Losing strength

[Beefeater71]

I've gone from 210lb - 180 over 8 months. Is it normal to have lost a lot of strength on my bench & other big muscle group workouts? I eat as much, just not crap. My joints can't seem to handle the load.

 

[Sean1332]

Yup that's normal. Once you start eating enough again, it will begin to catch back up.

 

[cumminslifter]

you lost 30 pounds and expected to stay just as strong?

 

[xR1pp3Rx]

DO YOUR JOINTS HURT NOW? caps srry.
do you use any supplements that might cause your joints to hurt?
I was going to recommend some ArA and other stuff but maybe you could give us a little more info.
whats your diet look like>?? and yes when u diet its very common to loose strength.

 

[MidwestBeast]

Yep, pretty standard.

I actually kept strength pretty well for a lot of my weight loss, but oddly enough during the last 10 pounds of it or so lost a TOOOOON of strength, but only on certain lifts. It was weird. My leg press went to garbage over the course of weeks.

Point being, don't be thrown by this. It's normal. And just get to the bf% you want and then slowly build back up and the strength will come with it.

 

[veaderko]

Yes that is expected to happen when cutting weight. If your joints hurt, up your healthy fats and if they are really bad invest in some Joint Help.

 

[PuZo]

Try adding creatine if you haven't already.

 

[laneanders]

Yeah generally large caloric deficits are coupled with moderate strength loss. As they've already said when you start eating more you will see increases in strength. As Puzo suggested adding Creatine could help deflect some of that strength loss. You are in all likelihood losing some amount of muscle in conjunction with your fat and water loss. I haven't really been involved in a lot of cuts in recent years, but something that helped me a lot was making sure I used a heavy stim pre-workout during my cuts. I would still probably do this if I were cutting. I'm not even sure what is out there in the pre-workout market right now that is heavy on stims (I usually just go with Hemavol) and I'm on a low stim period right now.