One of the most common questions I am asked is ‘How do I lose belly fat while maintaining muscle growth’.
This is a common issue amongst many weight trainers, particularly those adhering to a hypotrophy program.
An impressive upper body can consist of huge arms, boulder shoulders, a wide chest, but many people aren’t entirely content with the extra inches around their waist!
Cardio isn’t fun for weight trainers as there is always the misconception that an hour on the treadmill will put the body into a disasterous caloric deficit – destroying muscle gains and waste all of the previous hard work.
Obviously this is nonsense, I consider cardio to be an imperative part of any weight training regime.
As long as the diet consists of an adequate amount of protein, an intense gym regime and a healthy nutritional plan then dropping the fat should be easy right?
The question is what is the most effective plan to use.
Personally, I believe the least effective method of building muscle and losing weight is bulking and cutting.
Why do I consider bulk/cut programs to be the least effective method?
During the bulking phase, the body takes on surplus calories. If the gym intensity doesn’t increase considerably to consume these excess calories, they will feed the body’s fat reserves and gain the worse kind of body mass – fat!
For males, this excess body fat tends to always be significant around the midriff.
It’s defiantly not a good look to have rock hard pecs accompanied by a soft round belly.
During the cutting phase of the programme, the body is in a caloric deficit.
Throughout this short fall of calories, fat lost will occur but muscle loss will closely follow. Energy levels, concentration and the body’s metabolism slows down - Nutrition also suffers.
This can cause a damaging effect on our health as the body isn’t receiving enough calories for the continued intense gym workouts.
When the cutting phase is finished, the body will try it's hardest to hold on to its fat reserves just in case this caloric deficit happens again – This is the body’s natural survival instinct to survive starvation.
Antagonist Superset training
I have found the best way to lose weight and build muscle together with a high protein diet is to introduce some antagonist training into my gym program. This is when I perform two different exercises, back to back on opposite muscle groups followed by a short rest.
For instance, I would perform 8-10 reps of barbell bench press immediately followed by 8-10 reps of barbell rows, I rest for 45 seconds and then continue the routine for another 4 sets. After which I move on to another chest & back exercise.
My current 5-day antagonist superset cycle goes like this:
Day 1 ‘Chest – Back’
Barbell bench press / Bent over rows
Incline bench press / Seated cable rows
Flyes / Reverse flyes
Day 2 ‘Arms’
Dumbbell Curls / Overhead tricep extension
Hammer Curls / Double OH dumbbell extension or skull crushers
Cable curls / Cable push downs
Day 3 ‘Shoulders – Back’
Shoulder press / Shrugs
Front lateral Raises / Pull ups
Side lateral raises / Lateral pull downs
Day 4 ‘Legs’
Squats / Lying Leg Curls
Leg extensions / Romanian dead lift
Walking lunges / Standing Calf raises
Day 5 ‘Abdominal Exercises’
Not supersets:
Crunches - lying Leg Raise - Scissors
The benefits of Antagonist Supersets
The obvious benefit of any kind of superset workout is ‘Time’. You can literally pack in a full workout into half the time. Utilising maximum gym time allows a more intensive, calorie burning session while stimulating muscle growth.
As you are alternating between the agonist and antagonist muscles you are not over working one particular muscle group. This allows your routine to remain in a muscle stimulating hypertrophy state rather than in a muscle endurance state.
You are allowing your primary agonist muscle to gain the most beneficial type of recovery while you work its antagonist - this is called active rest.
During active rest the build-up of lactic acid is reduced and the muscle maintains its elasticity, remaining primed for the next set of reps.
Training opposite muscle groups also avoids the dreaded muscle imbalance. Nobody wants a huge chest propping up a puny back or vice-versa.
Why does the antagonist super set method work so well?
Antagonistic super sets allow a much more intense muscle building regime.
If protein intake is high, rest time between sets is sufficient and the weight lifted is the same as on a normal ‘straight sets’ day, then muscle growth and fat lost is imminent.
Give it a try!
