If you do 5X5 on a cut you will fail miserably... and if you add HIIT on top that you will be under-recovering, stalling on everything, and even your progress will start going backwards. Total recipe for disaster.

If you want to cut, it's better you work in the 10 rep range and do a less aggressive program. Agree with your option no 3. But still don't do HIIT or you will even suffer in the 10 rep range.

This is a good program that you can do and progress on a cut:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=160947761

But still, no cardio pls.

Ok for cardio, if OP is already eating in a calorie deficit, and on top of that he does cardio/HIIT, that will be too extreme of a deficit especially while weight training.

If OP wants to do cardio, he can do it by first eating at the current maintenance, then adding in the cardio. In that case he will be in a deficit but not a extreme deficit. So it's like your deficit you factored in the cardio, rather than calculating your deficit first, then adding in the cardio. Hard to explain, it depends on how u calculate the TDEE.

I do not know what is your goal, but I know that in order to lose fat you do not need to do any cardio, just eat at deficit. So that's another reason why I said dun do cardio. If you get hungry often, eat alot of vegetables.

Conclusion, if you are smart and know how to keep a 15~20% deficit while also doing cardio, then you can do it. Make sure you calculate it right.

This post has been edited by Armesh: Sep 4 2014, 07:54 PM

Maybe the diet one's deficit until 30%~40% so basically putting themselves in extreme starvation mode. You should deficit at 20% max.

"cardio way will be more toned". No such thing.

Cardio does improves cardiovascular health.