this again, or I'll be left with months of doing nothing with this tendon. That's what happened with my elbow and has happened to various tendons before.

    So now I'm left without even my bread and butter lift on top of no deadlift. What to do about that I'll save that for somewhere else as it isn't your focus here.

    My question is, do you think this was caused by cutting calories? Would cutting calories generally affect tendon recovery, because I kept my protein intake as high as ever all this time.

    Could this have been something waiting to happen ever since I switched to high bar and put more stress on my knees, or could it maybe a combination of the two?

    I just find it odd I'd go down 40 lbs from a lift and that's when I started getting sore and then a potential injury. I should also mention the knees didn't feel GREAT when I switched to high bar, and I did always feel on edge, but I never had any kind of pain that got my attention until now.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by David McClelland View Post
    Hey Robert,

    I'm reporting in with an update and a new question. I'll try to keep this as short as possible.

    I did as you recommended and upped the carbs while cutting fat. I was only taking in around 100 grams of carbs so I doubled that to 200 to see how it goes and my squat strength stabilized to 225 lbs for 5 reps/4 sets on heavy day. That's 40 lbs down from my regular 265, but again it stabilized. So far so good.

    I weigh myself almost every morning (I'm OCD about it right now so it just satisfies that) after I pee but before I eat or drink anything. It's been about 5 weeks now and I'm flunctuating anywhere from 199 to 202 lbs. I was 204 5 weeks ago so that means I've lost 5 lbs at the most and 2 lbs at the least in 5 weeks. The 199 lbs has only been observed a couple times, though, and I could have been dehydrated more than usual. That happens to me.

    I actually wasn't going to have any problems with this. I was going to cut back just a little on the carbs again (that's the only thing I have left to cut) and see how the weight and strength goes, tweaking it. But now I've run into problem and here's the new question.
    Ever since I cut calories and have been on this cut I started getting this pain in my left patellar tendon. It's the first time I've had this type of pain in my life, but it is my weaker knee that has had a prior childhood injury and have had other troubles with it ever since when lifting. The whole time all the way through my novice linear progression I have zero issues with my knees (which I found downright miraculous) but now all of a sudden boom.

    Yesterday was light day and the pain now all of a sudden hit me on my first warm up set with only 50 lbs on the bar. It was quite pronounced all the way through my couple of light sets. I noticed I could shift the weight off of that leg just slightly and the pain could be avoided, but that was tricky and it is very sore afterwards, to the point it hurts moving around in bed, a chair and pressing on it to massage it (tendon around the kneecap). I know this type of soreness enough NOT to squat with this again, or I'll be left with months of doing nothing with this tendon. That's what happened with my elbow and has happened to various tendons before.

    So now I'm left without even my bread and butter lift on top of no deadlift. What to do about that I'll save that for somewhere else as it isn't your focus here.

    My question is, do you think this was caused by cutting calories? Would cutting calories generally affect tendon recovery, because I kept my protein intake as high as ever all this time.

    Could this have been something waiting to happen ever since I switched to high bar and put more stress on my knees, or could it maybe a combination of the two?

    I just find it odd I'd go down 40 lbs from a lift and that's when I started getting sore and then a potential injury. I should also mention the knees didn't feel GREAT when I switched to high bar, and I did always feel on edge, but I never had any kind of pain that got my attention until now.
    High bar is going to place more stress on the knees...period. It is more likely that your squat technique is responsible for the knee pain and unlikely that a dietary change would do it. That being said, if you train without sufficient glycogen stores, of course you are introducing a higher risk of injury because you are training sub-optimally recovered. So more of an indirect thing there.

  3. #13
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    Yea here's the thing, too. I didn't get this big a pain to make me stop full squatting until the manager moved the squat rack across the gym away from the mirrors it used to be across. Now I can't watch myself squat. I know we shouldn't have to have a mirror but I was using it at this time to keep track of my knees and make sure they stayed pushed out on heavy grinding squats. This last time I squatted without a mirror I have no idea what my squat or knees were doing so that could have done them in right there.

    I'm going to try some suggestions I've seen like eccentric work (lowering weight onto pins, re-racking weight, repeat) and keep my presses up. If that doesn't work I'll just give it a rest altogether for a while. I still have my presses and cutting to do, so there's that.

