By Christian Thibaudeau
The Walk-In
Coach Christian Thibaudeau was in a half-decent mood that morning. He’d had his Drive by EWS, the barbell platforms weren’t crowded yet, and he figured he might even sneak in some heavy pulls before the place filled up with guys doing curls in the squat rack.
That good mood lasted exactly nine seconds.
Because right there, under the buzzing fluorescent lights and next to the battered GHD machine, was his young trainee. The kid was a good prospect, one of those raw-boned fellows who’d taken to squats and deadlifts like a duck to water. Thibaudeau had been proud of him. Proud enough to brag to a few other coaches. “He’s coming along,” he’d say, and he meant it. The kid had size, strength, and the kind of thick traps you only got from snatch-grip high pulls.
But this morning? This morning the kid was doing cable crossovers.
Not just cable crossovers. Cable crossovers with a drop set. When he finished one weight, he staggered to the next pin down and kept going, grimacing like he was passing a kidney stone.
Thibaudeau stopped dead. “What in God’s name are you doing?”
The kid beamed, sweaty and red-faced. “Getting shredded, Coach.”
Thibaudeau blinked.
“Yeah,” the kid went on, nodding like he’d just cracked Einstein’s theory of relativity. “I’m doing circuits, supersets, drop sets. More reps. More sets. More everything. Gotta burn calories, you know? Beach weather’s coming.” He gave a half-smile. “Gotta look good by the pool.”
That was it. The words “pool” and “beach” set off something behind Thibaudeau’s eyes.
He looked at the kid’s hands, once calloused from heavy barbell knurling, now pulling chrome handles on a pulley machine. He looked at the sweat dripping off his nose, the wheezing breath from endless reps with weights that wouldn’t impress a middle-schooler. He looked at the rows of benches and racks where real iron waited — ignored like old soldiers — while his trainee chased beach muscles on the cables.
“Foo-foo work,” Thibaudeau muttered.
The kid frowned. “What’s that?”
“Foo-foo,” Thibaudeau snapped. “All this light weight, high rep, cable-pulling nonsense. Foo-foo training. The kind of thing magazine models do when they want to look pumped for a photo shoot. Not the kind of thing a real lifter wastes his time on.”
“But Coach,” the kid protested, “I already put on muscle. Now I want to get leaner. I figured more lifting, more volume, more sets — I’ll burn more calories, right?”
Thibaudeau took a deep breath. He’d seen this before. Too many times. A young guy builds himself up with heavy iron, then gets scared he won’t look “defined” for the summer. And what do they all do? The same stupid thing: switch from barbell basics to endless light sets, chasing the burn, thinking they can out-rep their way into leanness.
It never worked.
And he was going to make damn sure this kid understood why.
The Flashback: How Muscle Was Built
Thibaudeau put a hand on the cable stack and stopped the kid mid-rep. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “How did you build all that muscle in the first place?”
The kid hesitated. “Well… with your program. Heavy stuff. Deadlifts, high pulls, squats, rows…”
“Exactly.”
“You made me do Zerchers till my arms bruised,” the kid added, rubbing his elbows at the memory.
“And you grew from it,” Thibaudeau said. “You got strong. You got thick. You started looking like a man who could bend horseshoes.”
The kid grinned faintly. “Yeah.”
“So tell me this: If heavy pulls and presses built your muscle, why in the name of common sense would you think light pulley junk will keep it?”
The kid blinked. “Well, I thought…”
“You thought wrong.”
Mistake #1: Volume on a Diet
Thibaudeau motioned for the kid to follow him to the squat rack. “Listen carefully. When you’re dieting down to get lean, your body doesn’t have the same resources. Less food, less energy, less recovery. And what do you geniuses always do? Pile on more work.” He jabbed a finger at the kid. “That doesn’t burn fat. It just drains you. You get tired, cranky, and the hungrier you are, the more likely you’ll binge out on a pizza and undo three weeks of progress.”
The kid’s shoulders sagged.
“Adding volume when cutting is like pouring water into a sinking boat,” Thibaudeau continued. “You think you’re fixing it, but you’re just drowning faster.”
Mistake #2: The Fear of Muscle Loss
The kid opened his mouth, but Thibaudeau wasn’t finished.
“You know why most guys lose muscle when they diet?” he asked.
“Because they don’t train enough?”
“Wrong. It’s because they’re terrified of losing muscle. So they add more and more lifting, thinking they’re protecting it. In reality, they’re causing more muscle damage than their bodies can recover from. And guess what? That’s when they lose muscle.”
The kid blinked. “So doing more makes you lose more?”
“Exactly. Fear makes fools of lifters. You don’t need more work. You need the right kind of work.”
