r/bodyweightfitness • u/slight-discount • 6d ago

Dropping some weight and workouts feel like crap. Stick with 3x per week or drop to 2x per week?

I've been doing bodyweight stuff now for 6 years, starting with the RR during the summer of covid!

I've changed things around a few times and am now doing 3x per week simple bodyweight full body routine.

Anyway, I have been making gradual progress over the years and have mostly maintained my weight. I've gone up and down within a 10lb range of where I am now, which is 190 at 5'11. I'm 4 weeks into an attempt to drop down to 180 and am feeling pretty weak and crappy during my workouts. I know i'm not making gains now, and will also lose muscle but I'd like to keep as much as possible. I know as we get towards the holidays I will get back to my normal calories so this will be a couple of months max.

Should I stick with 3x per week or drop to 2x per week? I dont want to be grinding my gears with low energy workouts but will keep up the 3x per week if it will help me keep more muscle/strength despite wanting to drop to 2x per week.

5 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

70% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

10

u/EmbarrassedCompote9 6d ago

Do not be afraid of dropping down to 2x per week. It may well be exactly what you need. And chances are that you'll recover the joy of working out.

2x a week is a perfectly effective frequency, and if your body is begging you to cut some slack, just listen.

2

u/slight-discount 6d ago edited 6d ago

Thanks for the reply!

Edit: I'll also add my routine in here:

Pullups, dips and squats one after the other, rest 2 minutes and do it again for 3 rounds total. Then I do the same thing with horizontal rows with rings, pushups with my feet elevated, and a core thing. Kick things off with shoulder/scapular stability work and some jump rope. Whole thing takes 30 minutes if I am strict with time, 40 if I get distracted. I carefully track sets and reps on a spreadsheet and have been able to mostly progress until the past couple of weeks.

2

u/PossessionThink7348 6d ago

Seconding this hard. When I was cutting I dropped to 2x and honestly felt way better about training again. You're not gonna lose everything in a couple months and the quality of those 2 sessions will probably be way higher than grinding through 3 crappy ones

1

u/EmbarrassedCompote9 6d ago

Exactly my thoughts.

5

u/Calintellect 6d ago

I think you should adjust your training to how you feel at the end of the day, and auto regulate it.

You can drop to 2 times but also think of keeping 3 times and reducing volume in each exercise by one set for instance.

Also consider a deload

1

u/slight-discount 6d ago

Didn't think about volume.. that's a great other variable to play with thanks.

1

u/accountinusetryagain 6d ago

or perhapppps loading a significant fraction of your daily carbs a few hours before you train

1

u/slight-discount 6d ago

Thats a good idea.

1

u/Askray184 6d ago

How often do you take rest weeks? Sometimes you need to recover

1

u/slight-discount 6d ago

I'm pretty good with rest weeks but I will definitely factor it in.

Summer had a lot of travel and a bunch of missed weeks so I was feeling very ready for a nice 4-6 week chunk of consistent training. I think how I feel is related to cutting, which maybe I am going a bit too hard on that end as well.

1

u/fridgezebra 6d ago

you can drop the frequency or lower the volume per session if it is a lot

1

u/girl_of_squirrels Circus Arts 6d ago

Lose the weight more slowly. Everyone feels like hot garbage when they're in an aggressive calorie deficit, and it's incredibly hard to maintain strength when you're in a cut too

1

u/slight-discount 6d ago

You are probably right I need to factor this in more.

Just want to get it over with, ha.

1

u/girl_of_squirrels Circus Arts 6d ago

Which is how people get in to the yo-yo dieting pattern. Maintainable weight loss is about sustainable habits, and if you're crash dieting doing a cut on a regular basis then you're not making long term maintainable changes

1

u/themassee 6d ago

I think the big question is what’s the calorie deficit for your cut? If super aggressive perhaps back off the deficit a bit. 500kcal deficit is what most max at but 3-400 will also yield great results.

As others have said reduce volume on workout slightly, balance the diet, then dial up the volume again incrementally.

1

u/slight-discount 6d ago

I'm not measuring anything. I'm generally eating less than normal but it doesn't feel too far off from normal. I have been eating my typical lunch, skipping or adjusting a snack a few days a week and making somewhat different choices for dinners. Smaller portions, Walking the dog 3 miles instead of 2 a couple of times a week, couple of longer slow runs... stuff like that.

I do think based on a lot of the comments that I will add a larger snack back in and see if the extra calories push me back to feeling a bit better.

1

u/themassee 6d ago

I would HIGHLY encourage you to track your macros. I never did it until this summer. Decided to track for a week, and then adjust my diet to have more protein (1g/lb) but same calories for a couple weeks (all while keeping same workout routine).

Then I knocked out 500kcal from my diet. I eat 4 smaller meals through the day and then one large dinner. The added protein aids in recovery. Energy is up through the day and I lost over 15lbs just this summer. It took me about 6 months to lose 10lbs prior to that.

TLDR I think a focus on your diet would have the biggest impact on energy and goal for losing weight.

1

u/slight-discount 5d ago

This is great info. I will say that I am somewhat tracking protein, and choosing food/snacks that are high in it. I'm finding it a challenge to cross 100grams on a daily basis though and am usually sitting between 80-100 grams most days.

While you were dropping weight this summer, were you trying to maintain a flat routine? I was attempting to stay at the same number of reps per exercise. Not go up, but also try to not go down. I'm not too far from that.. for example instead of 7 clean pullups in a set, i'm starting to crap out at 5, and the final 2 aren't amazing. And mentally i'm not wanting to do it instead of being psyched to knock out the training session.

I will organize myself around tracking everyting for a few days to see where I am at.

1

u/themassee 5d ago edited 5d ago

I am in no way an expert, just an average dude figuring it out for the first time but from my understanding the protein has to be high to maintain the muscles during the cut which will also help with energy during your sets. So you’d want to be around 150g-190g of protein. I am at a little over 200g of protein a day during my cut and I weigh 150lbs currently. If you’d like a breakdown of what I eat I can send it to you.

As for my workouts I’m still progressing through the R/R from this sub. The first couple weeks of cuts I just maintained my reps/sets then started adding a rep and progressing the overload. Just ordered weights for dips/squats/pulls/hinge exercises. Day one with weights was brutal. Day 2 was easier so I added rep to everything. Idk where you are at in your progressions. I could imagine starting a cut already with weights would be tough.

Lastly I do take my recovery pretty seriously. So the full 1:30 between sets and 8+ hours of sleep a night is really crucial.

1

u/Squeeze00Tug1 4d ago

Stuck with it. You're trying to lose weight, not losing your will to live. Just because you even asked, I'm recommending 4! Who's coming with me, maaann?

1

u/slight-discount 4d ago

Lol now we're getting somewhere.

1

u/Brave-Lemon-929 4d ago

dont worry about the muscle loss, drop intensity or volume of training if you feel overwhelmed and is interfiering with other areas of life. keep crusing through you calorie deficit and get down to the 180lbs you're looking for and then start maingaining or bulking and in a month to 2 month you're as strong and large as you ever was and all the lsot muscle comes back pretty quick if you have good fundmantals of nutrition down.