Thread: Any good workout plans that can help me....???

what about cardio? mabey do a hiit workout or tabata or circuit/interval or a spin class once or twice a week to help with bodyfat and overall health and throw some yoga into as well. it helps prevent injuries.

It's almost impossible to build muscle in a caloric deficit. You need calories to grow. IMO you should drop your body fat where you want to be then do a clean bulk to add size.

I wouldn't recommend doing every body part twice in 6 days. That's an awful lot.

There is no training plan that will help you achieve your goals.

rest more

That routine is terrible for cutting...or bulking/maintenance for that matter.

It's a typical bodybuilding routine from the magazines...something an IFBB juiced up pro would follow. Well, you're not a juiced up pro. You should be smarter than them.

If you're looking to lean out the issue is primarily diet. Obviously you'll need to run a calorie deficit. Don't follow percentage-based recommednations, especially anything from bodybuilding.com. In fact, disregard everything that site has to say. It's absolute crap that will work only if you're on at least some form of hormone supplement. If you're training natural, which in my opinion is a more respectable/safer approach, you need to use science to your advantage a lot more.

Don't eat low fat and high carbs. This is a common misconception for cutting. People say "how will you fuel your workouts without carbs?" bla bla bla...bullshit. Carbs are a non-essential nutrient. The thing is when cutting your goal is to simply maintain what you have. You might increase strength in some lifts if you're really smart in your training but you sure as hell won't be building any new muscle. Your job is to hold on to what you have. You won't be doing 2 hour epic rep-fests of curls and pulldowns. The idea is to train low-volume/high-intensity so as to trigger to your body that those large, strong muscles are needed despite a lack of resources (calories and nutrients) available in the body. Doing a bunch of high reps doesn't tell your body that the muscle is needed, and you're very likely to burn a lot of that muscle as energy. Lift short and heavy with major movements, don't let your testerone take a dive from overworking, and you're golden.

Key to keeping your testerone up -- which, remember, is necessary to stay strong on a cut -- is mostly a diet thing. Here's what you're going to do. Consume 1 - 1.5g protein per pound lean body mass (LBM). On a cut, I'd take in the higher end. So, if you hold 150 lbs lean mass you'd consuime 225g protein. Consume a MINIMUM 0.5g fat per pound LBM. Honestly, I'd go as high as possible. Fats will not only keep you feeling fuller (as will protein) they will help keep your hormones in check while you put your body through the stressful process of leaning out.

Decide what diet approach you'll take. There are many approaches out there but I find carb cycling to be the simplest for non-advanced dieters. Basically, go to the gym I'd say 3 days a week. On those days, you can eat an additional 300 calories worth of grain carbs (pasta, potatoes, bread) before your workout. On the other 4 days away from the gym you consume no carbs except veges. Even if you take in a lot of veges you probably won't be much higher than 50-60g. For your veges, emphasize leafy greens like broccoli, spinach, and asparagus.

So, if your maintenance calories are 3,000 you can subtract the standard 500 from that to get 2,500 calories a day (2,800 on training days). At that rate, you'd lose about a pound of week, or 4 lbs a month. That's a realistic, safe rate for fate loss while trying to maintain lean mass. Let's say your protein is 225g (as I mentioned above..I can't remember your weight). There are 4 calories per gram protein, so multiply 225 x 4 = 1000. So, 1,000 calories of your diet comes from protein, leaving you 1,500. Let's say your veges bring you to 60g carbs. Carbs also contain 4 cals per gram. 60 x 4 = 240 calories from carbs. So, 1,500 - 240 = 1260 calories to use for fat. There are 9 calories per gram fat so 1260/9 = 140g fat.

So, your diet would be 2,500 calories.

225g protein
140 g fat
60g carbs (120g on training days)

Also incorporate refeeds periodically. For a 500 cal deficit at 16% BF once a week or every 8 or 9 days should be fine initially. Essentially, a day to load up on carbs to raise lepin -- a hormone that signals to the body that it's being fed sufficiently (this drops as you diet). The idea is as leptin drops you bring it back up, temporarily halt your fat burning, but then because the leptin is now back up to normal levels your body thinks it's not starving and will continue to burn fat. It's basically an investment into your fat burning. 1 step back for 5 steps forward. On those days, eat a bit over maintenance, keep protein the same, drop fats to no higher than 50g, and consume the rest in carbs. Pasta, bread, potatoes, oats...go nuts. Would be smart to take advantage of the energy surge and train on this day.

As for training, short and heavy is the way to go. I'd urge you to research for popular strength programs like Westside or 5/3/1, etc, to see if any can be applied when cutting, as they're more structured approaches to gaining strength which would be nice when cutting, but here's something basic that would be work decently at keeping size/strength on a cut.

Alternate as A, B, A -- B, A, B (so 3 workouts a week).

Session A:

(1.) Squats: 3-4 x 5 (progress intensity on all sets..don't hit failure ever)
(2.) Bench: 3-4 x 5
(3.) BB Romanian Deadlifts: 3 x 8
(4.) Chinups: 3-4 x 5

Session B:

(1.) Deadlifts: 3-4 x 5
(2.) BB Military Press: 3-4 x 5
(3.) Leg Press OR Front Squats: 3 x 8
(4.) DB Bench Rows: 3-4 x 5
*3 sets calves

Originally Posted by Phineas

(1.) Squats: 3-4 x 5 (progress intensity on all sets..don't hit failure ever)

Damn good post. Please explain the reason to why not hit failure? Is this for squats only?

