I have a question I wasn’t sure exactly where to place it but I felt here is a good one. My question is what maintenance or a maintenance load is? May I liken it to week 4 of Wendler’s 531 deload? Reason I ask is because I like the majority of people on this site have an emotional attachment to weightlifting in its various forms and don’t like taking extended time off because it can do more harm than good.
I've never taken a maintenance period, having done strength and olympic weightlifting training for about 3 years it seems somewhat foreign to me. I would like to get back to bodybuilding but, as a result of my preformentioned training; my muscles have lost their trainability and no longer respond to the stimuli I have placed on them. Even when changing programs or volume or increased my macronutrients.
I want to restore trainability to them by taking a few weeks to "deload" and allow the muscles to become responsive again.
There is no such thing as maintaining status quo. At the end of each day you are either in better or worse shape than you started. That does not mean that backing off a bit during your transition is a bad idea.
Maintain = Stagnation… Bench/Squat/Dead the same weight week after week, never strive or eat to improve. Sounds like a blast.
The only reason I can think of to “maintain” is to deemphasize training certain aspects of training in order to emphasize other ones. ie - Maintain strength but try to increase endurance/explosiveness/speed/power/etc…
[quote]deadlift1992 wrote:
I want to restore trainability to them by taking a few weeks to “deload” and allow the muscles to become responsive again.[/quote]
“Maintaining” implies that your muscles would stay at the same level of "trainability " which wouldn’t solve your problem. Have you actually moved to over to a bodybuilding focus or are you just considering it?
No you dont get what I’m getting at, I’m trying to restore my muscles trainability but without losing what I’ve gained… I believe christan thibaudeau talked about this instead of taking time off to restore trainability…
" . The way to restore trainability is to â??detrainâ?? the non-responsive muscle. You can do this either by stopping training (in which case youâ??ll lose size and strength) or by dramatically reducing training stress for that muscle group (in which case you can maintain size and strength)"-- christian thibaudeau
[quote]deadlift1992 wrote:
No you dont get what I’m getting at, I’m trying to restore my muscles trainability but without losing what I’ve gained… I believe christan thibaudeau talked about this instead of taking time off to restore trainability…[/quote]
I understood you. If you’re maintaining a level that makes it difficult to progress, you aren’t restoring trainability. You have to experience some kind of drop in performance to get the effect you’re looking for. And that isn’t ‘maintaining’…
The simplest solution would be to move to a bodybuilding focus, since that’s what you’re considering and see if that will give you the fresh stimulus you want.
Ah ok I get you… I was thinking along the lines of for me maintaining was drastically reducing the stimulation of the muscles to a point to allow them to recover but not so much that I lose what I’ve worked for
Jfg I already have, I tried something like that but it didn’t work for me, I’ve tried different methods over a period of time and none brought about a restoration effect that I’m looking for, they brought me further into the hole so to speak, I haven’t tried reducing my stimulation yet though.
[quote]deadlift1992 wrote:
Jfg I already have, I tried something like that but it didn’t work for me, I’ve tried different methods over a period of time and none brought about a restoration effect that I’m looking for, they brought me further into the hole so to speak, I haven’t tried reducing my stimulation yet though.[/quote]
Then, read it again.
The “programs” didn’t fail you, you failed to be consistent. This is not an overnighter. It takes time and patience.
You are not the first “athlete” in this world, in any sport, to have changed his outlook and go thru a transition phase.
Lance Armstrong ran the New York marathon and said it to be the hardest thing he has done. Coming from the guy who won 7 Tour de France, that’s should alleviate your doubts.
Be patient, consistent and know that it will be worse before it gets better. If it was easier, every athlete would compete at the pro level in at least 5 sports.
That doesn’t mean that I’m happy with where I am, it means that I’ve been dealt with a heavier than usual workload and some life issues.
“Maintain” to me means “maintain at any cost because shit just got real”, not because I’m content (which is never).
That means I’ve done everything in my power to eat not to lose strength and to keep my lifts where they are if not improve. That means getting to the gym even though I’m on airplanes a couple/few times a week. That means if I can only get to the gym 3x (as opposed to my normal 6-7), then I’m leaving EVERYTHING at the gym when I’m done.
Past few weeks have levelled out a little bit and I’m not worse for the wear. Seems I’ve lost a couple reps off some stuff, but other things stayed the same or crept up slightly (let’s chalk that up to ‘forced recovery’).
hmmm no doubt that your views on it are badass haha umm my thing is this, ive always been under"stress" my entire life, having been “born” twice once I started to come out then put me back in then being born later at 25weeks early at 1 lb 7oz a preme growing up was tough because of having to deal with the emotional,mental and other problems from my birth aside of the fact ive had like 4 surgeries in the last like 3 years as well as the fact I have a minor surgery this summer for my jaw. Ive alwasys been underweight, when i started training i started at 118lbs and now up to 170… being in college doesnt help any especially since i cant deal with stressors like a normal teen my age because of how my brain is wired from being born so early… fast forwards to today, right now… i’m considering taking 2 weeks off just cuz i’ve never done it and because of my not exactly and ego but because of growing up so fragile i want to do everything in my power to keep that from happening ever again, sooo i believe that either through taking a couple weeks off and or reducing my trainig stimulation to allow myself to ever progress again it’s necessary idk just spitballing now…