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Weightlifting - Maintenance Program

2,177 Views | 23 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by Hoosegow
CC09LawAg
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I am expecting a baby this year and am trying to plan ahead for my workout schedule (or lack thereof). I've made a lot of strength gains in the last year that I do not want to lose. Weight loss/gain I'm less worried about, as I know I can control that with or without free time.

Are there any good programs out there that contemplate a 2 day split? I will be coming off doing Stronglifts and Madcow.

I am thinking of doing 2 full day workouts a week, with splits like this:

Workout A
Squat - 2x8, 1x5+
Bench - 2x8, 1x5+
Row - 2x8, 1x5+
Lateral Raise - 3x8
Romanian DL - 3x8
Zercher Carry

Workout B
Split Squat - 3x12
DB Bench - 3x8
Deadlift - 1x8, 1x5, 1x3
Pull Ups - 3x12
OH Press - 2x8, 1x5+
Weighted Dips - 3x8

I want to keep it under an hour if possible, while still keeping some stuff in 5 rep range so I can keep an eye on my strength levels relative to what I was doing before.

Any ideas/suggestions? All help is appreciated!
Hoosegow
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You are focusing on compound movements - good. I see nothing wrong with what you have. However, make sure you change it up about every 6 weeks. add bands or chains, change your exercises up (Kroc rows, deadlift, front squats, etc), change you set/reps.
CC09LawAg
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Thanks Hoose. If it has your approval then I feel good about it.

And good point on switching it up. I want to use this time to explore different techniques like low bar vs high bar squats, perfecting deadlift form, focusing on weak areas, etc.

I'm going to try to do plyometric work where I can but that's going to be on a fit it in schedule and weights will be priority.
10andBOUNCE
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AG
I'd be interested to see where you end up landing.

I'm also on a 2 day split with similar goals. I have found it to be challenging to keep workouts less than 90 minutes but that may be more on me and how much I rest and exercises I try to jam in.

One move to consider are Bulgarian SS. I find those easy to superset with an upper body DB exercise.

Another favorite are Facepulls if you have access to cables.
Dr. Not Yet Dr. Ag
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Hoosegow said:

You are focusing on compound movements - good. I see nothing wrong with what you have. However, make sure you change it up about every 6 weeks. add bands or chains, change your exercises up (Kroc rows, deadlift, front squats, etc), change you set/reps.

Curious what the reasoning is for switching up exercises? It makes sense for powerlifters that are looking to build accessory muscles for lifts, but I guess I don't really get it for those looking to just maintain musculature or for health and/or aesthetics.

In my mind focusing on progressive overload, stick to compound lifts outside of specific muscle groups you are looking to improve on, and typically stick to the same workouts so that you can easily track progress (which also helps with progressive overload), at least for the average individual who isn't a powerlifter, is preferable to getting overly complicated with workout routines by adding in new workouts routinely. Nevertheless, you have way more experience in this department, so I'm interested to learn.
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CC09LawAg
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I work out at home and I really want to add cables to my set up - I'm currently on a rogue rack/power cage setup. They have some options but they're obviously pricey. I see some cheaper stuff (less than $100), but I always wonder if I'm gonna get what I pay for, not like it, and then never use it. Face pulls are definitely one of the exercises that are tempting me to give it a try.
10andBOUNCE
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AG
Some alternatives for doing the facepull at home if you've never tried them.

Hoosegow
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Your body becomes very efficient at doing the same thing over and over again. Changing the stimulus will increase your response to the exercise. You can keep doing the same thing or you can change things up and with the exact same amount of effort you will get increase results.
RaeBooth
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I also believe that changing a training routine from time to time will give a better results. Even if it'll be only two days split, don't try to put everything in those two days. Here are some additional hints you can check out for your routine. BTW, congrats about baby!
Capitol Ag
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AG
CC09LawAg said:

I am expecting a baby this year and am trying to plan ahead for my workout schedule (or lack thereof). I've made a lot of strength gains in the last year that I do not want to lose. Weight loss/gain I'm less worried about, as I know I can control that with or without free time.

Are there any good programs out there that contemplate a 2 day split? I will be coming off doing Stronglifts and Madcow.

