Hello Christian,
If I just want go into “maintainence mode” for a few weeks, or even a couple months, what would you suggest?
My main goal would be to keep strength levels steady and not lose much – if any – lean mass.
Could I go from 4 days down to 2 days a week with the same program or just do my standard program every other week or simply cut my workout times in half?
I realize this is a wide open question that depends a lot on the individual, I’m just looking for general thoughts. (I’ve been training over 15 years.)
Thanks!
It’s possible to maintain strength with one whole-body workout per week. However, two is better.
When training with such a low frequency I suggest working the whole body both times, this way each muscle will still be trained twice in the week and you’ll have ample time to recover.
Obviously you should use money exercises like:
deadlift, squats, bench press, push press, power clean and power snatch (if you are able to do them only), barbell rowing, chins.
Generally use 4 basic exercise per session plus 1-2 assistance exercises of your choice.
For the general exercises, considering your goal, a wave loading approach might be best:
1x7 1x5 1x3 1x7 1x5 1x3
For the assistance exercises 3x10 will be enough.
Whole body workouts? Man, I can barely get half a body workout in in 1.25 hours. Do you cut back the number of sets or just go with a longer workout?
I can see just going with the money exercises and forgetting about assistance work in order to squeeze a whole body into one w/o.
Also, how many weeks can an athlete go untrained before strength begins to wane and muscles atrophy?
Whole body workouts are not that hard when you get used to it! If you are used to bodybuilding-type workouts where you perform 3-5 sets of 3 exercises per muscle group I can see why whole-body workouts would seem monstrous to you!
A simple whole body workout can be as simple as:
- Squat
- Bench press
- Deadlift
- Barbell rowing
If you perform 5 sets of each with 2-3 minutes of rest you’ll be done in less than an hour and will have worked all the muscles in your body. Maybe not directly, but a lot of big and strong men have been built with a simply routine just like this!
Generally strength beging to decrease significantly after 2 weeks of detraining.
Muscle mass can be maintained a bit longer. Sometimes it doesn’t seems to be this way because you may feel flat and weak, this is often due to a lessened myogenic tone (tonus) or less intramuscular water/glycogen being stored.
Christian,
Thanks for the insightful replies. I feel confident I could now construct a maintainence program should the need arise!