How To Get A Pump On A Cut

by Juston Torres-Gibbs | Feb 15, 2023 | Bodybuilding, Exercise, Nutrition

You have to get creative. This isn’t a particularly difficult answer, but it also isn’t a simple one. There’s no “just x” or “all you’ve gotta do is y”. When your body’s drained, and both calories and carbs are on the low (particularly the latter, given how their absence depletes the body of glycogen), figuring out how to get a pump on a cut becomes an outright challenge. But not to worry, it’s not a problem without a solution, and a solution- multiple solutions, actually, are what I have for you today.

Now into the specifics: what exact steps can we take to pump up our pump game while calories are on the low?

A pump is everything for some of us. That temporary rush of blood to the muscle and everything it provides. I mean, the aesthetic fullness, the satisfying “tight” sensation, that feeling of your shirt tightening around you as if you’re about to burst out of it from all the gains you’re making. And of course, popping off the pump cover and taking a moment to appreciate the fruits of your labor at their most presentable. But when that pump becomes more and more unachievable, with sessions just leaving you further depleted and lacking that sense of satisfaction, your physique flat and fatigued, something needs to be done.

In this article, we’re going to detail some of the steps you can take when you find that the fat-loss process is beginning to push you a little bit too far into depletion. By the time we’re through here, you’ll be feeling like the G.O.A.T. back in 77. Let’s dive into the first tip:

Controlling Water & Sodium Intake to Compensate for the Calories Cut

The incorporation of sodium i.e. salt pre-workout has numerous benefits, including

• Improving “mind-muscle” connection i.e. neuromuscular efficiency
• Optimizes hydration
• Maintains fluid balance
• Outright improves strength (primarily but not solely through the first listed benefit)

All of these are desirable in and of themselves, but also leading into the focus here, which is that directly as well as indirectly through the aforementioned benefits,

Salt gives you better pumps

How? Well, aside from the indirect benefits above, sodium draws water into the cells, and said intracellular water retention, on a macroscopic scale, equates to a glorious, skin-splitting, shirt-tearing, head-turning pump.

All you need to do is mix about a pinch of table salt, or Himalayan pink salt if you wanna go the extra mile, into your pre-workout (water will do also). An ideal time frame of 30min-1h before training hits right on the mark. By the time you start moving that weight around the room, you’ll feel the blood making its way to the muscle, bringing a smile to Arnold’s face, wherever he may be.

How Simple Sugars Before and During a Workout Can Help Get A Pump

I hope you’ve got a sweet tooth because salty isn’t all that’s on the menu; gotta save room for dessert! Granted, on a cut, there isn’t much room for hyper-calorie-dense sugary goodness, but a controlled dose at the right time can be more than worth it.

Now, the specification of simple sugars is due to the fact that not any old sugar will do. We’re specifically looking for monosaccharides. Due to the nature of their simplistic molecular structure, they pass directly into the bloodstream after consumption rather than needing time to be metabolized in another organ, making them perfect for our goal. Some examples of pump-inducing, monosaccharide-packed foods include:

• Honey (often favored)
• Fresh fruits (grapes, mangos, bananas, strawberries, etc)
• Breakfast Cereals
• Most Candies (chocolate, gummies, cookies, etc)

In a pinch, there are other options that can be resorted to; ground black pepper, or milk, given that they contain trace amounts of the same sugars, or are quickly digested into the simplistic ones we’re looking for. Ideally, though, we’d favor the options on the list, in the list’s particular order.

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Prioritizing the Pump During a Portion of the Routine

There’s more to the pump than just what goes into your body. We’ve also got to take a look at what’s being put out.

These prior sections advise you on what to do to provide yourself with the fuel necessary, but now let’s talk action: how can you train in a way that brings on a proper pump when it seems to elude you?

Well, depending on your training style, anywhere from a little to a lot. Your exercise choice, rest periods, as well as overall space and intensity are going to have a make-or-break impact on the pump you yield from your session.

Are you pushing plain old sets for lower reps, just shy of failure? Or are you incorporating higher volume work? Explosive concentrics, or time-under-tension? What about drop sets and cluster sets, do they have their place? You’re in a battle right now, and you’d do well to make use of every tool in your arsenal.

Here’s an example of a typical pull day. Alongside it, a tweaked version for achieving an optimum pump:

I guarantee you that once you try both, the difference in pump will be astounding. What you put in is what you get out, so if you want to get a pump out of it, you’ve gotta put in the work.

Rebalancing the Ratio of Rest Days and Training Days

This next section focuses on inaction rather than action. If you’re deep enough into a cut that getting a pump is becoming an issue, it’s worth re-evaluating your current lifting scheme. Perhaps a little extra rest could help you get a better ROI in terms of energy put in and gains gotten out.

