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February 21, 2022

Should You Cut Volume During Dieting?

It’s common practice for gym-goers to reduce training volume when dieting. I’ve subscribed to this belief for years. After all, the concept seems to have a logical basis: Given that nutrients are involved in both energy production and recovery, a reduction in calories would seemingly make it difficult to adequately perform and recuperate from higher volume programs. Sounds on-point, right?

It did to me. Based on this rationale, I’ve always recommended cutting back on the number of sets performed during periods of a caloric deficit.

But scientific theories continually evolve and our new systematic review of literature has now caused me to reconsider my opinion on the topic. Here’s the scoop…

What We Did:

We systematically searched the literature for studies that investigated lean, healthy, drug-free resistance-trained individuals under conditions of a caloric deficit. Studies had to last at least 4 weeks with subjects consuming a relatively high-protein diet (at least 2.0 g/kg/day). The information from these studies was extracted and coded in a spreadsheet for analysis.

What We Found

A total of 15 studies met our inclusion criteria. When analyzing the data as a whole, there did not seem to be a benefit to reducing the volume of resistance exercise during periods of a caloric deficit. To some extent, the evidence indicated that reductions in volume while dieting may actually have a negative impact on maintaining lean mass, particularly in women.

My Thoughts

Based on the available objective research, our review found no compelling evidence of a benefit to decreasing resistance training volume when dieting. In fact, evidence actually seemed to show a potential detriment to the commonly-held practice for sparing lean mass, although the research in this regard remains rather equivocal. Moreover, the evidence suggests that women seem to retain more lean mass with higher volumes compared to males; possible reasons for this are unclear, although it’s conceivable that discrepancies between the sexes may be related to lighter overall loads used by women or perhaps sex-specific hormonal influences.

Some fitness pros have mistakenly used a study by Bickel et al. as evidence in support of cutting volume during periods of energy restriction. The study essentially showed that young, intermediate-experienced individuals were able to maintain muscle on approximately 1/9 of their previous training volume. An important caveat: The subjects weren’t dieting. Thus, we can’t necessarily extrapolate this data to those in a caloric deficit; in fact, our review suggests these results do not apply during periods of dieting.

With that said, by no means should this paper be taken as nail-in-coffin evidence for employing higher volumes during a caloric deficit. For one, research to date on this topic is limited to correlational evidence. Hence, the inferences are made from independent studies that do not directly compare higher versus lower volumes, which limits the ability to draw strong inferences. Moreover, the reporting of volume was inconsistent in some of the papers, and assessment techniques (e.g., DXA, BIA, ADP, skinfold, etc.) varied between studies. Thus, the conclusions should be considered somewhat preliminary. However, given that there is little evidence of a benefit to cutting volume and a potential benefit to at least maintaining volume for lean mass maintenance, at this point the strategy seems to present a good cost/benefit.

Importantly, the application of research is always specific to the individual. Hence, there are a number of potential modifying factors that need to be taken into account when making practical decisions on the topic for a given lifter. Variables such as training experience, pre-diet RT volume, magnitude of the energy deficit, level of body fat, and concurrent aerobic training all may influence results. And I’d note that when body fat levels get very low (mid-single digits), there tends to be a substantial loss of lean mass regardless of volume. Hence, many things to consider from an evidence-based standpoint on an individual level.

In summary, the available evidence challenges the commonly held opinion that lifting volume should be reduced during a caloric deficit, with some evidence favoring higher volumes in the preservation of lean mass. As mentioned, the research to date is correlational and thus should be considered somewhat preliminary. We have completed data collection on a study that directly investigates the topic in resistance-trained individuals that will further help to fill gaps in the literature; stay tuned….