Muscles, do you feel like you lose them during a cutting phase?

An athlete entering a cutting phase strives to get defined without losing muscle, and it is not all about diet or training.

By regulating calories and macros, they lose approximately 250 g of weight per week, and with protein intake accounting for approximately 45% of their total calories, they may not be losing muscle.

In general, that athlete loses equal amounts of muscle and fat, although when training sessions focus on major exercises supplemented with some accessory muscle exercises, things can become complicated.

What really happens to your muscles?

The question is, what can I do to stop muscle loss?

There is a common fear of losing muscle, but we seriously doubt that an average bodybuilder is losing muscle because their protein intake is more than sufficient for their size and they are only losing a conservative amount of weight, which indicates that the restriction is not excessive.

Furthermore, that athlete has maintained their strength, and unless they have less than 10% body fat, it is very unlikely that they will lose muscle if they are still training and consuming enough protein—around 2 to 2.5 g/kg of body weight (even in a calorie deficit).

The athlete may FEEL that they are losing muscle, as they may look smaller or deflated, but this is due to storing less glycogen and water inside the muscles.

Glycogen is how your body stores carbohydrates inside the muscle cavity; it is a combination of glucose (broken-down carbohydrates) and water.

If they are reducing calories (and probably carbohydrates), they will store less glycogen. Why? Because they do not have that “extra energy” to store, since they are using practically all of it.

If they store less glycogen and water, their muscles become flatter and smaller; a muscle with less glycogen/water is like a balloon with less air.

That can affect an athlete mentally, but it is not muscle loss.

To build or maintain muscle, they need a growth stimulus, protein for muscle repair, and energy to drive the building process.

If you are an athlete and are still training hard while consuming enough protein, you should at least maintain your muscle.

What happens to energy?

If an athlete is in a calorie deficit, do they not lack the energy to build muscle?

Not if they have more than 8–9% body fat. Above that level, their body has plenty of stored energy to fuel the process without the risk of running out of stored fuel.

Once they reach a low level of body fat, they may be unable to fuel the repair process, as their body may want to conserve the small energy reserve it has for basic functions such as survival.

But until you are truly lean, unless you are consuming a very small number of calories, you should not lose muscle.

Does loss of strength indicate muscle loss?

Not necessarily; it is true that many people lose some strength when dieting, but it is rarely due to muscle loss … there are other reasons …

Loss of strength is mainly due to multi-joint exercises; the bench press, overhead press, and squats are particularly affected.

This loss of “strength” does not occur in isolation or machine exercises, and it often does not affect pulling exercises.

It is typical to maintain or even increase strength in triceps extensions, machine chest presses, and dumbbell lateral raises; however, in the bench press, which requires the same muscles the strength decreases.

Clearly, this is not due to muscle loss; otherwise, isolation exercises would also decline.

The reason? A decrease in passive stability; this is when non-contractile elements stabilize a joint by increasing pressure.

For example, if a muscle swells by storing more water, glycogen, and fat, that muscle expands and “packs” the joint more tightly. This creates pressure that makes the joint more stable; even body fat can contribute to passive stabilization and water retention.

Why is that important?

Because if a joint is less stable, the body will protect itself by inhibiting force production (not allowing you to use your full strength potential to avoid injury); the more stable the body feels, the more force it will allow you to use.

That is why it is common for powerlifters to “inflate” their muscles before an event; they eat a large amount of salty, carbohydrate-rich foods and drink tons of water to increase glycogen and water retention.

This increases passive stability and allows them to lift more weight.

Pressing movements are more affected because they are more “dangerous” for the shoulder joint, which is the least stable joint in the body.