I am thinking of doing 2 full day workouts a week, with splits like this:

Workout A
Squat - 2x8, 1x5+
Bench - 2x8, 1x5+
Row - 2x8, 1x5+
Lateral Raise - 3x8
Romanian DL - 3x8
Zercher Carry

Workout B
Split Squat - 3x12
DB Bench - 3x8
Deadlift - 1x8, 1x5, 1x3
Pull Ups - 3x12
OH Press - 2x8, 1x5+
Weighted Dips - 3x8

I want to keep it under an hour if possible, while still keeping some stuff in 5 rep range so I can keep an eye on my strength levels relative to what I was doing before.

Any ideas/suggestions? All help is appreciated!

Wow, this goes with the bumped thread. Congratulations!!! Here is the deal, you will lose strength with a 2-day split over time. But, as a parent, fear not. You do not need to drop your sessions. Stay with 3-4 if you feel comfortable and just feel you absolutely need to limit training. But I think you'll find that in the end, you really do not miss many if any days, outside of a transition week or 2 (the week the little one is born and moves back home). I was really nervous at first when our first was on the way and I honestly didn't miss a beat in the gym nor spending time with her.

Again, as I said in the other thread, it's awesome to see dads want to give more time. But I'd look to cut that time from other, less important tasks. You love training and you need training. especially now. For so many reasons. Kids are hard. They take so much of you. You need this personal time for you more than ever. Do not give it up. And imo given I am a dad, you won't have to.
Capitol Ag
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AG
Hoosegow said:

Your body becomes very efficient at doing the same thing over and over again. Changing the stimulus will increase your response to the exercise. You can keep doing the same thing or you can change things up and with the exact same amount of effort you will get increase results.
Depends. I adhere to the idea that you only change the exercise when you notice it becoming stale. Especially in hypertrophy. That could be 6 weeks and that could be 6 months (more likely 6 months) Mike Israetel has some great videos on this. But the point is, one actually doesn't need to change up exercises too much, and for some it might even be bad as they limit the gains that they could have continued to get if they had continued that exercise. It should be on a case-by-case basis. Wait until the exercise actually gets stale, then change.

And if you are strength training, staying with the basic squat, deadlift, bench and overhead for a while is likely the best plan. It is important to do this to get REALLY good at these movements for strength focused training. And I would say that for beginners and most intermediates, they are not advanced enough to change things too often. Sure, add accessories as you advance, but slowly. Fatigue management is important, and the energy needs to be used on getting stronger in these lifts. Practice makes perfect. You only get better actually doing that lift, if reaching new PRs in the lift matter to you. For body building/hypertrophy, the basics still apply. Buy obviously more variation is allowed. More isolation movements etc. And here, the idea, to me, of stopping an exercise that currently you are getting incredible stimulus to fatigue ratios in is a bad idea. The exercise is giving you amazing pumps, great stimulus and your mind muscle connection is fantastic? Keep going. You do not need to stop.
CC09LawAg
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Thanks, I appreciate it!

Honestly, my main concern for my splits is the lack of sleep and performance on my lifting. I've been doing 5x5 type workouts long enough to know that if I don't get good sleep, I am totally worthless. I feel like if I try to keep that up on 3 day splits that my workouts are just going to be all over the place energy wise and my schedule a lot tighter.

My hope is with a 2 day split that I can do it on the days that I got good sleep/feel strong so that I don't have to worry about failure.
Capitol Ag
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AG
Lack of sleep was my biggest concern as well. As it turned out, my wife really didn't need me for breast feeding and we got lucky as our kiddos were great sleepers. Well, when they were babies. Now they seem to sneak into our room every night and that's a whole other mess. They are 7 and 11. Ya, needs to stop but really doesn't wake me up, so whatever...But I started buying and using pre-workouts. B/c I anticipated a bad situation. Never needed it. Of course, once I started using it, I was like, "where have you been my whole life, liquid amphetamine???"

