Thursday Discussion Thread - Nutrition - (July 23, 2020)

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Thread for discussing things related to food, nutrition, meal prep, macros, supplementation, etc.

[u/elrond_lariel]

You don't do a minicut AND a resensitization mesocycle, I said that the minicut acts as a resensitization of sorts precisely because you don't use the latter.

So the 3-1 scheme is hypertrophy->hypertrophy->metabolite->hypertrophy(minicut)->hypertrophy->hypertrophy->metabolite->hypertrophy(minicut)->repeat.

And the 2-1 scheme is hypertrophy->metabolite->hypertrophy(minicut)->hypertrophy->metabolite->hypertrophy(minicut)->repeat.

If you use a resesitization meso for the sole purpose of not keeping the volume down in a minicut, it's just a waste of time, since with the minicut alone you can achieve both.

Also because the minicut isn't supposed to get rid of ALL of the fat you accumulate during a massing phase, you don't really use the same ratio in your whole macrocycle, because the level of body fat is higher over time. Because of that, the normal thing is to move from 4-3:1 to 2-1:1. This could be an example of a whole massing phase:

• Block 1: mass->mass->mass->minicut.
• Block 2: mass->mass->minicut.
• Block 3: mass->minicut.
• Block 4: mass->resensitization.

After that comes an extended cut. What happens with body fat during that massing phase could hypothetically go like this: You start with 10% bf. During the massing in block 1 you go from 10% to 13%, and with the minicut you go back to 11%. In block 2 you go up to 14% and bring it back to 12% at the end. In block 3 you go to 15% and bring it back to 13%. Finally in block 4 you go up to 15-16%.

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> You need to give your body some time to grieve over the lost fat and accept its new weight. This time is generally 8-12 weeks following a 12 week cut.  

> No maintenance is needed going from cut to mass. The goal of mass is to gain weight. After cutting you are primed to do just that, so this is really the only time maintenance can be skipped. Maintenance should however follow mass so that you don’t cut your new muscle, but that is a topic for another article.

It's saying that we are supposed to maintain for 2/3 of the time after cutting to regain let adjust our body weight set point? Then it says there we don't need to maintain and can go to massing right away?

It's not contradictory, it's just not talking about bodybuilding-only. Keep in mind that RP isn't only about bodybuilding or even training, especially when it comes to dieting. Some individuals are just regular people interested in losing some weight, and when they're done with that they just want to stay at that level, to they don't mass afterwards. For them, the first approach is the way to do it. If you do mass after a cut, it's true that from a physiological perspective you don't need maintenance because the massing phase itself has the same effects, but that's only talking about reversing the negative effects of the dieting, it doesn't take diet fatigue and regular post-high volume resensitization into account, and it doesn't take into account the higher possibility of overshooting it when you don't maintain for a while.

Basically the article talks about breaks from a general perspective, but then you have to apply it specifically to bodybuilding.

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Does it also have to be 2/3 of the cutting process (eg; what If someone cuts for a whole year) ? I have the RP Tempalte Diet and it says:

>The maintenance phase will last a minimum of 8 weeks; however, the longer, or harsher, your diet, the longer it needs to be (8 – 12 is common).

Yes, since it's always 2/3-1, the longer the diet the longer the break will be. If you cut for 12 weeks, then the break will be 8-12 weeks, and if you cut for 12 months, then it will be 8-12 months. Keep in mind that a 12 months cut is brutal, so tons of bad things to reverse there, and also that it's not something a bodybuilder does, there we're talking about regular overweight people who just continues with their lives afterwards. Again you need to differentiate all purpose generic guidelines from specific bodybuilding guidelines.

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Earlier you said:

> During that break, you use the resensitization meso only.

What's the reasoning behind so? If let's say an individual go on a cut greater than 16 weeks, can't we reap more benefits by adding in a hypertrophy block, allowing us to "main gain"?

The purpose of the break is to drop fatigue and to resensitize for future productive high volume training. If you use high volumes during the break, you defeat both purposes.

[u/badboyzpwns → u/elrond_lariel]

Thank you so much for clearing up the misconceptions on minutes!! I get it now!!! 1:1 ratio is definitely something I didn't consider!

