Not Just a Man's World

In part one, I explained the errors made during my last cutting phase.  In particular my successful stripping of both fat and muscle.  Exercise, as I’ve said before, is an important part of the fat-loss regime (though perhaps not as important as getting the nutrition right), so I’m going to try and learn from my mistakes and hopefully see some better results in time for that beach holiday.

So what will I try this time?

This time I’m on a mission.  I enjoy my food, so I’d like to go back to eating a sensible amount after dieting, especially on that beach holiday.  It would also be nice not to have to spend 3 months getting my deadlift back where it was before.

Weights

I’m going for heavy weights.  I’m doing 2 arms and 2 legs workouts each week.  Every workout starts with 10 sets of 3 reps on one or two exercises (including resistance band press ups, pull ups, rack pulls and split squats) and then a couple of top-up exercises.

The benefit of 10 sets of 3 reps is that you get volume (through the number of sets) but you can lift some really heavy weight without reaching exhaustion.

I’m also taking Chad Waterbury’s advice and trying to avoid the Britney Spears Syndrome.  Most women trying to get the perfect look spend too much time concentrating on obliques (thus losing the waspy waist) while neglecting their glutes (if your bottom has a good “shelf” then your waist has to look smaller in proportion).  So I’m really focussing on my glutes, while keeping my obliques, abs and traps mostly restricted to the top-up exercises where I can maintain them without them getting bigger.

Cardio

A study carried out by Tremblay, Simoneau and Bouchard on the impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism showed that high intensity interval training (HIIT) has been shown to be more than three times as effective for fat loss despite spending a shorter period of time on the cardio effort and expending less than half the calories.

There are also plenty of articles on the fasted or non-fasted cardio debate.  I’m not going to get into that here but I’ve noted that most arguments against fasted cardio seem to centre on the possibility that this will strip muscle off you.  To the rescue comes Jordan Vezina with the 15/15 kettlebell snatch workout.  By doing HIIT with weights, it should reduce the possibility of muscle from being stripped.  I’m hoping that somehow this will be different to the tri-sets from last time…

I don’t own any kettlebells, but I do own dumbbells, and they are working just as effectively.  So I’m doing 10 mins (not the full 20 mins) of either dumbbell snatches (1-2 times a week – remember that I don’t want to overwork my traps) or swings (3-4 times a week – a bonus chance to work my glutes) before breakfast.  I’ll keep doing a 2 hour ride every Saturday morning and a 2 hour walk every Sunday morning.

Will it work?

After the last cutting period fiasco, anything ought to do better.  I’ll let you know though.

Related posts:

1. What exercise is best for losing weight? – Part 1
2. What diet is best for losing weight?
3. Blog-watch: interaction of diet and exercise with the menstrual cycle – part one
4. Blog-watch: interaction of diet and exercise with the menstrual cycle – part two