As for when you are tired, I have forgotten what % we would use to figure out the deload for that day when we were tired. My lifting buddy and I did SS then once we got to the intermediate stages, switched to another program. But that is what we would do. So like if 305 was the weight today and I failed the lift and felt tired already, I used the calculation and lowered things. I do have to say I loved to 3-4 day splits vs the 5-6 day hypertrophy splits. I love to train, but it was nice to have 3-4 extra nights with nothing to do, lol! Someone in the back yells, "what about cardioi???" On a strength phase?:

With your 2-day splits, you can probably train to your heart's content without worrying about fatigue management as much. Granted, I feel like fatigue is more of an issue for me with high volume hypertrophy, but it did creep up with my strength phases. I remember we decided to do the Texas Method and ignore the advice of Rip that one needs to be under 30. Were 36 and 47 (me at the time) respectfully and, ya, that eventually did destroy us. I thought he might last longer as he was younger but, nope. Lots of volume for a strength phase. Fun while it lasted though!
CC09LawAg
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Hah, yes, forgot to mention I am 36, so that plays a factor as well...I'm not quite the spring chicken anymore when it comes to recovery!
Hoosegow
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Just a thought, Law, switch to strongman workouts. With my run up to benching 633 and squatting 803 (lifetime goals), I had gotten VERY heavy. I cut weight and weighed in a 330 at that meet. I should walk around at about 275. From 2015 to 2017, my goal was to get to 275 and maintain as much strength as I could. I got there about the middle of 2017 by dieting of course, and starting to do strongman workouts in addition to my powerlifting workouts. I did lose a lot of strength, but I was probably stupid close to my genetic maximum potential when I was competing. In 2017, I started training again to compete. Then the day after I did a two board press at 705, my doctor retired me.

My point is the strongman workouts will help maintain the strength and you will get a fair amount of cardio. Kind of a 2 for one thing. I had 2 more surgeries in 2021 on my right arm. All I did was drag the sled for the 6 months of recovery. After I was finally cleared, I had no more desire to get under the bar, but did pick back the strongman stuff - husafell stone carries, sled work, yoke bar, farmers, carry, tractor pulls, etc. So after a year and a half of no direct upper body stuff, I got back under some dumbbells. This was 4 weeks ago. I couldn't do 70% of where I was at before I got injured. Yesterday, I did around 83% and feel confident that I will be back to where I was in a couple of months.

So in a nutshell, working out strongman helped me maintain a lot of the strength I had over the year and half I was trying to lose weight (though my weight lifting workouts maintained a powerlifting variant of Westside method). It also pretty much maintained by upper body strength for a year and a half post surgery of doing NO direct upper body work. Plus add in the cardio and I swear my functional strength is way better now that when I was competing... I think you have a strong candidate to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

Like I said, just a thought.
Capitol Ag
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AG
Hoosegow said:

Just a thought, Law, switch to strongman workouts. With my run up to benching 633 and squatting 803 (lifetime goals), I had gotten VERY heavy. I cut weight and weighed in a 330 at that meet. I should walk around at about 275. From 2015 to 2017, my goal was to get to 275 and maintain as much strength as I could. I got there about the middle of 2017 by dieting of course, and starting to do strongman workouts in addition to my powerlifting workouts. I did lose a lot of strength, but I was probably stupid close to my genetic maximum potential when I was competing. In 2017, I started training again to compete. Then the day after I did a two board press at 705, my doctor retired me.

My point is the strongman workouts will help maintain the strength and you will get a fair amount of cardio. Kind of a 2 for one thing. I had 2 more surgeries in 2021 on my right arm. All I did was drag the sled for the 6 months of recovery. After I was finally cleared, I had no more desire to get under the bar, but did pick back the strongman stuff - husafell stone carries, sled work, yoke bar, farmers, carry, tractor pulls, etc. So after a year and a half of no direct upper body stuff, I got back under some dumbbells. This was 4 weeks ago. I couldn't do 70% of where I was at before I got injured. Yesterday, I did around 83% and feel confident that I will be back to where I was in a couple of months.