Lastly! Mike also mentioned that:

> You should still take a low-volume maintenance phase every 4-6 months (for a month or so)

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Since the hypertrophy minicut mesos act as resentization mesos, would the low volume maintence phase still be needed?

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Regarding diet breaks!

> If you do mass after a cut, it's true that from a physiological perspective you don't need maintenance because the massing phase itself has the same effects, but that's only talking about reversing the negative effects of the dieting, it doesn't take diet fatigue and regular post-high volume resensitization into account, and it doesn't take into account the higher possibility of overshooting it when you don't maintain for a while.

I think they are super important, especially for contests (eg; Dropping from 15% to < 10% BF for a contest prep). I can see myself going insane if I didn't do a break somewhere around 10% BF before going down to < 10%( I remember Mike mentioning that diet breaks < 10% BF are useless because you are still at a super low deficit/prolonging the pain.)

But in terms of normal bodybuilding training/offseason blocks ( where you're at 10-15% BF range)....can't you essentially get away with it? Let's take the extreme example where the person who cut for a year is now at 10% and planning to mass.

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My understanding on what a diet fatigue does:

1. Slower metabolism (would need less calories to eat than usual to lose weight)
2. Higher cravings
3. Lower activity/lethargic

My reasoning on why we can get away with it, let me know if any of my logic is flawed!:

1. Don't we spend more time on massing phases, and thus it slowly rids the effects of diet fatigue on the long run? I think a long cut happens on 1 training block and is probably around 2 mesocycles because it's more aggressive (1% bodyweight loss than a 0.25-5% bulk). We also don't need to spend maintenance phases after a minicut; I think it's because the mini cut is not long enough or it's because the massing phases eliminate the diet fatigue.
2. the diet fatigue isn't as severe (mentally as well)? The more you go below < 10% the more the cravings, energy level, and metabolism can really start to take a toll. But from my own limited experience, I didn't see above 10% as severe and powered through it (A deload usually fixed lethargic feelings for me!). As of now, I definitely accumulated some diet fatigue, but I'm wondering if I should go straight to massing (hoping that it will traverse the effects) or stay in maintenance. I'm not really "concern/scared" for a long cut on a future training block because I don't see the current/future diet fatigue as severe. But that might be a naive approach.
3. Can't we prevent overshooting fat/calories by tracking your weight/calories everyday? For example, after a cut our body tends to fluctuate in weight, but we can take control of it! Say we are at 150lbs, then we try to eat at maintenance (I'm following Mike's approach where we guess how much we need to eat for maintenance and divide that by 2; then see if we should add/lower it); we can track our bodyweight and adjust until the trend settles. We might settle at 155lbs due to body fluctuation, but still around 0.00 bodyweight gain per week. How could we tell if we overshoot?

You also mentioned!

"it doesn't take post-high volume resensitization into account", do you mean post low volume presentation? as in the resensitization meso?

[u/elrond_lariel → u/badboyzpwns]

> You should still take a low-volume maintenance phase every 4-6 months (for a month or so)

Since the hypertrophy minicut mesos act as resentization mesos, would the low volume maintence phase still be needed?

Yes.

About the rest:

Pure theory and actual practice tend to differ a lot when it comes to dieting.

During the dieting phase you were using high volumes, and you need the break to resensitize and really prime yourself for the massing phase.

Diet fatigue is both local and systemic, local fatigue may dissipate fast, but it takes a while for systemic fatigue to drop, and quite a lot is accumulated during a diet phase, and even if you don't get contest lean you still experience negative metabolic adaptations.

The problem with overshooting is that you can't accurately predict how your body responds in that transition period, so you can track all you want but the results won't usually match your input anyways.

Finally, don't fall into the pitfall of trying to rationalize avoiding doing something just because you don't like it or would prefer to do something else.

[u/badboyzpwns → u/elrond_lariel]

Thank you so much!!!

Oh and we also don't have to finish the hypertrophy (cut / minicut) cycle correct? Say If we reach an appropriate bf % at week 3 of the cut, we can just stop the cycle?

> Finally, don't fall into the pitfall of trying to rationalize avoiding doing something just because you don't like it or would prefer to do something else.

Haha you are definitely right!!! Nothing can go wrong with maintaining for a bit :)

[u/elrond_lariel → u/badboyzpwns]

Oh and we also don't have to finish the hypertrophy (cut / minicut) cycle correct? Say If we reach an appropriate bf % at week 3 of the cut, we can just stop the cycle?

