Hey @Scott_Herman, Thanks for this long, and as always, helpfull reply.
So I am not alone at feeling thinner during cutting lol. Fortunately there is muscle memory!
My knee is feeling better. I guess I will give it like 2 weeks more in order to reduce pain and recover. But now there is another problem. Like I mentioned in my last post, my lower back got injured.
I did deadlifts like 2 weeks ago. I am really convinced that my form is proper. Trainers told me that it is fine. I have never really had problems with my lower back that much. Only like 2-3 day pain and then it has been gone again. Besides that, on this specific day I was hella cocky (dumb me) because there were a bunch of ppl who I wanted to impress by my heavy deadlifts. I usually do the 4 rep and 3 rep set from PushPullLegs with 115kg and 120kg. This day I went way heavier on all sets. So my last 2 sets were likee 125kg. I tried to use the weight belt which I usually don't do cause it is offered by the gym and everyone is sweating into it and I don't like the the way it fits lol. I felt so uncomfortable during the heavy set with the belt. I definitely knew that this set has been reallllllly bad. I decided to take off the belt do my last set.
With the next day my lower back was like: What the heck did you do to me?! Since I had this pain (rarely) in the past for like 2-3 days as I've already mentioned I wasn't aware of how disgusting it'll get. 1 week later after trying to spare my lower back I decided to deadlift (also the romanian/stiff) again with like 100kg. *facepalm*
No I am afraid to do lower body movements and I dunno when to start doing them again.
I saw a video today which contained some stretching/relaxing movements on the ground for the lower back. Guess Imma do these 2-3 times a day now.
Do you have any other advice? (I really have to do warm-ups!!!!!!)
Since these injuries hinder me to do Cheat and Recover properly, would you suggest to delay it at the end of this year? Can I do a maintenance during December? (I don't want to continue cutting coz all these Christmas specialities in Germany are damn tasty and giving me that kind of the Christmas feeling haha) That does not mean that I will eat "dirty" This just means eat something tasty on weekends hehe. How should I manipulate my macros for a maintenance? Maybe like 250g of carbs? 250g Proteine? rest fat?
Another question: Are you at the Fibo in Cologne this year? I really would like to meet you in Person and give my rolemodel a high five!
I wish you a good start into the new week Scott!
Best regards,
Hannes :)