How exactly do muscles respond to a calorie deficit?

[Andre4000]

Everyone here says that to add muscle strength and mass you need to eat at a calorie surplus. However let's say you are eating at a small deficit for the goal of losing fat and looking athletic (more Christian Bale in American Psycho than Brock Lesnar).

After going to the gym and working out my (for example) chest muscles to failure, how would they respond the next week as they are sore and recovering? Do they just repair to the exact same way they were before because there is no calorie surplus? Do they increase in strength but not mass? FYI, I get decent enough protein intake, with whey/eggs/chicken being daily staples.

[Averagebeast]

Strength Gains ------------->
Fat Gain ------>

Strength Gains ->
<----- Fat loss

Strength Gains ----->
<- Fat loss


Strength Gains ------------>
<------------- Fat Loss


1,2 and 3 are possible, 4 is not. Find the calorie balance that works best for your goal.

[MDPower75]

If you are rather untrained then you can gain mass while dieting. But beyond those newbie gains it's pretty much impossible.

You can gain strength through CNS improvements, but again this is less likely to occur in intermediate and advanced trainees.

By training heavy during a calorie deficit you will be telling your body to preserve as much muscle mass as possible. However, if you overdo the volume you could actually put your body in a catabolic state as your body doesn't have the resources to repair the muscle damage. Where is the line between sufficient training and too much training? Don't know. I suspect it's different for everyone. But, I'd not encourage doing anything to failure. And I'd advise against lifting more than 4 days per week.

I like to lift very heavy with low volume and very little cardio while cutting. This allows me to eat very low calorie yet still maintain strength and muscle mass. I tried the route of eating higher calories but doing tons of cardio and four or more weight lifting sessions. It didn't work for me.