You see, this isn’t a period during which you’ll be building significant amounts of muscle, but rather, are fighting to preserve the muscle you have. Your body’s into a catabolic state, doing away with the unwanted fat smothering your gains. Because of this, we find ourselves in a “stimulate don’t annihilate” scenario, in which less is more, and very explicitly so.

Junk volume is something you can more easily get away with during a period of surplus. In times of nutritional scarcity, though, it borders on outright sin. Once you’ve sufficiently stimulated the muscle enough for both tissue and strength retention, you’d do best to rebalance your efforts elsewhere. You can improve your metabolic conditioning, or focus on flexibility (both of which are great in and of themselves but will also be conducive towards a better pump long term).

The main benefit achieved through this, however, is a less exhaustive depletion of your glycogen storages. What does this mean? It means that on the days that you DO lift, achieving a pump will be that much easier. And this need not come at any detriment, given that you can easily compensate for the caloric burn elsewhere. Be it in the pursuits mentioned above, or other leisure activities, from long walks to surfing. As long as you’re proportionally active, no negative changes with be made.

So re-think your weekly approach, and perhaps 4 days over 5 will suit you better in the long term, dedicating that 5th day to an active recovery; this game is about quality over quantity, after all, and that’s what this all boils down to.

Beyond the Pump: How Can You Take Your Training Further?

A lot of information has just been dumped in your lap, and if you’re at all like me, I’d wager there’s a lingering worry regarding if it will stick, if you’ll incorporate it past the first few tries, if you’ll actually take these changes on or if they’ll becoming another set of good ideas that get lost in the clutter, leaving you with that same feeling that you’re spinning your wheels. Thankfully though, we can avoid falling into that trap again right now.

Forget doing this alone, scrounging and scavenging for whatever tip and secret might give you an edge if haphazardly rammed into your routine. Take a step in the right direction by placing your trust in someone who’s dedicated their life to this, who’s made the mistakes, learned the lessons, dodged the curveballs (and gotten hit by a few as well), all of which experiences that have helped them reach a point at which they can guide others, help them avoid those same mistakes and rocket past each milestone with the help of someone who knows the way. Click here, if you’re ready to stop kicking the can and start putting in the work.

What Can I Do to Make Up for Holiday Binging?

by Juston Torres-Gibbs | Feb 6, 2023 | Bodybuilding, Exercise, Nutrition

So the holidays are upon us, Thanksgiving binging has been had and Christmas binging approaches. As we indulge and eat our hearts out with family and friends, the pang of guilt can’t be fully ignored, and the thought lingers in our minds: “How much damage am I doing right now?”, “What will I have to do to balance this out afterward?”, or, more realistically, “Can I even make up for this?”.

Well, in my opinion, that’s no way to be spending the holidays. During a time that’s supposed to be focused on joy and celebration, the last thing you need plaguing you is a persistent lingering worry that said enjoyment is just going to equate to more work after the fact; I’m here to tell you that not only can you make up for it, but you can also enjoy yourself in such a way that requires no compensating for in the first place.

So what’s the “secret”? How can I enjoy my holidays to their fullest, and know assuredly that I’ll be able to bounce right back, or not even have to in the first place?

Well, sadly, the secret to making up for the holiday binge is in fact no secret at all, but rather the same core truth you’ve most likely heard parroted before: consistency, precision, and discipline. Now, this isn’t “How to avoid binging on the holidays”, this is “What can I do to make up for holiday binging?”. We’re here to tell you how you can still very much partake in the festivities, and through these principles, enjoy the best of both rather than believing that one can only exist without the other.

Assessing the Damage

First and foremost, we need to understand what it is we’re tackling here. You’ve got to take a moment and truly, honestly (a key factor most delude themselves into overlooking) assess just how far off the deep end you went. Always best to overestimate than to leave yourself falling short.

So, let’s take a moment to think back and talley up the most important factors in order to paint as accurate a picture as possible:

• How many days were we “off-plan”? Both training and food wise respectively
• How heavy was the binge?
• Was there drinking involved? And if so, how much?

All questions that’ll give us an idea of how to tackle things moving forward.

Let’s say, for example, that we’re reflecting on a particularly rough Christmas. Drinks were had, sweets were savored, and by the end of the holidays, the turkey had nothing on how stuffed you were. By answering the questions above, we’re left with the following answers:

• The night of the 24th to the night of the 31st, making a total of 7 ½ days; we’ll round up to 8.
• Not particularly abusive, just indulging in holiday treats here and there, and an “eyeballed” approach rather than strict portion control throughout.
• Heavy drinking on the main days (⅜), with only the odd glass here and there on those in-between.

