I’m excessively overdue for a rest period of about 3 weeks where I will do only maintenance lifting. Every expert I’ve read (Bompa, Dante, you name it…..) suggest a rest period every 10-12 weeks to avoid a plateau and allow joing and ligament recovery.
I’m at 6 months now without missing a single workout and going balls to the wall high volume and intensity (since my two weeks off when I had the flu in February). I’ve reached the point now where my "newbie gains" are finished and I can’t expect to keep growing with this ultra high volume each muscle once per week type routine unless I took steroids which I would never even consider.
Instead I will replace my high volume routine (which always included at least 5-8 sets with high intensity techniques like forced reps, drop setting and a total of 20sets for back, chest, legs, shoulders (10-12 for arms)).
It will be replaced with much lower volume, but a large focus on intensity using rest-pause and even better techniques that I just learned about today. The higher intensity will allow me to substantially reduce the volume and fit an entire upper-body workout into one session. So my frequency will increase by 2-3 times despite actually working out 1 day less per week. My specific training routine will be my own personal adaptation of DC type training.
It’s taken me 9 months to earn the right to train like this. If I tried this back in December it would never have worked simply because I wouldn’t be at the level needed to output the kind of intensity required to lower my volume by that much. Now I’m ready I’m sure.
Finally from now on I take 10days of maintenance training every 3 month to reset my system and allow full recup.
Will of course post the results and effects of this in the months to come. My holiday starts August 1st. And full tilt training will begin again Aug. 21st.
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