Im cutting right now and have been for the past 4 weeks (with this last week being my week off) and ive only been working out twice a week doing full body workouts. Pretty much all of my lifts have stayed the same - weight and reps wise (though i obviously decreased volume) all this time while cutting aggressively (following lyle mcdonalds psmf)
So this got me thinking: if it's really this easy to maintain muscle on an aggressive cut, it's going to be a cake walk while eating at maintenance
Ill still bulk and cut, but i can definitely see myself going on permanent muscle maintenance mode within the next 5 years, perhaps focusing more on cardio training. It literally takes only 2 hours per week, though i could probably cut my workout time to close to an hour total per week if i do rest pause style training (like lyle does), which i am yet to try
So anyone here who has neared their potential (it's very real - look up what an asymptote is) and is taking it easy these days?
I'm very near that point. Not because I have reached my potential but because my mental health is about to tap out. Eating at a surplus and deficit is very mentally taxing. Pushing loads up is mentally taxing. Growing muscle is a lot of work.
I am not planning to compete, so I'm looking at myself more and more in the mirror and looking for reasons why I even care to grow more.
I totally get Lyle and his current training habits. I don't plan of scaling back to that extent, but I get it.
Honestly I just got to a point where I was quite content with my physique and decided to maintain and shift my goal posts, focussing more on running now and retaining the muscle I have. It's very refreshing and a lot of fun, and the gym is now more exciting as there's less pressure. Now treating gym with a block focus in mind so focussing on a certain muscle group every couple months and rotating
I was in the same boat and I’ve shifted my focus entirely to playing sports instead and just doing maintenance lifting. Now I play soccer a few times a week, rock climb a few times a month, and have ramped up the snowboarding in the colder months. I lift 1-2 times a week to maintain
It’s a lot more fun than just lifting for the sake of lifting and I can maintain the muscle I spent those years working to build. At this point it’s brutal trying to build more anyway and has helped a lot to refocus my efforts mentally
Same. I only do it to keep the bad thoughts away now
Could you be overtraining? I'd try going easy at it for a while and see if that changes your mental energy.
People can still progress lifting 3 days a week, and it's immensely less taxing than lifting 6 days a week in a twice a week PPL split.
Me pretty much. Having more fun doing cardio adventures at the moment
https://preview.redd.it/9y6y5fv53k8g1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59a63593abf86c3a45a8a0a339ded9185269329b
29, 5’10”, 170lbs
I'm still trying to leangain but not stressing about it. Similar stats, 28, 5'10"/178 cm, 165 lbs/74.8 kgs. This is the heaviest I've ever been so curious to see if I can push it to 175/180 lbs.
https://preview.redd.it/763271czco8g1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bde42ecab8a736666fb39312fbc29ef16ccfeef4
Ive been 208 at my heaviest. Plenty of room to grow
Since you mentioned Lyle in the post twice, it's exactly his stance on this afaik. As a recreational natty lifter, after you reach your reasonable max (say 5ish plus years in), you should just maintain and focus on other stuff in life. There's no point of training 4-6 times a week and limbo with your diet trying to kill yourself for 1 kg (or less) muscle gain per year.
I'm not near my full potential though, especially on some lagging body parts, so I plan to do a slow bulk with mini cuts for the next year or two, but I'll switch to just constant maintenance after.
And yes, it is that easy. I copied my maintenance/cutting routine from a video for guys over 40 or something, it's basically the 6 main compounds plus some isolations for arms and delts, 2 sets each, spread over 2 workouts. When I tried it for months, I didn't see any decline in strength or size whatsoever. It's still really important to stay active in other ways though, like cardio and mobility stuff.
Mind sharing that maintenance routine? Or at least the original video?
I’m not the person you replied to but here’s mine. Really enjoying it, still seeing progress, and sessions take me 45-50 minutes. 2 sets to 0-1 RIR for every exercise and I try to superset if I can.
Upper 1: flat DB bench, chest-supported T-bar row, shoulder press of choice, wide grip lat pulldown, lateral raises, pec deck, triceps pushdowns
Lower 1: DB preacher curl, seated hamstring curl, Bayesian/cable curl, leg press, calf raises, smith machine Bulgarian split squats, cable crunch
Upper 2. Incline bench, weighted chin-ups, weighted dips, machine rows, overhead extensions, lateral raises, reverse pec deck
Lower 2: incline curls, lying hamstring curl, hammer curls, leg extensions, calf raises, RDLs, decline bench leg raises
I’m doing this routine with lifting on the back burner, but still happily taking the progress I’m making. If you truly only care about maintaining muscle, you could reduce this even further. For example, only do one curl each day, drop the shoulder press since you’re hitting front delts with bench and lateral raises, drop the reverse pec deck since you’re hitting rear delts with all your pulls, maybe even just do one chest pressing variation + the fly.
