Workouts For Maintenance

You've just reached all of the your health, strength, and muscle mass goals in a workout session believed to be your last.  You get back home and sit on the couch relieved that the gym will no longer be apart of your life.  A quick thought pops in your head about how your figure, blood pressure, and low heart rate will maintain if you go into a sedentary lifestyle again.  This is when you realize that a Maintenance Workout is the best solution to retain all the results you worked so hard for.

Maintenance workouts should only consist of 1 to 2 days a week.  Whether you were on a muscle a day program or not you should put together a full body program that includes the main exercises that you don't want to drop in weights or repetitions.  Likewise for cardiovascular training 2 days at the same level of intensity won't allow you to drop in your performance.

Resistance training days should be structured for goals and metabolic adaptations.  If your sole purpose was to improve strength, a one day a week or an A & B workout program should be made to effectively keep your strength levels.  If you have multiple goals such as strength, hypertrophy, and power;  a two day, two workout program should be established.  Have one day set for strength and the other for hypertrophy.  Make sure if power is one of your objectives, the days should be spread out by at least one day and the power exercises precede all exercises in both workouts.

Don't add new exercises.  The whole point of maintenance programs is to retain the neuromuscular stimulus adapted from your many workouts.  Adding new exercises may target different parts of a muscle and won't help your overall goal.

Leaving the gym completely should never be an option.  2-week vacations are acceptable in workout programs, but once our bodies take any more time off, loss of muscle gains, strength, and power occurs.  Even a one day a week or home training bout will help avoid these issues.

Please comment if you would like an example Maintenance program.