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I have had to decline nearly half of all coaching applicants in the last three and a half years
because the expectations on what they thought could be achieved, and my opinion on what
would realistically be achieved, simply could not be reconciled.
The reason for this huge disconnect is simple – the exceptional results of the drug-enhanced or
genetically elite are promoted as being normal by the industry. We are told that when results
don’t pan out to the expectations we were sold on, we just need to buy a new, more specialised
training program (and maybe some more equipment), along with, of course, the appropriate
supplement stack – because the one that we purchased before wasn’t right for our body type, or
biology, or something like that. This process spirals out of control, people eventually get frustrated
and give up, and the collective result is that we’ve all pitched in to buy Mike Chang and his friends
another Lamborghini.
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Unfortunately it seems to me that the effect of the industry’s marketing is so powerful that the
majority of people need to go down the hard road and get screwed rst, before they are willing to
listen to someone with a more realistic outlook.
The goal of this serial guide is to save you from taking that hard road. Using a similar
categorisation system that I use when working with clients I will help you identify your current
physique condition, and then give practical recommendations on the path I think you should take
(cut, bulk, slow-bulk, recomp for example) realistic expectations of what you can achieve, the
common mistakes that people make, and what you should be aware of as you progress.
This is potentially going to save you time on your journey to getting the physique that you want.
It’s going to get exceptionally detailed, and I sincerely hope that you nd it useful.
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We’re going to use the same method in this article. However, the categories will be less tightly
de ned, and we will cover a broader range of people, to include beginner trainees (skinny to
obese) as well. For each category I’ll give my advice on what direction I think you should go in, and
what you are likely to achieve. – Basically, a more generalized version of what I do for coaching
applicants.
1. Stubborn
2. Fat but muscled
3. Muscled, few pounds to lose.
4. Skinny
5. Shredded (Clear, de ned abs.)
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De nitions of these will come at the start of each section, some of which will be subjective, as an
‘ideal physique’ will differ from person to person.
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Stress and poor sleeping habits have the potential to mess everything up regardless of what
you do. The negative impacts scale with severity.
There is no point in setting expectations about what can happen for the exceptionally genetically
gifted, or the genetically screwed, cause the chances are that this isn’t you. And, even if you are
one of the unfortunate ones, there’s honestly nothing you can do about it except to work that
patience/ diligence muscle harder. (Though I am sure there is a supplement out there claiming to
help you override your genetics of course.) Some people will have a harder time losing fat than
others, some people nd it harder to gain muscle than others. You need to get on with creating
the best you instead of worrying about everybody else out there.
One important thing to point out though – mindset has a very powerful effect on the body
(https://ripwww.strongerbyscience.com/unleash-your-inner-superhero/). If you believe that you
can’t grow quickly, or get very strong, chances are that you won’t. So believe in yourself and train
with the mindset that you are one of the lucky ones, as that will take you further.
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I’ll be talking about average rates of progress, for the person that follows the advice on this site ‘to
a T’ instead of tweaking things. I’m not going to talk about the best possible outcomes I have
seen, nor what can be achieved if unsustainable strategies are used.
Identify Where You Are Now – Get On The Right Track – Then Go Crush It
Acknowledging your current physical condition is the only way to set up realistic expectations and
build towards your long-term goals. Be honest with yourself when reading below. Everyone
reading this, no matter what their body shape or size, is seeking improvement. Aside from this
rst classi cation (stubborn), I don’t see any particular category as negative and neither should
you. On the contrary, correctly identifying where you are now and setting your plans accordingly is
going to save you time in reaching your end goals.
Some people are going to be a mix of a couple of different categories, just do your best to read
between the lines. I’ll explain the categories in roughly the order that I consider least to most
complicated.
Category 1. Stubborn
‘Stubborn’ isn’t a reference to body-fat type, but to mental attitude. These people are unhappy
with their lack of progress, but refuse to change their diet or training method(s) because they are
stuck in some form of dogma. Until their frustration overwhelms their stubbornness these people
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can’t be helped.
A subcategory of these folks are those that hold (fairly) rmly onto the belief that one style of
dieting or training is suitable for all goals at all times. Three examples:
• The person that insists on low-carbing, at all times, despite their struggles in a lean-mass
gaining phase.
• The guy that insists on keeping 5 cross t WODs in their weekly training plan while
attempting to diet. This is ostensibly in an attempt to keep up their metabolic conditioning
because… that’s what their favourite MMA ghter – with their entire team of experts around
them and their job on the line – manages to do. You don’t want to do this. This completely
knackers your recovery capacity when it’s in short supply, ramping up physiological stress, and
it’s going to set you up for failure or injury. (There’s a great article called ‘Muscle Math’ covering
this principle by Greg Nuckols here (https://strengtheory.com/muscle-math/).)