So in a nutshell, working out strongman helped me maintain a lot of the strength I had over the year and half I was trying to lose weight (though my weight lifting workouts maintained a powerlifting variant of Westside method). It also pretty much maintained by upper body strength for a year and a half post surgery of doing NO direct upper body work. Plus add in the cardio and I swear my functional strength is way better now that when I was competing... I think you have a strong candidate to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

Like I said, just a thought.
Josh, the buddy I did strength with, switched to strongman when I went back to chasing pumps and seems to like it.
CC09LawAg
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I am 100% interested in this. My liftings goals are to hit 2 plate on bench (done, aiming for 275 now), 3 on squats, and 4 on deadlifts. Just a nice easy personal milestone.

I love the idea of the strongman type workouts, I've purchased a sandbag, have a small sled, and want to build out that portion of my garage gym...

Any advice on where to look for programming?
Hoosegow
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Don't overthink it. Strongman is nothing but moving heavy awkward stuff and lifting heavy awkward stuff over your head. My typical week is a variation of:
1 day Exergenie pulls ending with increasing resistance tractor pulls. I tie a battle rope to my bumper to simulate this. https://www.exergenie.com/

1 day - push pull medley, combine some sort of sled drags, sled pushes, sled rope pulls, sled side pulls, hussafell stone carries, sandbag carries, zercher carries, farmers walk, keg carry (though I haven't done this as this is what destroyed my arm in May 21 so I'm a little warry), t bar carry, yoke bar carry.. Will do 5 sets of 3, 3 sets of five, switch from heavy and slowish is lighter non - stop, Tons of variety here. I try to do a total of 15 exercises at about 30 yards and back.

1 day - more of a cardio. Implement carry suicides. So pick 3 implements. Carry one 10 yards, bring it back, grab another, carry it 20 yards and back, then a third to 30 yards and back. Do that 6 times rotating the distances and the implements.

CC09LawAg
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Thanks, makes sense. Mainly trying to think of an inexpensive way to progressive overload these types of exercises; with the sled I can go up in small increments, but with sandbags I'd like to avoid having to buy a whole set of them. I do like the idea of getting some farmer's carry bars and a yoke for loading weights.

My wife will be thrilled with my new hobby!
bam02
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AG
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AG
Tactical Barbell is the best recommendation I've received from this forum. It matches my lifestyle and access perfectly. The author has a 2-day strength protocol named Fighter that is excellent for max strength maintenance. I highly recommend reading the first two books. (Strength Training and Conditioning).

For me, strength maintenance looks like this:
Twice per week, not on back-to-back days.

75% 1-RepMax (Week 1,4)
80% 1-RepMax (Week 2,5)
Squat 3-5x5
Bench 3-5x5
Weighted Pull-ups 3-5x5
Deadlift 1x5

90% 1RM (Week 3,6)
Squat 3-4x3
Bench 3-4x3
Weighted Pull-ups 3-4x3
Deadlift 1x3

Very simple. You'll maintain with the minimums and possibly see gains at the maximums.
Hoosegow
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i royally messed up on that post. It had good info on it. But.... go to titan fitness. They have a lot of implements that are good. Stay away from the loadable keg.
bigtruckguy3500
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Hoosegow said:

You are focusing on compound movements - good. I see nothing wrong with what you have. However, make sure you change it up about every 6 weeks. add bands or chains, change your exercises up (Kroc rows, deadlift, front squats, etc), change you set/reps.
Tell me more about chains. The place where I work out right now has a set. Only ever used it once on bench. Felt a little unstable for a set or two till I got used to it. I can see how it provides extra load at the top of the movement compared to the bottom. How much difference do you notice? What's it really good for? How often do you use it? What all lifts do you use it on?
Hoosegow
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Chains are the old school bands. You got the concept, the higher you raise the chains off the floor, the more resistance you have.

How much difference do you notice? Depends entirely on how many chains you use. Two chains does not seem like enough to make much of a difference.

What is it really good for - increasing speed out of the bottom of the lift to carry enough speed to finish the lift.

I'll go back and look for some programs and post the how often answer. We used it quite a bit running up to a meet.

Now, for most people, bands are probably better. They are easier to set up and you can change them in and out easier.

You mention the wobble - it does take some getting used to, but make sure a portion of the chain is always on the floor. It helps.

Used it primarily on the squat and bench (others used it a lot on the DL).

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