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The original was posted on /r/weightroom by /u/Howitzer92 on 2024-03-18 00:13:14.

So, having been lifting for over five years at this point I’ve noticed that there is very little mention of off-season or cutting protocols when it comes to lifting. The only specific and concrete advice I’ve seen on matter has been a few RP videos where they talk about needing to break up cuts with maintenance weeks and reduce fatigue.

But other than that, there aren’t really any programs designed for this kind of thing. You usually have to search a forum like this to find some old post about a program that might work during a cut, but there’s little other information about what cutting entails, like how terrible a 500 calorie cut actually makes you feel, or how you really need to manage fatigue by reducing the number of days you train, reducing accessory volume or removing taxing exercises from programs.

Not understanding any of this made the first few years of cuts miserable.

At the core of the matter: concept of “big picture” year-round periodization is also largely missing. The first time this dawned on me was a year-or-so ago watching a Bromley video where he described Arnold’s Olympia prep and how Arnold broke the year down into 4 separate training phases. Arnold only did his crazy 5 hour two-times-a-day split during the Olympia prep, after the Olympia he spent time recovering. Which means the crazy workouts you see in Pumping Iron were only a narrow and (IMO) misleading glimpse into his entire training program.

In my realm: Almost all intermediate powerlifting programs use some kind of explicit block periodization, but none of them actually go into detail about how you would sequence the program with other programs throughout the span of a year. In bodybuilding, there often isn’t much discussed outside of the weekly split. In any other sport this would seem like a critical aspect of planning your training, but in weight training, it’s rarely even discussed. “Bulk in the winter, cut in the summer” is about as close as we get, but there is rarely any explanation of the difference in how you should train in either scenario or how the structure should differ.

I understand why. This isn’t the sexy part of training. It’s not what sells programs and definitely isn’t a something well suited to a 7 minute Youtube video. It’s not some “weird little trick” or anything like that and it’s only going to apply to those dedicated enough to lifting to require a year-round protocol.

But TLDR: How do you plan your year round programming? What do you do when you need to cut weight? Have you devised a routine or methodology specifically for this?