Muscle-Retaining Factor #3: Progressive Resistance

The final point from the journal’s research emphasized the importance of weight training for retaining lean body mass:
“Progressive resistance training can modify the proportion of weight lost from body fat versus lean tissue.”
For anyone involved in the bodybuilding or strength training community, I don’t have to lecture about the importance of weight training. In fact, I think it should go without saying that if you’re not weight training, all bets are off.
You certainly aren’t going to GAIN any significant amount of muscle without weight training and the risk of losing muscle increases without it. With very low calorie diets, the risk goes up even greater. With very low calorie, low protein diets, the risk of muscle loss skyrockets without weight training.
Yet outside the bodybuilding community, in the mainstream weight loss community, it’s still like pulling teeth to convince people that they need weight training for a fat loss program. “If you can’t lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, then why should I bother weight lifting?” they ask.
Well, first of all that’s a mistaken conclusion. As my program the Holy Grail Body Transformation system teaches, it’s entirely possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. But even if you didn’t want to gain muscle, you need the weight training to keep the muscle you have.
“But shouldn’t I just lose the fat first, then worry about building muscle later?” is the usual follow up question. My answer is, “If you are overweight, yes you should focus single-mindedly on losing the fat first… and weight training helps you do that.”
“Won’t I get bulky?”
“I don’t want to look like Arnold in Pumping Iron.”
And on and on the question go. And on and on my answers go: Weight training is crucial to your success. It’s a signal to your body to keep the muscle during weight loss. It’s what develops the physique of an athlete rather than the dreaded skinny fat look. It increased bone density. It makes you stronger. The list of benefits is endless.
Again, none of this is news to those of us in the strength and bodybuilding world, but the unfortunate fact is, even the grizzled veterans in bodybuilding still screw up the weight training during cutting phases.
What goes on their heads, I will never figure out, but there is this overwhelming urge that people have to change everything in their weight training program for the sake of losing fat: switching to circuit training… less weight and higher reps… nothing but giant sets… exclusive use of density training with less weight…. Cranking up the sets and exercise volume to burn more calories… switching to isolation exercises like leg extensions and dropping heavy squats…
It’s crazy!
To the contrary of all these mistakes, during a cutting phase you should observe the following guidelines
1.
Train heavy. By all means incorporate some high reps, supersets or density work, but do NOT stop the heavy straight sets. The poundages the put the muscle there will keep the muscle there.
2.
Continue to emphasize compound exercises: keep squatting, rowing, deadlifting, and pressing. The exercises that put the muscle there are the exercises that will keep the muscle there.
3.
Maintain, or even reduce your volume, rather than increase it. During a fat burning diet, your body is depleted and struggling to recover completely from one workout to the next. Adding exercises and sets while also increasing intensity at the same time as you are reducing calories often tips you over the edge into overtraining, putting you into a catabolic state. If anything, reduce your volume just slightly as you get leaner and leaner, but maintain the intensity and weight load.

Never Lose Muscle:
Top 3 Strategies Summary
Talk to anyone who has experience in this field and they are going to be forced to agree that these are the definitive top 3 strategies for maintaining your muscle:
1.
Use a conservative calorie deficit
1a. adjust the deficit according to your starting body fat level
2.
Ensure an optimal protein intake
2a. err on the side of more protein when body fat and energy intake are low
3.
Use heavy progressive resistance weight training even when the primary goal is fat loss
Be sure to also keep in mind the differences between the lean and overweight individual. And remember that the leaner you get and the steeper your calorie deficit, the more important the protein intake and weight training become.
Want to Learn More?
I hope you found this report helpful. You now have the top strategies to lose 100% pure fat and keep 100% of the muscle. These should form the core of any good fat loss program. They are the core strategies of my original Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle system for fat loss and my new Holy grail body transformation system – the program designed to help you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, gain solid muscle with out fat or lose fat without losing muscle.
This however, only scratches the surface of everything you’ll find in my complete body transformation system. For example, here’s a partial list of some of the other Holy Grail Strategies for 100% pure fat loss:
Muscle-Retaining Factor #4: Nutrient Timing
Muscle-Retaining Factor #5: Cyclical dieting and Nutritional Periodization
Muscle-Retaining Factor #6: Hormonal Optimization
Muscle-Retaining Factor #7: Lifestyle factors
Muscle-Retaining Factor #8: Cardio Optimization
You’re going to improve your results in a huge way simply by making sure you apply the first 3 strategies. But if you want to skyrocket your results to the maximum possible in the time you have – and if you even want to lose fat while GAINING muscle at the same time, then please visit my site to learn more:
www.HolyGrailBodyTransformation.com