I’d like to know as well
Afaik it was this, but as it seems the guy has like 20 videos like it. I tweaked it a bit for my preferences in terms of exercise selection and stuff, but the general concept is the same.
How do you cut in December? Do you not have family?
Thug it out
This guy gets it
It’s called bulking season for a reason.
Tell that to all the people with shows coming up.
Hardcore. My wife would kick my ass if I tried it.
Just eat in a surplus over Christmas? A week isn’t gonna do anything.
Im from the balkan which is Orthodox christian (following the julian calendar) so most holidays are in january (like new years obviously, but christmas too and some other stuff). There were a few family gatherings tradition things this past week hence why i planned my diet break to be this week
But even with taking a break this week and eating at maintenance and reintroducing carbs i thought id gain back at least a kilo of water weight, but my weigh has stayed the same, to my great surprise. My average weekly weight for this week is the exact same as it was last week
Tomorrow i continue with the cut for 2 more weeks until im finally done with it for good. I'll be very happy if im able to lose at least 1.5-2 more kilos by january 4 2026 - which means ill be able to eat a healthy amount for christmas eve and christmas day which are on january 6 and 7
But also im losing a lot of weight/fat in a relatively short amount of time. So if i really focus right now i know that ill be done with this in a jiff and ill be free to be in a slight bulk for the next year or so, so thats motivating me in a way
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from fellow Orthodox ☦️
If you have 0 calories on every day except for two huge family dinners you can still average 2000 calories per day.
But seriously, how many family dinners do you have exactly that would ruin your plans for an entire month?
I love training too much to go for that.
Ive more or less been on permanent maintenance for the past couple years, with short cuts in the spring to shed a few holiday pounds. I'm happy with my physique and am not interested in getting any bigger, so my focus has shifted to making strength gains and maintaining the mass that I have. Feels good.
Yeah, gym life is pretty easy once you get to a level you’re comfortable with. Just have to keep up with some decent consistency and macros but it’s not a lot of time or hard work.
I just set a maintenance goal in Macrofactor and let life dictate my bulk/cut cycles
Naturally this works out to a bulk around the holidays or weekends and maintenance or a slight deficit when I'm busier or ramp up cardio
Maintenance volume is roughly a third of what it took to build the muscle, so welcome to the retirement home where we just punch the clock to keep the lights on. It’s physically a breeze, but the boredom of not chasing PRs is what usually drives people back to the grind.
Yes for the last say 4/5 years i have.
The thing is somehow you get used to your workload. So even though i have much more time available and its like you say, pretty easy to maintain compared to making marginal gains for which you need sick volume, it still almost feels like the same effort sometimes. But if def recommend it.
Every now and then you can add some volume again on certain muscles when they fell off a little. I like it.
I'm on a slow cut and still gaining muscle/strength. Once a week heavy compounds, twice a week cardio/muscle endurance. I went from 135 lbs to 195 at a pretty constant 25% bodyfat over 4 years, now I'm hovering at 190 but getting leaner and stronger over time. Id say I'm at about 22% and getting leaner.
I think once you at near your max muscle potential, things do get simpler. Its not like I'm going to gain much more weight (I'm only 5'5", maybe 5'6" in the morning), so theres no reason to do crazy volume. Without the crazy volume, its easier to diet... its definitely less involved than the way up the hill was.
I mean, even just protien, going from 1g per lb to .6 per kb... good lord it is easier to hit ~115 g of protien without crazy calories than it is to hit 190 g. Better digestion, better sleep, normal meals... its nice.
46, probably been in maintenance mode for last 5 years. I still do 4 workouts a week, upper lower split and my workouts are moderate intensity. More focus on mobility and stretching, which is something I neglected in my 20s and early 30s. I used to have a lot of knots in my upper back and shoulders.
I want to FEEL good more than anything. I like my workout routine more than ever now and I don't get burned out anymore too.
Partly why your maintaining strength is you aren't super lean yet. That would be my guess. Enjoy your cut. I would hate cutting in winter but do what you need to do :)
You're right that im not super lean, but im also not doing any movements that are body-wise leverage based like the barbbell bench press. Im sticking mostly to machines nowadays
Anyway, thanks. 2 more weeks and im done with this. Id say currently im around ~15% bf (i uploaded an unflexed photo of me from today and chatgpt says im 14-15%, for what its worth). So by then i wont be shredded but ill be decently lean
I maintain (actually can improve weak spots) with 1.5 hours ish a week and I'm 6 foot 210 lb ish fwiw. Lifted a really long time
No because I've discovered my volume requirements for making PROGRESS are really low. 3 sessions a week, only an hour long, that's enough time for me personally to make progress. At that point, I'm not really wanting to scale back. It's already sufficiently comfy like this. If I had to train every day or 6 days a week to make games I'd have been out of this game a while ago.
