Strength loss with mass loss...

[iviicrociot]

So I'm not super human. 96 lbs later, and I'm feeling my strength start to give in some lifts a little at a time. It's nice to know that I'm still able to bench more than my weight, able to do pull ups and dips without assitance... but how much strength can you expect to lose? Was nice seeing the numbers progress every week with the weight falling off, and I look better and better in the mirror so it's worth it, but you hate to give up an inch of strength. I'm hoping to push on through another 40lbs and re-assess afterwards, but should I expect to see diminishes in strength at a more rapid pace?

[godetroit]

Three things I've found to help minimize/maintain strength:

1. Keep the calorie deficit minimal (around 500)
2. Keep the protein intake high (1g per pound lbm - 1g per pound bw)
3. Maintain lifting intensity but reduce the volume on any heavy compound exercise. For example as I said in another thread do 2-3 sets of 5 for bench instead of 5 sets of 5 and try to keep the same weight.

[stingray72]

For me strength loss starts to kick in at 10 weeks to 12 weeks and gets worse as i go up to 16 weeks. All while losing at a 500 calorie deficit so break the diet phase up for a couple weeks when you see strength losses accelerating and then resume the cut.

[ReyJay]

Add creatine to your diet if not already.

[firemon232]

I have cut for 7 weeks and there is no significant strength loss. Try to maintain 500calories deficit and do strength training ( 1-5 reps ) for your main exercise. Hit your macro every damn day! You definitely will be fine.

[Monceef]

Add creatine to your diet if not already. and make exercises daily

[iviicrociot]

I'm on like week 40 of a cut not 12 weeks (been cutting since 4/05/12) and have gone from 305lbs to 209. I've lifted as heavy as I could up until about 4 weeks ago when I got my first injury (left wrist), so I've had to go from doing a lot of dumbell arm lifts to machines that take the pressure off my wrist, and just started back on barbell curls with fat grips last night (can't preacher curl yet). I've pretty much had to cut out hammer curls, preacher curls, incline curls, tricep isolations, incline flies, lateral raises etc. and "compensating" with doing curls on the cable machine to atleast get a pump, lateral raises on a machine that puts the weight on my outer arm, tricep push machine, body weight dips, skullcrushers, etc.

Here's to hoping the wrist resolves itself sooner than later, about 50% atm... good news is the squats are still increasing.