• People that are bulking and have started to push the boundaries of what they can physically,
comfortably eat, despite moving to more calorie dense food choices that t their macros, but
remain adamant that they must eat within an 8 hour window instead of extending it. (These
tend to be high NEAT responders, aka. ‘hard-gainers’.)
This subcategory of folks are sometimes saveable with a little nudge in the right direction. But as
the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Sometimes people just
need to fail multiple times before changing their ways. That can be an essential part of the
learning process, and trying to push people into something will just fray your friendships.
If you think you might be in this stubborn category, if what you’re doing isn’t working, open your
mind to changing it. Don’t try and force a “one size ts all” on yourself. Be sensible. Dieting isn’t
easy and neither is gaining muscle. At the minimum, stack the deck in your favour.
Strategy: Cut
These guys are among the easiest and most satisfying clients to work with. The hard work is done,
as they already have a muscular base, it’s just a case of helping them to reveal it. Often it’s these
guys that have never been shredded before and never believed they could be, and making this a
reality for them is a great feeling. 12 weeks is rarely enough to get them down to shreds, but they
often come back to me a few months after our work together with an e-mail and huge grin in the
photos saying thank you.
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If this is you, then shoot for the fat loss recommendations below based on your body fat
percentage. I typically recommend 1-1.25lbs a week of fat loss, as higher than that tends to push
the boundaries of what is sustainable in terms of adherence. Ideally I want you to feel almost like
you’re not dieting for the longest time possible.
If you haven’t been dieting up until this start point, then there are likely to be some initial water
and muscle glycogen losses due to the decreased carb intake. That will send your weight
tumbling quickly in the rst 7-10 days, which would have messed with your head, but now you’re
prepared for it. You’re going to need to look for the average rate of weight loss over the weeks
following the rst week. Basically, throw out that rst week of data.
Given that you’re an experienced trainee you are unlikely to make any signi cant muscle gains
during the cut, so you can gauge progress by scale weight. I’d recommend that you still take body
measurements because there may be some weeks where you don’t get changes in weight, but
the stomach measurements change. A curious phenomenon but common. Some weeks you’ll
lose more weight than others then, but it’s that 1-1.25lbs per week that you should shoot for.
You’ll need to reduce your training volume as your recovery capacity will be hampered due to
being in a calorie de cit. Mentally that might be tough, as you’re clearly keen on training, and
there still persists the bro-myth that when cutting you should increase training volume and
intensity, but 3 days a week will suf ce. Focus on the main compound movements and work to
maintain your strength. Accessory exercises can and should be restricted more heavily than the
compound exercises. This will be enough to preserve muscle mass.
In the case of some very experienced strength trainees, there will likely be a loss of strength in
their top sets. This is due to the mechanical disadvantage of being leaner (which these guys likely
know about anyway), and though it depends on limb-torso length ratios, a decrease of up to 10%
is not unusual for the larger guys. This is not to be confused with muscle loss.
You’ll need to buy yourself a new wardrobe, so be prepared for that expense.
Client Examples
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Note that John started off at a much higher level of body fat than Peter and Theis above, hence
the longer time frame. Technically he was obese, but he had a good amount of muscle mass so I
put him in this section.
Strategy: Cut
These guys have many similarities to the ‘fat, but muscled’, category two folks. Though due to
being leaner they often take it to shreds (or very close) in our 12-week time frame. Some of these
people are as lean as they have ever been and simply haven’t been able to take it further, others
have been shredded before but want to do it in an easier and more sustainable fashion.
Technically there is nothing more dif cult here than with those carrying more fat, though there
are certain things to be aware of. For those that are struggling to get leaner, rst I offer you two
questions:
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1. Are you counting your calories and macros, or have you gotten to where you are now without
doing so? – It may be time to start, so that you remove the guesswork from things. This will be
a pain in the arse for about three weeks, but after that you’ll nd it a lot easier. (Refer to my
guide, “How To Count Macros (https://rippedbody.com/how-to-count-macros/)“.)
2. Have you had any diet breaks? If not then you should consider one. See here for my diet break
guidelines (https://rippedbody.com/diet-break/). You’ll often nd afterwards you will feel
refreshed mentally, any food cravings you’ve been having are gone, and metabolically it’s
bene cial for setting you up to shoot for this next level of leanness. Just note that you’ll have a
large rise in body weight when you start the diet break due to the increase in carb intake (and
saltier foods in likelihood) and thus water balance and glycogen stores. There is no need to
panic. It will come off rapidly again when you resume the diet.
I generally recommend 0.75-1.25lbs a week as a targeted fat loss rate for these folks, the lower end
of the range as they get leaner.
