Cutting while gaining strength?

[Roland Conde]

I've searched the boards for the past ~30 min and still am a bit drawn, so I thought I'd post up my plan and get some feedback. Apologies in advance for the long post, I just want to be detailed.

Currently I'm running through a slight variant of SS as follows:

Day A
Squat 3x5
Bench 3x5
Dead 1x5
Chin 3 x 6-12

Day B
Squat 3x5
Press 3x5
Clean 5x3
Chin 3 x 6-12

No other real training (e.g metcon)

There are 2 rest days between A and B, e.g Mon, Thur, Sun et al.

I've stalled twice on press (no reset yet, just repeated), once on deads, and stalled this past workout on my squat. Though I hope not, I feel I will soon be out of what I can get from SS and will likely move onto a form of the TM.

Stats as follows:

Squat 295
Dead 295
Bench 205
Press 147.5
Clean 50kg + 20lb

5'9 197 lb, up from 165ish (I ran through SS once a while back but broke my ankle and was out for a year). Not sure of bodyfat, and though I'm not carrying a huge belly I don't fit into any of my pants, and far fewer of my shirts.

My bodyweight has remained constant for the past month just about, so I'm gonna give my current program a bit more time while upping my eating to see if I can eek out more progress with more weight gain; I'll likely reset squats once if I can't get my 3x5 next time and work back up to a final stall.

Once this occurs and I switch over to my TM programming (with 1 day / week metcon), I was wondering how realistic it is to cut down fat significantly while progressing my lifts? I'm hoping to continue progress if possible and not just fashion a program to cut while maintaining strength.

For diet during the TM I was just going to cut out most carbs aside from morning and PWO, hence eatting loads of meat, nuts and veggies all the time, with a nice dinner 1-2x a week where I eat whatever and alcohol here and there. This is substantially cleaner than what I'm eating now which is tons of burgers and fries, sandwiches, steaks, milk, and more alcohol than I should be having. I try not to count calories as I got sick of doing that when I was 150lbs and running a lot.

Many thanks in advance to any who read this far. Any input is appreciated, and I'll gladly take recommendations on readings regarding this matter.


TLDR: How realistic is it to make strength gains while cutting, namely on a TM style program?

[ColoWayno]

I'd say TM is a pretty aggressive program so if you are doing it right it also means eating enough to support it. That's not to say you can't adapt it a bit.

It's probably fine to start out trying it as is and see where you go. If you stall early you can reset then eat more, or lower the volume on the program and just expect slower gains and more resets. You can play with the rep scheme on volume day.

5-3-1 is a bit more adaptable and less aggressive with targeted monthly gains. You can make it more aggressive by going nuts on the AMRAP sets... that takes a bit of mental craziness in my opinion. That's when you need your buddy shouting insults or whatever works for you.

Congrats for getting this far on the novice program. How old?

[Roland Conde]

hsilman, what is the rfl diet? What sort of program are you running currently?

Colowayno, thank you ^.^ I'm 25, 26 in July.

I stalled again today, so I'm gonna cut back the affected lifts by ~10% and give the advanced novice program a try on M W F. I'm going to begin my above listed diet with the caveat of perhaps another decent portion of carbs in one of my meals aside from breakfast and see if I cut any fat, though I'm still going to try to eat generously as I want to milk out novice as long as I can. Tossing in some conditioning work Tuesdays as well.

Thanks for the responses thus far. Any more input is gladly welcomed.

[Mr.City]

The guys at Greyskull do a great job of it.

[Roland Conde]

Wow ok, im a fucking idiot. After some more reading and hurting/spraining my thumb I decided I would eat the following as a diet:

6 eggs w veggies
40 g whey protein w water
Grilled chicken w veggies
40g whey in water
Lean meat/fish w veggies
40g protein in water

Thus cuttting most carbs outside pwo shake and alot of calories. I cut my squat 10% ish, from 295 to 265. Other lifts I had planned to wait a week or two depending on my thumb (I can't even hold a pen)

Subsequently, I can't even get 3x5 at this weight. Hell, I didn't even make 5 for a single set.

Im typing this at the gym from my phone where I just failed my 2nd set at 2 reps, second day at the gym this week. I don't feel tired or lack enegy, I just couldn't get any of the reps.


Fuck dropping fat so aggresively. Im dropping my squat down another 10 lb, and coming back sunday eating normally. Ill toss in some HIIT, eat well without junk but once a week, and let my body weigh what it wants. I don't want to fail out once I program TM just because I want to drop some fat.

[FrontSkwatter]

I would recommend taking BCAA's during a cut. They help reduce/eliminate muscle catabolism, so the only strength you might lose will be due to lack of energy, and not loss of muscle.

[LimieJosh]

This is true, but as he's already getting 120g a day of whey protein I doubt the additional BCAAs will do anything.

[Roland Conde]

Thanks frontskwatter, I hadn't considered BCAA's explicitly but as Limiejosh indicated, it would appear it's covered by the whey I was/am taking.

In any event, upon re-evaluating my goals that I'm more concerned with strength than body fat level, at least until I get a double chin. I'm just gonna clean up my diet and train, and see how things go.

[Sixteh]

Keep training at maintenance and maybe throw in one or two light conditioning days (shouldn't affect recovery). Successfully recomping at maintenance isn't too difficult, just slow.