Maintenance training strategy

[Jannes]

So I recently came up with a strategy which can make it easier for people who specifically just want to maintain muscle mass for people with very low training frequency like once a week.
I personally am just maintaining muscle mass for the last 2 years with very little effort and I have no ambition of growing any muscle again but I am always coming up with new ways to maintain my muscle in more simple or healthy ways. Here is a new strategy I came up with:
Sometimes it's hard not to exceed just the maintenance stimulus. For example (and I have many which I will mention in a moment) when I do stiff legged deadlifts to maintain my hamstrings it would be very awkward to train in a way that just maintenances the hamstrings as that would be like 1 set not even to failure because stiff legged deadlifts are so damn stimulative for the hamstrings. So you end up overstimulating some muscles. So even though thats not the goal it doesnt hurt right? Well stimulus correlates with more fatigue and fatigue has the downsides that 1) the rest of the training suffers, 2) that its feels hard and 3) that it takes time to recover from after the workout which can drain you. So it is not something you wish to have more off but on the other hand not implementing the very stimulating exercises feels like left out potential and awkward.
So in a low frequency maintenance program a possible implementation of this overstimulating sets could be to implement certain sets which exceed the maintenance stimulus if it makes a lot of sense with the exercise and then rotate that training with another training that is under stimulative on the muscle. So that through the rotation of too stimulating training and not enough stimulating training you get an average of just enough stimulating training. It willingly accepts a bit of muscle loss in the under stimulating trainings week as it regrows in the over stimulating trainings week.

Some examples: 
1) quads
week A: 10 mio sets of leg extensions for quads (easy money stimulus for quads which exceeds maintenance stimulus)
week B: 2 sets of deadlifts (doesnt hit the quads a ton and will loose quad muscle!)
week A: 10 min sets of leg extensions for quads again which will rebuilt the quad muscle
week B: 2 sets of deadlifts again
repeat

2) back
week A: 4 sets of pull ups (over stimulus for lats not so much traps and rhomboids -> lats grow, traps & rhomboids shrink)
week B: 4 sets of row machine (over stimulus for traps and rhomboids and just okay stimulus for lats -> lats shrink, traps & rhomboids grow)
repeat

3) glutes
week A: 1 set of walking lunges (overstimulates glutes a ton) -> grows glutes
week B: 3 sets of leg press (more for quads, not a ton of glute engagement) -> glutes shrink
repeat

What do you guys think?

Edited August 9 by Jannes

[Nilsi]

I can’t tell if this is satire, or if you’re being serious.

[Jannes]

3 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I can’t tell if this is satire, or if you’re being serious.

I am being serious. Please express your concerns. 

[Michael569]

It might potentially work although it sounds a bit unholistic. Some concerns i'd have for this sort of training: 

• why do you want to specifically be "skrinking" certain muscles if the idea is to maintain. Maintenance would ideally exclude any atrophy. If you are not going to be working on hypertrophy (gaining mass) any atrophy (losing mass) you get, you won't get back. This might become a problem once you start ageing. 
• i feel like there is a bit of overuse of certain muscle groups (e.g. knee extensions, lunges) and lack of deployment of other groups, for example there is very little to preserve upper body strength (pectoralis major and minor, triceps - lateral, medial and long head, biceps, brachii and long head, deltoit al 3 heads, rectus abdominis, the obliques, etc. - maybe a bit with deadlift once a week but without higher weights it may not be enough and you could lose strength in those areas ending with a sort of long distance cyclist type of body ) 
• there also seems to be no focus on your core strength and stability like hanging leg raises, any form of ab lifts, planks etc. 
•  for the long term you should also think about explosiveness so your fast twitch muscles don't atrophy (think about being able to stop yourself from falling when you're 65 - that's purely fast twitch)  but also a little bit of speed, peak power (helps preserve bone mass), peak cardiopulmonary performance (V02 max - significant association with longevity and some flexibility / agility - presrvation of good mobility, joint health etc. - maybe you have separate plan for those? 

I do get the idea and can understand the logic behind it. Totally fine that you don't want to appear muscular, not everybody does. But maybe there are things like rocking (wearing backpacks with weights), mountain biking, bouldering, swimming, some plyometric stuff etc you could also consider including in the long term to compensate for anything that won't get sufficient focus in the gym so that you still get sufficient deployment of all muscle groups. Gym is not the only way to train and tons of people don't enjoy it. Thankfully there are unlimited ways to be active these days. 