The Real Way to Train While Cutting
Thibaudeau’s voice dropped into that patient-but-dangerous register that meant the lecture was coming.
“The best way to lift when you’re dieting down is the same way you lifted to build your muscle. Heavy basics. Big compound lifts. Squats, pulls, presses, rows, chins. The very things that built you up will keep you from wasting away. You think swapping those for cable flyes will fool your body? Your body isn’t stupid. It only holds on to what it thinks it still needs. And nothing says ‘I still need these muscles’ like fighting to keep your strength.”
“But won’t I lose strength anyway?” the kid asked.
“Some,” Thibaudeau admitted. “Mostly on pressing lifts. When you drop fat, glycogen, and water, your joints lose stability. The shoulder joint especially. So your body protects itself by cutting back the weights. Doesn’t mean you lost muscle. Just means you’re leaner and tighter. But you should fight to keep as much strength as possible. That’s the signal your body listens to.”
“So… heavy sets of five?”
Thibaudeau grinned. “Now you’re thinking.”
The Nutrition Talk
They walked toward the chalk bucket. Thibaudeau scooped a handful and dusted his palms, the way a preacher wets his lips before a sermon.
“Now let’s talk food. You want to cut fat? Fine. Reduce carbs and fats. But don’t you dare cut protein.”
The kid nodded.
“In fact, when you’re cutting, you need more protein than when you’re bulking.”
“More?”
“More,” Thibaudeau said. “See, when you lower carbs and fats, your body still needs fuel. It can turn protein into glucose in the liver. If you don’t give it enough protein, guess what it uses? Your muscle tissue. And you’ll look like you starved through the winter.”
“So how much protein?”
“When you’re gaining, 0.8 to 1 gram per pound is fine. But when you’re cutting, bump that to at least 1.25 grams per pound. Maybe more if you’re training hard.”
The kid frowned. “But most protein foods have fat too.”
“Which is why you switch. Less red meat, more chicken, white fish, and extra-lean beef. Game meat if you can get it. Swap a few steaks for chicken breasts and you’ll drop 60 to 90 grams of fat a day without eating less food. That keeps cravings down. You’ll be satisfied, not starving.”
The kid was scribbling notes on his phone now.
“And protein shakes,” Thibaudeau added. “Two or three a day. They’re nearly impossible to store as fat when you’re in a deficit. I like ESW’s Anabolic Protein — it’s got added leucine, which helps keep muscle from breaking down. Or their whey isolate: pure protein, no carbs, no fats.”
Cardio Done Right
The kid looked up. “Okay, but what about cardio? That’s why I started doing intervals.”
Thibaudeau rolled his eyes. “Intervals, huh? You mean gasping on the bike like you’re being chased by wolves?”
The kid chuckled sheepishly.
“Intervals burn a lot of calories, sure. But they’re also high stress. You’re basically adding another workout on top of your lifting. If your cardio base isn’t solid, you’ll just jack up your stress hormones and stall fat loss.”
“So what should I do?”
“Walk. Ten thousand steps a day minimum. Add a long walk — an hour — if you can. And sprinkle in short ones: ten, fifteen minutes after meals. Every bit counts. I even walk during my rest periods. Three minutes between sets? I’ll walk two of them on the treadmill. Adds up to 20–30 minutes of walking a session without noticing.”
The kid nodded slowly.
“When you’ve got a good base,” Thibaudeau went on, “then you can add zone 2 cardio. Twenty to thirty minutes, two or three times a week. Zone 2 means you can talk in short bursts, but not a whole conversation. That builds conditioning without wrecking recovery.”
“And intervals?”
“Only when you’re lean already, closing in on your goal, and your base is solid. Then once a week for 10–15 minutes. Not before.”
The Final Lesson
Thibaudeau leaned against the squat rack, folding his arms. “Look, the guys who actually get lean and stay lean aren’t the ones who go nuts and try to lose twenty pounds in two weeks. They’re the ones who stick with it long enough. Sustainable beats aggressive. Always.”
The kid pocketed his phone. “So… keep lifting heavy, cut carbs and fats, up protein, walk a lot, add cardio smart, and don’t panic?”
“Exactly,” Thibaudeau said. “And for God’s sake, stay away from the foo-foo work.”
The kid looked back at the cable stack. For a moment, the handles seemed to glare at him in shame. He turned back to the squat rack.
“Zerchers?” he asked.
Thibaudeau grinned. “Zerchers.”
The kid slid under the bar. The iron clanged, the rack shook, and in that moment, the pool, the beach, and the foo-foo nonsense didn’t matter. What mattered was the iron, the fight, and the lesson that had just been hammered home the only way it ever stuck: under the bar.