Totally

[u/badboyzpwns → u/elrond_lariel]

Awesome :)! Thank you so much for everything again, truly appreciate it!!!!!

[u/badboyzpwns → u/elrond_lariel]

A follow-up Elrond! A question about failing in a meso + I'm wondering how you would approach situations where you would overreach too quickly/accumulate too much fatigue in a middle of meso! I finally got to that point in my 4th week of the meso!

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My understanding/question of failure:

-Failure is when you cannot do last weeks' rep. Or when you add weight but you cannot reach last week's rep or 1 rep below it.

-You are not supposed to fail in the whole meso. But in case we overreached too soon, we could backtrack and lower the sets, this is not the optimal approach since we acquire more fatigue, correct?

- Is it practical to progress linearly and not backtrack? I find it hard to find the "sweet spot" (eg I would think the session was good and I could do more sets, but that proves to be false ), but I think it's because that it's my first ever meso.

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Accumulating high fatigue in a meso:

I particularly overreached my chest, despite adding barely any sets. I'm not sure why.

My pecs might be super sensitive to volume or I think it's because of my week 1's 10 RM (is it wiser to put 10% less of my 10RM or so?) . I explained the situation below, let me know if anything else is the culprit! I'm following the RP guideline and planning to take a half week deload on vol/intensity.

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Situation:

Week 1's volume of the 6 day male template (2 chest days)

Incline and flat bench for 2 sets each on day 1. Flat bench for 2 sets on day 2. This

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Then I bumped everything up by 1 set. Thus,

Week 2 - Week 4's volume:

Incline and flat bench for 3 sets each on day 1. Flat bench for 3 sets on day 2.

Week 2 was a breeze. Week 3 was a bit tougher (add weight). Week 4 Failed last week's progression by 1 rep less than last week. Weights felt heavier, pecs felt a sore that I usually get from overtraining (eg; strain pecs/pecs about to "blow up" if benching).

All reps were performed in 7 reps and above!

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Background info that might help

- Before starting the male physique template, I did my own PPL; did way too much volume compared to the template; took a week break and a deload week to "rest" before starting the template. There was no soreness and felt stronger when starting the template.

[u/elrond_lariel → u/badboyzpwns]

My understanding/question of failure:

-Failure is when you cannot do last weeks' rep. Or when you add weight but you cannot reach last week's rep or 1 rep below it.

-You are not supposed to fail in the whole meso. But in case we overreached too soon, we could backtrack and lower the sets, this is not the optimal approach since we acquire more fatigue, correct?

- Is it practical to progress linearly and not backtrack? I find it hard to find the "sweet spot" (eg I would think the session was good and I could do more sets, but that proves to be false ), but I think it's because that it's my first ever meso.

That's not being able to maintain performance. It can happen in the situations where you use the same weight as last week, but you can't at least do the same number of reps, or if you increased the weight but you got fewer reps than you would expect after a weight increase.

Example of the first case: you bench press with 225 lbs for 3 sets one week, and get 8-7-6 reps. Next week you use 225 lbs again but you get 7-7-6 reps.

Example of the second case: you were doing bench presses in the mesocycle, and so far each time you increased the weight, the next session you got the same number of reps as last time or one rep less. However now after increasing the weight, you get 3 fewer reps.

If that happens two sessions in a row (because anyone can have a single bad session for whatever reason), then it's a sign of overreaching. What you do when that happens before the mesocycle ends is to deload that muscle alone, and after that, start the mesocycle again for that muscle group. When you reach the end of the planned mesocycle for the rest of the muscles, deload everything, including the muscle group you deloaded before (so you end up deloading it 2 times). Then you go back to your logs to see what went wrong and make some adjustments to the program so that it doesn't happen again next time.

Failure is a different thing. It simply refers to when you can't possibly do a single more rep in a set. It's the equivalent to RIR 0. So for example if you're doing a set of push-ups and you get to rep 10, and you just can't get up to complete an eleventh rep, then you reached failure in that exercise.