Now, with this, we have the directions with which to draw up the roadmap that’ll help you get back on track, averaging out the damage done with recovery efforts made, so that your goals are no farther than they have to be.

Formulating a “Holiday Binge” Recovery Plan

We’ve got our guidelines, we know what needs compensating for, and in this next step, we’ll lay out just how to do it.

Now, for the first factor, it’ll be pretty straightforward in the sense that we’ll want to dedicate a somewhat proportionate amount of time cleaning up as we did messing up, so in this case, given the week of complacency towards our overall regime, we’ll take a starting point of a week, before our next point, which will be evaluating the intensity of the off-days themselves.

By gauging to what degree we over or under-ate, whether we at least trained those days or not, and how much it tallies up to in the end, we’ll be able to refine our plan further still. As an example, let’s say we didn’t train, and also completely disregarded our diet during this week, i.e. worst-case scenario (assuming weight loss was our goal).

For this scenario, we’ll want to overcompensate diet-wise, knocking off perhaps 20-30% of our calories, particularly from fat and carbohydrates, in that order of priority (not ever dipping below 1g/kg of bodyweight regarding dietary fats); Training-wise, we’ll want to toss in a supplemental dose of cardio, just for about the same time as was missed, although this can easily be something like a 1h walk rather than something as daunting as the Stairmaster, the treadmill, or the likes; just upping your daily energy expenditure that little bit more.

And finally, regarding alcohol intake, there are two ways in which it’ll influence the plan: directly proportional to how much was actually drunk, you’ll want to bump up the supplemental cardio (within reason), and more importantly, significantly increase water intake, should things have been particularly wild. The chronic dehydration effects of alcohol are no joke, and I’m willing to go out on a limb and assume that you didn’t make sure to have a glass of water between each drink, so I’m also going to have to insist that you get to chugging, because your body could definitely use it.

Being Prepared For Setbacks

The holidays aren’t the only time you’re going to find yourself straying from the routine, having slip-ups here and there; margin of error is a part of quite literally every endeavor we embark on, from a year-long business projection to cooking dinner for yourself each night. Maybe a partner doesn’t follow through and you fail to meet financial quarter expectations, or maybe you forget to bring down the heat on the rice and end up burning it, everything can and will get messed up every once and a while. It’s how you handle this reality that will set you apart.

Your fitness regime is just that, a regime: a system, a planned way of doing things. Within that system, you’ve got to have contingencies. Give yourself some breathing room when it comes to training, to your daily calorie count, to your weekly sessions, not so that you can fail daily without consequence, but to avoid “failing” entirely by having said mistakes factored into the plan, and adjusting accordingly.

Here’s a table with some example scenarios and respective actions that can be taken.

Making mistakes is ok, giving up because of them is not. Give yourself contingencies, and watch yourself grow into the consistent, fine-tuned athlete your work will drive you to be.

Truly Sticking to the Plan

As trivial as this next point may seem it’s actually crucial.

Whatever contingencies you do set up for yourself, you have to follow them. If you or your coach have decided that missing a single session a week is fine, then that’s ok, but if you haven’t, then you can’t bargain with yourself as to why it should still be ok. Establishing rules, and mustering the discipline to follow them is all we have. It is the only way you’re going to become what you can be and stop being what you were.

It can often seem like an unrealistic goal, seemingly too far off or unachievable, not yours to attain, and while that’s not true, the reason it seems that way is because for many, it might as well be, for the simple fact that it is not easy. If you want to look like someone that does difficult things, you’re going to have to play the part in order to look it. There’s a quote I’m reminded of when discussing matters like these:

“Without commitment, you’ll never start, but without consistency, you’ll never finish.”          -Denzel Washington

Now, you’ve committed, you’ve taken the first big step and gotten the ball rolling, but it’s not the most difficult one. You’ve gotta keep that ball rolling if you want it to get where it needs to go, and sometimes, most times, that can be difficult, especially alone. But you don’t have to do it alone.

What to Do When It All Seems Like Too Much

Changing your physique is no easy feat in and of itself, and even less so when you’re faced with scenarios like these. The hurdles, the roadblocks, the twists and turns, they’re all obstacles that will be faced at some point or another throughout your journey, and continuously at that. There’s a reason less than 2% of the world’s population is in what’s considered “athletic shape”, meaning they both look the part and perform accordingly. And that reason is that it’s not something most people can put together alone in this day and age. But like I said, there’s no reason you have to do it alone

If you come under my coaching, you’ll take the first step toward your physical goals, with the help of someone harboring decades of experience under their belt to guide you along the way, and make sure that these obstacles you’ll face are blown past with ease. Click here, and begin a new chapter, one that’ll end with you exactly where you want to be.