Body measurements become increasingly important as you get leaner, as the mirror will mess
with your head. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, with the cyclical nature of the diet
you’ll likely see yourself looking leaner on some days than others which can send some folks into a
panic if they are not prepared for it. Secondly, as you start to get to 10% and under the fat will often
come from places that you can’t easily see, like the lower back and thighs. Assuming you’ve been
using my recommended 9 points of measurement (https://rippedbody.com/diet-progress-
tracking/), you’ll notice that you start to see more changes on the lower stomach measurements
than at the navel and above.
Diet breaks should be more frequent the leaner you get, every 6-8 weeks or so.
Assuming you aren’t stressed at home or work, and are sleeping well, fat loss should be fairly
linear down to shreds. The dif culty is simply in tracking it, so I highly recommend taking your
weight as an average of each day for the week, as well as using the tape measure. Patience and
consistency is all that is required.
As with the ‘fat, but muscled’ category, you will likely need to reduce training volume. Again, three
days a week should be plenty for muscle mass retention.
Client Examples
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12 Weeks
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Competitors
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For Phil (second from bottom) note how slowly it is necessary to cut at this point of leanness in
order to maintain muscle mass. The changes were subtle, but these are the differences in levels
of conditioning that judges look for. The bigger story (https://rippedbody.com/switching-from-six-
meals-phils-story/) here was his switching from 6 meals a day, training 6 days a week to 3 days
training, two meals.
***
There was a long time in my life when I was stuck spinning my wheels – I wasn’t making any
progress and I just couldn’t see it. Or maybe I just couldn’t admit it. It took very honest comments
wake me up so that reality. Waking up to reality and knowing had to get yourself out of that
situation a two very different things though. In the next part, I’ll explain exactly how I got myself
out of the skinny trap and you can too.
(https://rippedbody.com/goal-setting-2/)In Part 2:
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Read Part 2 →
(https://rippedbody.com/goal-setting-2/)
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121 Comments
1. Carlos Vanegas says:
June 12, 2018 at 01:53 (https://rippedbody.com/goal-setting-1/comment-page-1/#comment-
63815)
Hi Andy,
I’ve been lifting weights for 2 years, I’m 39 yo, 5’11” and just completed a cut that took me from 180 lbs 20%
to 155 lbs 15%. I may have gone a little too aggressive on the diet and based on the weight loss rate of the
last 3 weeks (2.2 lbs/week) I think I was loosing muscle mass and decided to move to maintenance (diet
break) for 2 weeks. I want to move into the “Slow Bulk & Cut” cycling program, and that led me to this
article. Based on this article I think I fall on the “Cat 3. Muscled, a few pounds to lose”. So I’m convinced
that I need to keep cutting before moving to the bulking phase. My question is, what should be my %BF
goal before moving to the Slow Bulk phase of the cycle? My overall objective is to achieve “Scott’s
physique” within 12 months and then maintain it.
Reply
You want to aim stay within the 10-20% body fat range when cutting and bulking. Any lost muscle mass
should be regained quickly, so I’d do a short bulk and then cut once you get back to 20%. This time get
lean enough to get your abs out and don’t rush things!
Reply
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You have a choice of two paths moving forwards: Cut then bulk or bulk then cut. My advice would be
to bulk, but personal preference playsd a role. The most important thing right now is that you make a
decision and stick to it.
Reply
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Reply
Would you change any aspect based on age? I’m 54 and the chart for calipers indicates that I have a
higher body fat at the same measure for someone younger. I’m currently at an estimated 14%. I
understand that I need to cut to have a better ratio when building. At my age, should I push through to
12% or lower?
Thanks!
Doug
Reply
If you’d like to read more about the genetic aspect, fantastic article by Greg Nuckols here:
• Genetics and Strength Training: Just How Different Are We? (https://strengtheory.com/genetics-
and-strength-training-just-different/)
Reply
4. David says:
February 14, 2016 at 07:56 (https://rippedbody.com/goal-setting-1/comment-page-
1/#comment-43422)
Hey Andy,
Love the guides, been eating it up. Trying to get as much info as I can. I’ve been on a 2k cal/day cut for a
while now, and haven’t been seeing progress. All your calculators and others have suggested that perhaps
I should be eating a bit more on average per day (2300 or so). Can you talk to the science behind how
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Reply
Reply
5. Jaci says:
October 29, 2015 at 03:42 (https://rippedbody.com/goal-setting-1/comment-page-1/#comment-
42334)
Hey Andy,
First of all thank you for your work and the free guide i really love it, I did dowonload your excel calculation
and i was impressed. I found a small mistake which can lead long term to a bad result, maybe you can x
it, it wont take long. You did the calculation for the carbs Protein and fat with 4,4,9 in reall it is 4.1 4.1 and
9.3 in my case it leads me to 100 Calories more per day in a month thats close to 500 Gramm fat more. For
people with a biger Calorie intake it can lead to 200-250 Calories more a day.
Reply
Reply
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