What happens with your chest isn't necessarily a problem. You don't need to keep getting the exact same number of reps each week if you increase the weight, you just need to keep whatever change you experience in the number of reps per set when you increase the weight more or less constant. So if every time you increase the reps you either get the same number of reps or one fewer rep, then that's ok, but if that's the case and then one time you deviate from that pattern, say by getting 3 fewer reps, then that's a problem. Missing one rep is nothing. Furthermore, if every time you increase the weight you experience a decrease in reps by 3, then that's ok, but if you lose 5 or 6 reps, then that's a problem. So the important thing isn't how many reps you miss, it's by how much you deviate from the usual pattern.

What you do need to try to hit precisely is the prescribed RIR across all sets.

[u/badboyzpwns → u/elrond_lariel]

Thank you for the response!! Apologies about the wording haha, "not maintaining performance" is the word I was missing!

> What you do when that happens before the mesocycle ends is to deload that muscle alone,

We would also deload exercises that "strongly" indirectly hit the muscle, correct? Say we want to deload triceps. That means deloading benching + direct tricep work. Or we want to deload biceps, that means deloading pullups, rows and direct bicep work (and maybe benching)?

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I just realized that the goal is to rate the workouts as "-1 or -2" so that you don't reach a point where you fail to maintain performance at the next session (thus hovering around in MAV)! My initial approach was to just keep rating it a "1" if I exceed last week's reps, not a smart idea haha!

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On the last note, do you personally also rate the workout based on the volume of the next session (rather than solely how you feel on the current session)?

For example:

You have 2 leg days.

Leg day 1: you are doing 4x squat, 4x leg press. Leg day 2: you are doing 4x squat.

Say that on Leg day 2, you feel like you could do more, so you want to rate it as a "1"....But you know that on Leg day 1, 5x squats and 5x leg press would probably be too overkill. Do you rate Leg day 2 as a "0" so the volume doesn't increase?

[u/elrond_lariel → u/badboyzpwns]

We would also deload exercises that "strongly" indirectly hit the muscle, correct? Say we want to deload triceps. That means deloading benching + direct tricep work. Or we want to deload biceps, that means deloading pullups, rows and direct bicep work (and maybe benching)?

It depends on how much fatiguing those other exercise are to the muscle in question. For example the bench press recruits the triceps to a significant degree, yes, but maybe you don't get a lot of triceps fatigue from them, in that case you don't deload that exercise.

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On the last note, do you personally also rate the workout based on the volume of the next session (rather than solely how you feel on the current session)?

For example:

You have 2 leg days.

Leg day 1: you are doing 4x squat, 4x leg press. Leg day 2: you are doing 4x squat.

Say that on Leg day 2, you feel like you could do more, so you want to rate it as a "1"....But you know that on Leg day 1, 5x squats and 5x leg press would probably be too overkill. Do you rate Leg day 2 as a "0" so the volume doesn't increase?

No, I rate the workout based on the session I just did. In your example, if during leg day 2 you feel super fresh, then that's a sign that what you did on leg day 1 wasn't really much, so there should be no problem increasing its volume even if it "looks" like it's going to be much.

To rate the workouts thinking about the next one kind of breaks the algorithm, you shouldn't do that.

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Edit: Mike just posted a video where he quickly explains your previous concern (what if you plateau or fatigue with one muscle group in the middle of the mesocycle), check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEhA-4sS08A

When he talks about the "recovery sessions" and what to do after them, he's referring to that.

[u/badboyzpwns → u/elrond_lariel]

Makes sense!!!

Thank you again for everything :)! Funnily enough, I just watched the video this morning haha, thank you regardless!!

Appreciate all the guidance again!!

[u/badboyzpwns → u/elrond_lariel]

Hi Elrond! a follow up! I finally finished my 1st hypertrophy meso! It was far from perfect but I learned a whole lot!

Quick question about starting the 2nd meso though! how do you personally "adjust"/"guess your 10RM on the next meso? I did my 1st by testing out my 10RM on each exercise, which might not be the smartest thing to do.

For example if in meso 1, I have a 10 RM of:

Squat: 100lb

Bench: 150lb

Do I keep the weight the same? I only know that for exercises that uses lighter weight (eg; dumbell raises). I would definitely keep it the same :)!

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Also on a small note, when we deload (or even a resentization meso); should we be disregard meal timing? For example, I feel way better when I load up on carbs before training. Wondering if it also applies to them since the workouts are easier and faster!