hyperthetical question

faz

Active Member
if you had reached a stage where you are happy with your size (not that i have) how would you maintain that size.....would you carry on training 3 times a week and what weight would you use,
would it be the weight you last did on your 5s because that was your max weight.....or would it be what you used on your 10s..just curios
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That's is a good question. I can't wait to see a reply.

Now that ponders the question to me......will i ever reach that point? I doubt it :D
 
I would continue to use HST, but keep my caloric consumption at maintainance. Obviously you are not going to gain any weight doing that, and keeping with HST youre probably not going to lose much either.
 
Most of us are struggling to grow, and you're talking about maintaining :)

the thought alone :p

(sorry for this useless reply)
 
I seem to remember an old post by Bryan stating that you could probably maintain by only doing one set a week and keeping calories at maintenance.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (b0xm0ns73r @ July 29 2005,1:05)]Also, would you SD?  If you did, wouldn't you possibly grow a lil more once you started back.
Just a thought
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Interesting thought, but I would say probably no. Well, maybe some. Realistically, there isnt much growing that can be done on true maintainance, except if your body somehow becomes much better at nutrient partitioning or something. Then you would more be replacing BF with LBM, which I cannot believe would be undesired...

If you really wanted absolutly no more LBM, I might just shorten the SD phase to maybe 7 days(?) I am talking out of my behind now so I'd better stop.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (baby a @ July 29 2005,2:20)]I seem to remember an old post by Bryan stating that you could probably maintain by only doing one set a week and keeping calories at maintenance.
Really? Huh, thats cool. I would think the severe reduction in frequency would cause some losses, but I dunno.
 
I remember seeing the same post that baby a is referring to. However, my take is this - once you are to the size you want to be at, why not just use strength specific training and continue to eat at maintenance so you can try to get your strength to the very maximum it can be at the size you are at? That's what I would do if I ever managed to be satisfied with my size.
 
Since HST espouses the importance of progressive load in hypertrophy training, I would imagine that simply keeping your maxes at the same level for each cycle would maintain muscle mass yet prevent noticeable hypertrophy. If you have already reached a level of muscle mass you are happy with, it can be assumed that you have passed the "beginner stage" of training, so your gains may slow down naturally anyway. At this point, if you never increase your max load, you will basically be "disobeying" the progressive load principle, so you should not grow in a noticeable way.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Scooper182 @ July 30 2005,12:24)]Since HST espouses the importance of progressive load in hypertrophy training, I would imagine that simply keeping your maxes at the same level for each cycle would maintain muscle mass yet prevent noticeable hypertrophy.  If you have already reached a level of muscle mass you are happy with, it can be assumed that you have passed the "beginner stage" of training, so your gains may slow down naturally anyway.  At this point, if you never increase your max load, you will basically be "disobeying" the progressive load principle, so you should not grow in a noticeable way.
yes but do you carry on with your max for 5s or your max for 10s...
 
you don't need to use HST. just lift in the 6-8RM range once a week or so. Maintaining is shockingly more easy than progressing.
 
Maintaining muscle mass it quite a bit easier than building it in the first place.

As mentioned by others, you can get away with 1/week training sessions if they are heavy (4-8 reps/3-4 sets). You could also train at a higher rep range (10-12 reps) twice per week and accomplish the same thing.

Keep in mind there are no well done studies to demonstrate this, I'm speaking from 28 years experience. There are some animal studies demonstrating that a greatly reduced stimulus maintains hypertrophy once it occurs.
 
After I reached my desired size, I'd aim for increasing my strength output as much as possible. No reason to maintain. If I'm going to be lifting weights, I want to be moving forward in doing so. Just lifting to maintain would bore me.

Of course, if someone else was happy with their size, and strength, I suppose you could train 1-2x a week with a moderate amount of volume, keeping the weight steady to maintain mass.

Then again, by that point you could always start training for explosiveness and athletic ability...
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