Muay Thai and Soccer with bodyweight training

[Thomas Hill]

Hi,

Was looking for some help

I train in Muay Thai 2 times a week, do bodyweight training 4/5 times a week and play soccer competitively a few times a week. Sometimes the training is very intense, other times I either can’t push myself any harder and my performance isn’t great, or the training’s a lot lighter (depending on whether my Muay Thai or football coach makes us work harder).

The bodyweight training isn’t intense, it’s light and mimics the patterns of movement in Soccer and Muay Thai and never to failure. I used to lift weights probably 2-3 times a week but it affected my performance so I don’t anymore

I’ve bought carb backloading but I don’t think it suits my schedule. I’m looking to trim down a bit of body fat, and know I need carbs to perform, but I can’t balance losing body fat with performance (I’m probably around 15% most the time)

Could carb backloading work? The book says never use it for cardio because of different hormonal responses but because I do lots of cardio, what could i do instead? Any help would be much appreciated, and if I need to give more detail, please feel free to ask

Thanks,
Tom

[Robert Haas]

Too many goals to achieve at once IMO.
Doing both cutting BF since you are already fairly lean and shooting for best athletic performance at the same time will be setting yourself up for failure at both.
Eat for performance now while you need it.
Try CBL in the off season with appropriate modes of training to cut BF%

The eyes can't see what the mind doesn't understand.

[Thomas Hill]

Really? You don’t think it’d be possible to lose body fat whilst still performing well?

[Makoto Tomizawa]

Performance may not suffer initially as you try to lean out. However, eventually it’s going to hit you like a train, gradually or suddenly. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to lean out and perform better, as the things you do require quite a bit of conditioning, and if conditioning gets better, then perhaps. But it’s very difficult, and you’d really need to nail down your nutrition, training, stress management, etc. all others being equal (and we all know that’s not usually the case). Professional athletes and/or fighters can manage it because they also work with professional trainers. So I’m not going to say that you can’t focus on achieving both. Just know that chances of doing them successfully are rather slim.

On the note of backloading or not, you have to understand that the protocol manipulates nutrient timing based on activity, hormonal status, individual status, etc. Your activity is very glycolytic, and the timing probably doesn’t matter as much as whether you’re eating for your needs. Just know that if you train during the day, trying to do all those in a low-carb state is probably going to suck.

I also do martial arts (karate), but I also weight train and I would time my martial arts training to the day after a backload, so that I’ll have that energy I need. So like I said, in regards to energy for training, you can backload, frontload, middleload, whateverthehellload as long as you’re eating well. It just won’t provide the same results as if you use carb backloading for resistance/weight training/performance purposes.

Training Log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vuwHRdBaPVILxxLhXly_N1Ys66Hcwk4j-bM7nvKSLrI/edit?usp=sharing

[Robert Haas]

Agree with MT. Note we are making generalizations on what might likely happen based on our own experiences and what we have learned through others. If you are a genetically gifted athlete, then sure anything is possible.

The eyes can't see what the mind doesn't understand.

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