Originally Posted by x~factor

Damn good post. Please explain the reason to why not hit failure? Is this for squats only?

Sorry I should have been more clear. The info in brackets applies to the four core lifts: squats, dead, bench, and military press. The intensity progress is to (a) not overwork the body and (b) possibly make PRs, which on a cut is very impressive and rewarding.

Don't hit failure on anything when cutting. Hitting failure any time is risky, as you're essentially frying your central nervous system (CNS). When you're cutting your body just doens't have the same resources for reparing tissue is it normally does, so high volume and/or failure training is a fast way to drop testosterone and lose mass/strength.

You have to be very economical when cutting.

Make sense. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Phineas

That routine is terrible for cutting...or bulking/maintenance for that matter.

It's a typical bodybuilding routine from the magazines...something an IFBB juiced up pro would follow. Well, you're not a juiced up pro. You should be smarter than them.

If you're looking to lean out the issue is primarily diet. Obviously you'll need to run a calorie deficit. Don't follow percentage-based recommednations, especially anything from bodybuilding.com. In fact, disregard everything that site has to say. It's absolute crap that will work only if you're on at least some form of hormone supplement. If you're training natural, which in my opinion is a more respectable/safer approach, you need to use science to your advantage a lot more.

Don't eat low fat and high carbs. This is a common misconception for cutting. People say "how will you fuel your workouts without carbs?" bla bla bla...bullshit. Carbs are a non-essential nutrient. The thing is when cutting your goal is to simply maintain what you have. You might increase strength in some lifts if you're really smart in your training but you sure as hell won't be building any new muscle. Your job is to hold on to what you have. You won't be doing 2 hour epic rep-fests of curls and pulldowns. The idea is to train low-volume/high-intensity so as to trigger to your body that those large, strong muscles are needed despite a lack of resources (calories and nutrients) available in the body. Doing a bunch of high reps doesn't tell your body that the muscle is needed, and you're very likely to burn a lot of that muscle as energy. Lift short and heavy with major movements, don't let your testerone take a dive from overworking, and you're golden.

Key to keeping your testerone up -- which, remember, is necessary to stay strong on a cut -- is mostly a diet thing. Here's what you're going to do. Consume 1 - 1.5g protein per pound lean body mass (LBM). On a cut, I'd take in the higher end. So, if you hold 150 lbs lean mass you'd consuime 225g protein. Consume a MINIMUM 0.5g fat per pound LBM. Honestly, I'd go as high as possible. Fats will not only keep you feeling fuller (as will protein) they will help keep your hormones in check while you put your body through the stressful process of leaning out.

Decide what diet approach you'll take. There are many approaches out there but I find carb cycling to be the simplest for non-advanced dieters. Basically, go to the gym I'd say 3 days a week. On those days, you can eat an additional 300 calories worth of grain carbs (pasta, potatoes, bread) before your workout. On the other 4 days away from the gym you consume no carbs except veges. Even if you take in a lot of veges you probably won't be much higher than 50-60g. For your veges, emphasize leafy greens like broccoli, spinach, and asparagus.

So, if your maintenance calories are 3,000 you can subtract the standard 500 from that to get 2,500 calories a day (2,800 on training days). At that rate, you'd lose about a pound of week, or 4 lbs a month. That's a realistic, safe rate for fate loss while trying to maintain lean mass. Let's say your protein is 225g (as I mentioned above..I can't remember your weight). There are 4 calories per gram protein, so multiply 225 x 4 = 1000. So, 1,000 calories of your diet comes from protein, leaving you 1,500. Let's say your veges bring you to 60g carbs. Carbs also contain 4 cals per gram. 60 x 4 = 240 calories from carbs. So, 1,500 - 240 = 1260 calories to use for fat. There are 9 calories per gram fat so 1260/9 = 140g fat.

So, your diet would be 2,500 calories.

225g protein
140 g fat
60g carbs (120g on training days)

Also incorporate refeeds periodically. For a 500 cal deficit at 16% BF once a week or every 8 or 9 days should be fine initially. Essentially, a day to load up on carbs to raise lepin -- a hormone that signals to the body that it's being fed sufficiently (this drops as you diet). The idea is as leptin drops you bring it back up, temporarily halt your fat burning, but then because the leptin is now back up to normal levels your body thinks it's not starving and will continue to burn fat. It's basically an investment into your fat burning. 1 step back for 5 steps forward. On those days, eat a bit over maintenance, keep protein the same, drop fats to no higher than 50g, and consume the rest in carbs. Pasta, bread, potatoes, oats...go nuts. Would be smart to take advantage of the energy surge and train on this day.

As for training, short and heavy is the way to go. I'd urge you to research for popular strength programs like Westside or 5/3/1, etc, to see if any can be applied when cutting, as they're more structured approaches to gaining strength which would be nice when cutting, but here's something basic that would be work decently at keeping size/strength on a cut.

Alternate as A, B, A -- B, A, B (so 3 workouts a week).

Session A:

(1.) Squats: 3-4 x 5 (progress intensity on all sets..don't hit failure ever)
(2.) Bench: 3-4 x 5
(3.) BB Romanian Deadlifts: 3 x 8
(4.) Chinups: 3-4 x 5

Session B:

(1.) Deadlifts: 3-4 x 5
(2.) BB Military Press: 3-4 x 5
(3.) Leg Press OR Front Squats: 3 x 8
(4.) DB Bench Rows: 3-4 x 5
*3 sets calves

^this.