Body Recomposition Full Guide To Building Muscle While Losing Fat
Body Recomposition: The Complete Guide to Workouts, Diet and Supplements Body recomposition is one of the most sought-after goals in bodybuilding and fitness: building lean muscle while reducing body fat at the same time. Unlike a traditional bulk, where the primary goal is gaining weight and muscle, or a cutting phase, where the focus is losing body fat, body recomposition attempts to improve your ratio of muscle to fat without necessarily making major changes to your scale weight. The process requires the right combination of resistance training, nutrition, cardio, recovery and supplementation. This complete body recomposition guide explains how to put those pieces together. What Is Body Recomposition? Body recomposition is the process of increasing or maintaining lean muscle mass while decreasing body fat. Your body weight may stay relatively stable during recomposition because you can lose fat while gaining muscle. This is why the scale isn’t always the best way to measure progress. For example, someone could remain at 180 pounds while losing 10 pounds of body fat and gaining several pounds of lean tissue. Their body composition—and usually their appearance, measurements and strength—could change considerably even though their body weight changes very little. Body recomposition tends to be more achievable for: For advanced lifters who are already very lean and highly muscular, gaining substantial muscle while simultaneously losing significant fat is generally more difficult. Body Recomposition Workout Routine Training for body recomposition should have one primary objective: give your muscles a reason to grow while helping you maintain strength as you reduce body fat. Resistance training should be the foundation of your program. A combination of progressive resistance training and cardiovascular exercise can help you build or preserve muscle while increasing your overall energy expenditure. Weight Training for Body Recomposition Weight training provides the stimulus your body needs to maintain and build muscle. Your workout doesn’t have to be complicated. Focus on exercises that train the major muscle groups and gradually improve your performance over time. Useful exercises include: The exact exercises are less important than consistently training the muscles with sufficient effort and progressively challenging them. Progressive Overload Progressive overload means gradually increasing the training stimulus over time. That might mean: You don’t necessarily need to add weight every workout. The goal is to make measurable progress over weeks and months. High-Intensity Training 3 Times Per Week A three-day-per-week high-intensity resistance-training schedule can be an effective approach for body recomposition, particularly for people who prefer shorter workouts and need sufficient recovery between sessions. One possible schedule is: Monday — Chest, Back and Abs Wednesday — Legs Friday — Shoulders and Arms For high-intensity training, the working sets should be performed with controlled technique and significant effort. Beginners should learn proper exercise technique before regularly taking sets close to muscular failure. More training is not automatically better. Recovery is an important part of body recomposition, particularly when you’re eating fewer calories than you would during a mass-gaining phase. Cardio for Body Recomposition Cardio can increase calorie expenditure and improve cardiovascular fitness without requiring you to dramatically reduce food intake. However, cardio should complement your weight training rather than interfere with it. Steady-State Cardio for Fat Loss Steady-state cardio is particularly useful because it is relatively easy to control and recover from. Examples include: A practical starting point could be 20–40 minutes of steady-state cardio several times per week, depending on your fitness level, calorie intake and recovery. Walking is especially useful because it provides additional activity without necessarily creating the same recovery demands as frequent high-intensity cardio sessions. The goal isn’t to perform as much cardio as possible. The goal is to find an amount that helps you create the energy deficit needed for fat loss while allowing you to continue training hard and preserving muscle. Body Recomposition Diet Plan Nutrition is arguably the most important part of successful body recomposition. You need enough nutrients and protein to support muscle while controlling your overall calorie intake so that body fat can decrease. How Many Calories Should You Eat? There isn’t one calorie target that works for everyone. Your calorie needs depend on factors including: A reasonable starting point for someone trying to lose body fat while preserving muscle is often a modest calorie deficit rather than an aggressive crash diet. An excessively large deficit can make training harder and increase the risk of losing lean mass. Monitor your body weight, waist measurement, gym performance and progress photos and adjust your calorie intake based on your results. Protein for Body Recomposition Protein is extremely important during a recomposition phase. Adequate protein provides the amino acids your body needs for muscle repair and remodeling. Good protein sources include: A commonly used target for active individuals is approximately 1.6–2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. For someone weighing 180 pounds (about 82 kg), that works out to approximately 130–180 grams of protein per day. Protein intake should be distributed across the day rather than relying on one enormous meal. Carbohydrates and Fats Carbohydrates provide energy for resistance training and can be especially useful around workouts. Good carbohydrate sources include: Dietary fats are also important and can come from foods such as: Rather than eliminating carbohydrates or fats, focus on controlling total calories while consuming adequate protein and choosing mostly nutrient-dense foods. The Zig-Zag Diet for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss A zig-zag diet, sometimes called calorie cycling, involves eating different numbers of calories on different days instead of consuming exactly the same number every day. For example, you might consume somewhat more calories on resistance-training days and somewhat fewer calories on rest days. Example Training days: Rest days: The important point is that calorie cycling doesn’t override energy balance. The overall calorie intake across the week still matters. A zig-zag approach may be useful for people who prefer to eat more on training days while maintaining an appropriate weekly calorie intake. For example: Day Training Calories Monday Weights 2,300 Tuesday Cardio/rest 2,000 Wednesday Weights 2,300 Thursday