[Steve G]

Hi- I have followed the program for 11 months now, and I have (mostly) met my (modest) goals – thank you!!. I am now “planning” to rest for awhile.
My question is this: do I keep my strength training at a ‘maintenance dose” level? That is, keeping what I have earned, and no more? Or should I scale that back too like I’ll be scaling back to fun and easy aerobic “work”?
Thanks so much for the advise and inspiration!

Steve G

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on November 6, 2016 at 8:40 pm #3382

Steve:

The main reason to NOT go cold turkey on your training is that when you start back up you will have to endure the pain and soreness associated with starting a strength program. DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is just no fun and will impede your return to training when you do start up in earnest. Luckily you can minimize DOMS if you just drop into a 1x/week to 10 days maintenance program. You can take your max strength plan and cut the sets and reps in 1/2. You may be doing only 2-3 reps and 2 sets of 3-4 lifts so not a lot of time in the gym. Surprisingly this can maintain most of your strength for a couple of months and will help make starting the transition phase again easier. However if the DOMS issue is not a deterrent then sure take a break. The gains you made in the first cycle will come back much faster the subsequent training cycles.

The same hold for the aerobic training (minus the DOMS).
Scott