Your bench has stayed the same? Not a chance
I dont bench, ive only been using machines for my chest lately and all of them have stayed the same, i even got a slight improvement on one. But yeah if i benched it wouldve tanked hard because its very leverage dependent
Ah that makes sense. In the same boat as you, can’t wait to at least do maintenance/bulk again
I’ve cut 40 pounds this year and all my lifts have gone up substantially with a 500 calorie deficit. My one rep max on bench was 120kg and I can still do it easily. If you cut slowly you can still create gains, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been atm.
I just dont why so many people these days are obsessed with trying to push the boundaries of the absolute bare minimum.
What ever happened to giving everything you care about 100%?
If you dont care about bodybuilding, that's totally fine by me. But dont fool yourself into thinking you will have the physique or health of an elite athlete working out an hour or two a week..
This kind of "maintenance" lasts for probably six to eight months before your body starts adapting.
Working out more doesn’t mean you are going to be healthier or even more muscular. After lifting for decade or two you can’t realistically keep on improving unless your training and nutrition was suboptimal before.
I maintain my physique and strength with minimal amount of lifting and I am also healthier than when I did way more work.
I also would love to see this "peak physique" anyone has been nurturing with the "bare minimum".
If the people who trained the most would be the healthiest and biggest individuals I would agree with you but we know better.
We know better?
I'm the healthiest guy I've ever met.. and I train 6 days a week.. and I compete.
I dont know who you are referring to.
Of course a lot of bodybuilders aren't healthy.. doest mean training 2 days a week is healthy either.
If 6 workouts is better than 2 workouts / week then 12 must be even better! More is not always better and especially when we talk about health outcomes.
If you enjoy training that much then sure keep doing what you doing but eventually you are just spending more time in the gym just to spend more time in the gym.
Sorry, you're wrong!
More is not better, less is not better.
Around 6-8 hours in the gym per week heavy lifting is optimal for health for most people.
I dont spend hours in the gym. I have a full gym where I work and I put in a solid hour or more every day.. plus a little on weekends at a private gym. I also superset to save time.
Working out 2 days a week means you will never be a bodybuilder. Unless you are a retired competitive bodybuilder, why read this sub?
6-8 hours of intense bodybuilding training? Yeah probably not training that hard. Way less is enough especially if we are just talking about health benefits.
I average 40 minutes / week training and I got all the time and home gym in my use. I still maintain very high levels of strength and good muscle mass. Did you read the topic of this thread?
40 min a week? Hahahaha sorry for wasting our time
Quality over quantity
If 6 is better than 2, than 12 must be better than 6 by your logic. (You claim)
Um.. no.. if you have the logic of a 6th grader, perhaps. Most adults understand there is an optimal range.
Unless someone specifically states something like "more is always better", than you cant just jump to some ridiculous statement and claim thats their logic.
This is such a simple concept I cant believe I'm explaining it to you.
Ok then let’s ask why is not 2 workouts / week enough for you?
Because i'm a competitive natural bodybuilder? Lol.
That doesn’t answer my question. There is “competitive” natural bodybuilders doing way less than 6 workouts / week. Why do you need to workout that much?
I think there’s a lot of confused people who think this is a fitness or lifting subreddit and not a bodybuilding subreddit.
I guess this is /r/naturalbodymaintaining
I switched from doing PPL twice a week for couple of years down to maintenance since early this year when I started my cut. Feels great being at maintenance now and just doing 3 times a week on a Upper Lower split.
Would recommend. And I you feel like bulking, I would just keep rocking a 2-3 day workout per week with high intensity and increase your caloric surplus to 100-200 only.
Probably the last year I've been at around maintenence for the most part.
I would prefer to be able to cut and bulk properly but life's been busy, so this is the most viable option for me
Easy for YOU. Everyone has the same metabolism, testosterone levels, body type in general, etc. Etc. this is why less than 1% of the US male population has less than 18% body fat but we all think social media ripped fitness influencers are the norm. The reason you and them find it "easy" it's because of genetics. There's scrawny low test guys at the gym putting in the same work that don't see the same gains and everyone needs to know the reality of things.
Half the ppl that down vote this shit or defend others don't even know their own T levels and have never been tested cause that shit is expensive. But will ignore medical professionals....
Technically I’m permanently cut mode cause my ass doesn’t like feeling small
You can still gain a very good amount of muscle on maintanance calorie
I cycle my legs on and off maintenance vol (seasonally) so my upper body gets more volume and growth. Its easier to get 15-20 upper body muscle group sets when you legs only get 9 sets (weekly).