 

Edited August 8 by Michael569

[Jannes]

12 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

It might potentially work although it sounds a bit unholistic. Some concerns i'd have for this sort of training: 

• why do you want to specifically be "skrinking" certain muscles if the idea is to maintain. Maintenance would ideally exclude any atrophy. If you are not going to be working on hypertrophy (gaining mass) any atrophy (losing mass) you get, you won't get back. This might become a problem once you start ageing. 

No let me explain!: In the overstimulating training you grow the atrophied muscle back! So yes you might loose some muscle short term (a week) then gain it back then loose it short term again then gain it back again - instead of higher frequency where you never really get into a situation of loosing or gaining any muscle.

12 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

• i feel like there is a bit of overuse of certain muscle groups (e.g. knee extensions, lunges) and lack of deployment of other groups, for example there is very little to preserve upper body strength (pectoralis major and minor, triceps - lateral, medial and long head, biceps, brachii and long head, deltoit al 3 heads, rectus abdominis, the obliques, etc. - maybe a bit with deadlift once a week but without higher weights it may not be enough and you could lose strength in those areas ending with a sort of long distance cyclist type of body ) 
• there also seems to be no focus on your core strength and stability like hanging leg raises, any form of ab lifts, planks etc. 

I just wanted to make some examples for muscles where this training technique could be applied thats not the whole workout! For some muscle this training technique simply doesnt make any sense. Side delts for example as they are hard to overstimulate. 

 

Is it understandable now? I sometime have great difficulties sharing my ideas because I sometimes jump through thought processes without noticing. 

[Michael569]

@Jannes thanks for the clarification. Well, put it to the test and see how you get on Maybe it will work for you and if not you can fine tune along the way 

[Nilsi]

11 hours ago, Jannes said:

I am being serious. Please express your concerns. 

Not concerned, just a bit confused about why you would put so much effort and thought into maintaining your muscles when you could just as easily keep building them up.

[Rigel]

I like to go with the flow & improvise my training. I am pretty ripped even though what I care about is my health & the enjoyment of what I am doing.

[Jannes]

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Not concerned, just a bit confused about why you would put so much effort and thought into maintaining your muscles when you could just as easily keep building them up.

Through the years of training I really got into the habit of planning my workouts so it's natural for me and fun. 

This approach minimizes effort. I would train need to train a lot more and eat in a surplus to see notable gains. Not interested in that at all anymore as I can spend my time making more valueable gains elsewhere. 

[Jannes]

5 hours ago, Rigel said:

I like to go with the flow & improvise my training. I am pretty ripped even though what I care about is my health & the enjoyment of what I am doing.

Thats the most fun way to train. 

[Nilsi]

8 hours ago, Jannes said:

Through the years of training I really got into the habit of planning my workouts so it's natural for me and fun. 

This approach minimizes effort. I would train need to train a lot more and eat in a surplus to see notable gains. Not interested in that at all anymore as I can spend my time making more valueable gains elsewhere. 

I work out three times a week for about 20 minutes and consistently make gains just by tracking my workouts and slightly increasing the intensity each time.

You do you, but I’m just saying that you don’t need to eat chicken and rice all day or train for hours on end to get results. Consistency and focused effort are all it takes, and you already have that. It just seems like you might be applying it in some odd ways.

[Jannes]

15 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I work out three times a week for about 20 minutes and consistently make gains just by tracking my workouts and slightly increasing the intensity each time.

You do you, but I’m just saying that you don’t need to eat chicken and rice all day or train for hours on end to get results. Consistency and focused effort are all it takes, and you already have that. It just seems like you might be applying it in some odd ways.

I dont buy that Mike Mentzer training philosophy. It's very outdated. 

[Nilsi]

22 minutes ago, Jannes said:

I dont buy that Mike Mentzer training philosophy. It's very outdated. 

lol

It works. What' there not to buy?

[Jannes]

29 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

lol

It works. What' there not to buy?

It is based on old science which isnt supported anymore. Why would you take scientific advice from decades ago when new science is out?

If it works for you thats fine I believe you there. But it is probably not the best strategy for most people when you look at scientific evidence nowadays. 

Here if you want to get into the details:

 

[Nilsi]

2 hours ago, Jannes said:

It is based on old science which isnt supported anymore. Why would you take scientific advice from decades ago when new science is out?

If it works for you thats fine I believe you there. But it is probably not the best strategy for most people when you look at scientific evidence nowadays. 

Here if you want to get into the details:

 

It works insofar as you don’t have to invest a lot of time in the gym to build muscle.

Whether this is the most optimal method is another discussion (which we’ve had multiple times already, so I won’t even bother going into that here).