    Thanks so much for all your time and response. Appreciate it!

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by David McClelland View Post
    Yea here's the thing, too. I didn't get this big a pain to make me stop full squatting until the manager moved the squat rack across the gym away from the mirrors it used to be across. Now I can't watch myself squat. I know we shouldn't have to have a mirror but I was using it at this time to keep track of my knees and make sure they stayed pushed out on heavy grinding squats. This last time I squatted without a mirror I have no idea what my squat or knees were doing so that could have done them in right there.

    I'm going to try some suggestions I've seen like eccentric work (lowering weight onto pins, re-racking weight, repeat) and keep my presses up. If that doesn't work I'll just give it a rest altogether for a while. I still have my presses and cutting to do, so there's that.

    Thanks so much for all your time and response. Appreciate it!
    You do not need a mirror to squat. The reason that we squat is to control the way our bodies move so that we become useful human beings. If you have been reliant on a mirror to move a certain way then you have not developed adequate proprioception. This will be a good practice for you. Film your lifts and watch yourself after the fact. Chances are you are lifting incorrectly and now you have to learn to feel it and develop body awareness.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Santana View Post
    You do not need a mirror to squat. The reason that we squat is to control the way our bodies move so that we become useful human beings. If you have been reliant on a mirror to move a certain way then you have not developed adequate proprioception. This will be a good practice for you. Film your lifts and watch yourself after the fact. Chances are you are lifting incorrectly and now you have to learn to feel it and develop body awareness.
    Point taken. I'm going to set up video so I (and others) can see what's going on. After a lot of thinking today, I've decided to go back to working on my low bar technique. There's got to be something I'm doing wrong and someone might be able to help me online. Everything felt strong on low bar. I feel it only in the quads (which have blown up in size) and knees at this point in high bar and my lower back got weaker.

    I'm taking all of this as a wake up call because I obviously haven't been serious enough.

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by David McClelland View Post
    Point taken. I'm going to set up video so I (and others) can see what's going on. After a lot of thinking today, I've decided to go back to working on my low bar technique. There's got to be something I'm doing wrong and someone might be able to help me online. Everything felt strong on low bar. I feel it only in the quads (which have blown up in size) and knees at this point in high bar and my lower back got weaker.

    I'm taking all of this as a wake up call because I obviously haven't been serious enough.
    That is the best way to take it buddy. Glad we can be of assistance

  7. #17
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    Hey Robert,

    Just an update and a simple additional question if you don't mind.

    For some reason, the knee pain is now completely gone. I posted a vid on here for critique of my low bar squat and it was determined the rack, which is the only one in the gym, was my biggest setback. It was fudging my form right off the bat because of the way it has to be unracked out of the curved J hooks. Since my knees are better and don't have any other options right now I decided to stay with the high bar a bit longer and it's done ok.

    So far after that big initial strength loss which was the reason for this thread, I have maintained my strength in all lifts (squats/presses) while slowly losing weight. I'll be slowly trying to add deadlifts back in since my elbow is feeling much better, as well.

    After 7 1/2 weeks of cutting I've gone down from 209 lbs to 193 (16 lbs). My waist shrank, but I have a good bit to go for my individual frame. It's under 40 inches but it's still quite a gut for my frame in other words.

    Getting to my question, I just added HIIT the past two work outs to speed up fat burning. I can only do a few mins of it right now but have already progressed from 1st to 2nd work out, and have lost 2 extra pounds in this time alone! I have no idea the mechanisms behind this but my strength is still up, I'm hungry as a raging wolf and I generally overall feel better when you would think it would be the opposite. All this while, get this, actually having a few weeks ago reduced my carbs back down to 1/2 gram per lb of bodyweight (about 100 grams per day) and fat intake is still way down!

    Now the question, would adding carbs to fuel the HIIT routines (only done after each workout and that's it) affect fat loss? My thinking is, since it requires carbs, adding them in to fuel the HIIT routines would actually aid in fat loss. My gut feeling tells me HIIT is going to burn me out after progressing on it to a point if I don't bump the carbs back up.

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