I decided that heavy weight training was going to be a priority for me during this transformation as I wanted to maintain as much muscle as possible. I've dieted before where I didn't lift as heavy and ended up losing too much muscle mass and strength. I was going to do my best to not let that happen this time around.
Weight Training
During the 12 weeks of my body transformation, I alternated full body heavy days with full body medium days.
It wasn't quite an every other day alternation as I wanted more heavy days so I used a MWF (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) split where Mondays and Fridays were heavy days and Wednesdays were reserved for medium days. I would sometimes switch this to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday as well depending on my what else was going on during the week.
Weighted Pullups are awesome
My heavy days were where I worked with a weight that I could do anywhere from 3-6 reps. Medium days consisted of weights where I could get between 8-12 reps.
Cardio
My days off from weight training were reserved for either cardio or rest depending on how I felt. Although, I normally felt great during my body transformation so most of those days ended up being cardio days :)
I made sure to keep my cardio very low intensity so that I my body would not break down any muscle for fuel. By low intensity, I mean doing some easy incline treadmill walking or the elliptical where my heart rate was kept anywhere between 110 - 130 beats per minute.
Cardio gets hot
An easy way for me to make sure the intensity wasn't too high was if I could breathe through my nose and not my mouth. My cardio session would range from 30 minutes, gradually working up to an hour over the course of my transformation.
Intra-Workout Drink
To further insure that I avoided any muscle catabolism, I also sipped on a BCAA/Creatine drink mixed in 24 oz of water during my cardio.
I also sipped on this drink mixture during my weight workouts as well to avoid too much muscle breakdown. The BCAA drink I used was Scivation Xtend
, arguably the most popular BCAA product on the market. I felt drinking the BCAA's and creatine really did help in maintaining muscle and even increasing my strength during a caloric deficit.Example
Below is an example week of workouts.
Format is Set # - Weight used x # of reps
Monday - Heavy workout
Pendlay Rows (Bent over barbell rows from the floor)
Set 1 - 215 x 5
Set 2 - 225 x 5
Set 3 - 225 x 5
Set 4 - 230 x 4
Set 5 - 230 x 4
Front Barbell Squat
Set 1 - 205 x 5
Set 2 - 215 x 5
Set 3 - 220 x 5
Set 4 - 220 x 5
Set 5 - 220 x 5
Weighted Dips
Set 1 - 145 x 5
Set 2 - 145 x 5
Set 3 - 145 x 5
Set 4 - 145 x 5
Set 5 - 145 x 5
Dumbbell Push Press
Set 1 - 85 x 5
Set 2 - 85 x 5
Set 3 - 85 x 5
Set 4 - 85 x 5
Set 5 - 85 x 5
Ab Roller (standing on feet)
Set 1 - 8 reps
Set 2 - 8 reps
Set 3 - 6 reps
Tuesday - Cardio or Rest
30 - 60 minutes incline treadmill walking
Wednesday - Medium Workout
V-Bar Pulldown
Set 1 - 230 x 10
Set 2 - 230 x 9
Set 3 - 235 x 8
Set 4 - 235 x 7
Set 5 - 220 x 10
Standing Cable Chest Press
Set 1 - 95 x 12
Set 2 - 95 x 12
Set 3 - 100 x 10
Set 4 - 105 x 8
Set 5 - 105 x 8
Two Arm Dumbbell Preacher Curl
Set 1 - 40 x 8
Set 2 - 35 x 11
Set 3 - 35 x 8
Set 4 - 30 x 13
Set 5 - 30 x 10
Single Leg Romanian Deadlift
Set 1 - 45 x 10
Set 2 - 45 x 10
Set 3 - 50 x 10
Set 4 - 50 x 10
Weighted Decline Crunch
Set 1 - 50 x 8
Set 2 - 50 x 8
Set 3 - 50 x 8
Thursday - Cardio or Rest
30 - 60 minutes incline treadmill walking
Friday - Heavy Workout
Repeat Monday Workout
Saturday - Cardio or Rest
Sunday - Cardio or Rest
I generally felt great throughout my transformation and never felt burnt out from lack of calories or working out too much.
I also actually went on two vacations during the 12 week period, one to New Orleans and the other to Puerto Rico. I didn't workout or watch my diet at all during these vacations but still made great progress with the combination of my workouts and diet :)
More information on the diet I followed will be posted in a future blog entry.
12 Week Body Transformation - Intro
12 Week Body Transformation continued - Cheat Days
Important Key Points to My Body Transformation
2 comments:
I've just recently stumbled upon your body transformation. Very impressive! Its encouraged me to start another cut cycle, I'm somewhere between 13-20%, probably 15ish. I'm hoping to achieve a similar transformation as you. (I've been following a leangains esque fasting style for a few weeks now, enjoying the mental benefits the most. Most amazing, is I've actually been bulking, eating about 500 calories more each day, and felt like I've been leaning out.)
I am wondering what your opinion on rest periods between sets is? I assume if you are following Martin Berkhan style training than its 3-5 minutes?
Hey Erik, thanks for the compliments and good luck with your cut! IF made cutting super easy for me and if you've been bulking with it, I'm sure it will be easy for you to cut as well.
I didn't follow Martin's reverse pyramid training during my cut, but I did use heavy weights for 5 reps most of the time. My rest period of these "heavy" sets would be 3 minutes and the "medium" sets would be about 2 minutes rest.
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