This article is going to be about mini cuts and why you should or shouldn’t use them.
Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this article I need to briefly go over what a cut and a bulk is.
What Is A Cut?
A cut in fitness and nutrition terms is a fat loss phase. You cut when you want to reduce your body fat levels.
What Is A Bulk?
A bulk is usually what precedes the cut. It’s a prolonged amount of time that you spend gaining weight. Which if you’re doing everything right should be some muscle and some body fat.
When someone has been on a long bulking phase and has gained too much body fat they cut.
For someone who has got a lot of fat to lose, they could be cutting for months and even years depending on how much fat they have to lose.
So for someone who needs to lose a lot of fat a traditional cut is the best way to go. Until all the body fat they want to lose is gone.
What Is A Mini Cut And Who Should Use Them
A mini cut is a short amount of time that you spend cutting (losing body fat) anywhere up to 4 weeks in a fat loss phase Is what I class as a mini cut.
If you only want to lose 4-8 pounds of fat a mini cut can work for you. If you’re doing everything right when you’re cutting you can quite easily lose 1- 2 pounds of fat per week.
So if you cut for a 4 week period you can easily lose 4-8 pounds of body fat.
Why I Like Mini Cuts
Only having to cut for one month is much better than cutting for say 2-3 months. Because lets be honest being in a calorie deficit sucks.
A Good Way To Schedule Your Cuts And Bulks Using Mini Cuts
Here’s how you can do it:
Put yourself in a slight calorie surplus of 10% for around 4 months. This way you’ll gain around 1-2 pounds of fat per month.
At the end of that 4th month, make sure you cut for a month which should undo the fat gain. But should reveal the new muscle you’ve gained during the bulking phase.
You should gain roughly 50% muscle and 50% fat when you’re in a calorie surplus, so during those 4 months, you should gain around 4 pounds of muscle.
I know this doesn’t seem like much but it makes a big difference. And if you do it this way you’ll gain around 10 pounds of muscle per year. Without having to go on long gruelling cuts.
And if you think about it. Gaining 10 pounds of muscle in a year is actually very good.
Because overall most average men can only gain around 40 pounds of muscle in their life. And women can only gain around 20 pounds of muscle in their life.
So after a few years of bulking and using mini cuts, you should gain all of the muscle and strength available to you naturally. Providing you’re willing to keep getting stronger.
Because in the long run, the best way to gain muscle is by getting stronger (progressive overload).
An Example Of A Mini Cut
Say that someone who weighs around 170 pounds at 10% body fat wants to gain muscle.
They then go on a 4-month lean bulk. At the end of this lean bulk they’ve gained around 8 pounds. 4 pounds of fat and 4 pounds of muscle. During this period they’ve gained around 2.5% body fat.
Their new body fat is around 12.5%. So if this person wanted to get to 10% body fat again, they’d go on a 4-week mini cut to lose those 4 pounds of fat.
Their new weight after the bulk and mini cut should be 174 pounds at 10% body fat (4 pounds of muscle gained at the same body fat).
The Bottom Line On Mini Cuts
- I think mini cuts are great for gaining muscle and staying at a relatively low body fat percentage.
- You can bulk and cut with mini cuts or just use traditional bulking and cutting phases where you might start at 10% body fat and bulk up to 17.5% body fat and then go on a long cut back to 10%. It’s up to you, but personally I don’t enjoy the long cuts.
- Using mini cuts is in my opinion the best way to make lean gains.
Thanks for reading if you need any extra help send me an email at contact@henrypaget.com and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
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