Gym progress when losing weight?

When i google stories about beginner gym progression there are many great results to be seen and every single time you are told to eat like a horse. When you are losing weight, you can't eat like a horse to optimize muscle gains. There aren't many stories about gym results when losing weight.

During 11 months i lost 20kg / 44lbs of fat and gained 2kg / 4.4lbs of muscle while doing strength training, measured by InBody machine. It is not alot of muscle but what can you really expect on calorie deficit. After 18 months ive lost 29kg.

Gym results are during 1.5 year progress (168cm 88kg atm)

Bench 5x35kg -> 5x72.5kg / 11x62,5kg

Squat 5x30kg -> 1x90kg / 6x75kg

Deadlift 5x60kg -> 10x120kg / 5x130kg

OHP 5x20kg -> 3x 47.5kg

I got most of my results during first 6 to 9 months, like benching up to 5x70kg. Then i stalled, and stalled badly. I started learning new movements like DB bench press, incline bench press, row variations, squat variatons and by not doing main lifts every week they dropped completely down. When i started benching every week few months later i noticed i can only do about 5x60kg. At same time i was losing weight of course.

Now i build up to the 70kg bench range again, that took half a year. It feels like it shouldn't take that long but it did. Then hard stall, adding weight to bar 2.5 kg per week resulted in stall. My reps started to regress, my sets were 3x6-8 adding weight when i could do 8 reps. I was only getting 3 to 4 reps at this point, even if i got 5-6 last week.

When i could earlier do 1x5 130kg deadlift, after i started doing 3x6-8 my weights dropped below 100kg. It felt like sh!t but i figured more volume would build more foundation. Later i think it was just a mistake and even overtraining when not eating enough to build muscle.

Then i took on wendler's 5/3/1 and my resultes exploded. I think this is due to more rest, less worksets. If i could earlier do 10x110kg on deadlift, now i could instantly do 120kg with same reps. Squat shooted from 70kg to 90kg on singles. Benching has started to rise again after stalling.

I really feel like doing less worksets is key to success when weight lifting on calorie deficit but im sure i have still alot to learn

submitted by /u/hairy-beaver
[link] [comments]