posting for a friend who is wondering what their plan forward should be
Hi All, I’m a 40 year old male, I have been working with a trainer for 2 years ( I also worked with a trainer from 2016-2018 and fell out of the routine, I’m currently at 170lbs 13% body fat. I started at about 180 lbs 25% body fat, did a reconfig cycle for a few months and got down to 14% body fat and then switched to bulking until about feb of this year (2022). I was as high as 197 lbs 15.5% body fat and then started a cut getting me to where I am now. I probably hit 13% body fat in April and have been stuck there ever since. I’m hoping to get down to about 10-11% before I bulk again but it’s been so long I’m now questioning my strategy.. I know it’s more of some things and less of others but I want to see what others say
I work out 4-5 times a week with a trainer, splitting muscle groups and I usually try to get some abs in each day and 15 min cardio. So I’m in the gym about 1.5 -2 hours each time. My meal plan is about 150-180 G protein and I try to keep fats and carbs under 40g a day. I usually eat carbs at with one of my meals before gym ( 5:00 pm after work ). My goal is to split my meals up into 4-5 meals a day 3 hours apart so I’m only at 30g protein each meal and in total it’s around 1800-2000 calories .
My workouts look like :
M-chest/triceps T- arms W-back/shoulders/biceps T- legs/abs F- chest and whatever else I think needs some extra work
That’s not exact for each week but conceptually that’s what I do
I suspect one area that’s and issue is sleep, where I’m getting about 5-6 hours a night
Suppliments I’m only do BCAAs, protein shakes and at times creatine
For me where I’m challenging my own planning is
Hi All, I’m a 40 year old male, I have been working with a trainer for 2 years ( I also worked with a trainer from 2016-2018 and fell out of the routine, I’m currently at 170lbs 13% body fat. I started at about 180 lbs 25% body fat, did a reconfig cycle for a few months and got down to 14% body fat and then switched to bulking until about feb of this year (2022). I was as high as 197 lbs 15.5% body fat and then started a cut getting me to where I am now. I probably hit 13% body fat in April and have been stuck there ever since. I’m hoping to get down to about 10-11% before I bulk again but it’s been so long I’m now questioning my strategy.. I know it’s more of some things and less of others but I want to see what others say
I work out 4-5 times a week with a trainer, splitting muscle groups and I usually try to get some abs in each day and 15 min cardio. So I’m in the gym about 1.5 -2 hours each time. My meal plan is about 150-180 G protein and I try to keep fats and carbs under 40g a day. I usually eat carbs at with one of my meals before gym ( 5:00 pm after work ). My goal is to split my meals up into 4-5 meals a day 3 hours apart so I’m only at 30g protein each meal and in total it’s around 1800-2000 calories .
My workouts look like :
M-chest/triceps T- arms W-back/shoulders/biceps T- legs/abs F- chest and whatever else I think needs some extra work
That’s not exact for each week but conceptually that’s what I do
I suspect one area that’s and issue is sleep, where I’m getting about 5-6 hours a night
Suppliments I’m only do BCAAs, protein shakes and at times creatine
For me where I’m challenging my own planning is
- should I fully commit on the cut and increase my caloric deficit not worrying so much about muscle loss because I’m going to bulk again?
- should I just focus on bulking to add more muscle now and come back to cutting after adding another 10 lbs or so? At 13% I’m only barely showing the outlines of abs which I want them fully showing so I can focus on just adding muscle ( eating super clean so I don’t totally lose them )
- Is there something else I haven’t thought of ?