Training Log - Coach Joel 01/01/2024 - Programming a cut

Training Log: Joel Rasmussen 2024 January through April.

Time for a cut,

2023 was an average year for training for me, my wife and I had a few stresses hit us and I fell into a bit of a rut when it came to eating well and training consistently.

It wasn’t a complete loss though; I added a couple of inches to my upper body particularly my shoulders and I learnt a lot about hypertrophy programming (and had a lot of fun doing it!)

The downside to last year is that with bigger shoulders it becomes a lot easier to hide a bigger belly and for men visceral fat can be a silent killer. My body fat sneaked up to 19% and my blood pressure has been creeping up into some mild hypertension (likely also caused by stress).

Hypertension is also a silent killer and can predispose you to stroke, heart disease, kidney disease and a host of over issues.

Losing bodyfat has shown to lower inflammation, blood pressure, heart rate and it makes your existing muscle look a lot more awesome. That’s the goal this year.

The plan:

Starting January 8th I’m going to do a 3 month cut. I have not personally done a 3-month cut before but have coached others through the process.

The goal is to drop to 10% body fat, within 3-5 months – hoping for closer to 3 months as I hate being calorie restricted.

My diet will consist primarily of meat and fruit – placing higher carbohydrate fruit around my workouts to support intensity while training. Intensity is important as I want to preserve as much muscle mass as possible while slowly losing body fat.

Training will consist of a high intensity set followed by backoff sets of 8-12 training 4x a week with 3-6 movements per session.

Cardio will consist of morning fasted cardio likely on the Rogue Echo Bike. I’ll take turns of doing Zone 2 work and Tabata style high intensity interval training.

To support my training, I’ll use the sauna 3-4x a week after training. Sauna has been shown to be muscle sparing and to help with muscle soreness which can be higher when on a calorie deficit. Some have said it can help with weight loss, but I am skeptical on the data.
I’ll also be using the ice bath in the mornings after fasted cardio, there’s not as much science out on ice baths yet but they feel great and allow me to reduce my caffeine intake through the day.

I’ll check in once a month and reflect on lessons learnt in this process.