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A) Situations definition: Maintenance is eating according to energy balance, no positive energy balance, no net fat gain, largely true.

B) Your definition (I think): Maintenance is eating according to maintaining bodyweight.  If a major stimulus is changed (ie. you move to the moon, a bodybuilder stops training, hormonal changes), then eating a bodyweight maintenance will result in a gain of fat tissue as muscle is lost.  Also true.  

uhhhhhhhh...... if you are maintaining according to energy balance, then you are also maintaining your bodyweight... our definitions are identical

only exception: maintaining calories doesn't mean you're maintaining water weight, so if you exclude water weight (which fluctuates daily) from the equation then they are the same.

The important point I am trying to convey to you is the reason the two definitions are often interchanged (ie energy balance == weight maintenance) is because for 99% of people on 99% of diets  they are essentially the same thing.  Unless you have extremely low bodyfat and extremely large amount of muscle or have drastic change in lifestyle (ie get wheelchair bound or move to the moon, or hormones involved) worry about losing appreciable amounts of muscle tissue is not necessary.  Most people on this msg board are not in danger of losing enough muscle to effect energy expenditure if they stop training.  

People often think they have experienced muscle loss for two reasons, both are wrong:

You may lose A LOT of strength but it's not because of losing muscle tissue.  That's why it will take 5 years for someone to build their squat from 225 to 405 but only 8 months to train it back from 225 to 405 after they take a few years off.  

You main gain a lot of fat when you stop lifting and keep eating the same.  But it's not because your energy balance is changed due to lost muscle but rather due to the fact that instead of using energy training you are probably watching TV.  

IMHO those most important takeaways to take from this discussion.  It's largely thought and stated in broscience that you lose muscle tissue which effects metabolism and causes you to gain fat.  While this is possible, it's not what happens to most young men who stop training, especially not in the short term.

There's a lot to ingest there, but basically:

We agree that if two atheletes:
- Both have the same caloric balance
- Both consume and burn the same amount of calories
- Both maintain the same bodyweight
- Only one continues to lift weights, while the other stops

The one that stops lifting weights will, eventually, lose more muscle than the one that continues to lift weights. The amount may very from half pound over the course of a year to 5 pounds in one year, but it will not be zero.

And, in fact, if the athlete that continues lifting is noob enough, he will actually gain muscle over the coruse of a year.



Nobody can deny the above.

Go low bar in the squat and see what happens with your hamstrings. You might be able to better keep the knees from going foward with a low bar squat and therefore maintain tension on your hamstrings.

Sounded like a good idea but I literally can't do low bar anymore. I tried it a few weeks ago, but there is just no spot to put the bar on my back anymore. It's not that it hurts like hell (it does), but rather, anywhere that's not in my usual high bar position will slide off the back.

I'll try again though.

Haven't read your journal, but have you been doing GHRs? I noticed an immediate improvement in how my knee felt after getting them in for a few sessions. Nowadays I have no knee pain from ME jumping/sprinting barefoot. Before I really had to ice everyday, lol.

Yea I don't have a GHR machine/set up at my gym so I do natural GHR's. I notice my knee feels immediately better after doing about 3 sets of them supersetted with quad stretches. Plus I foam roll before and after doing them. Definitely notice an immediate difference.

I was about to suggest GHRs but they're the reason I messed up my right knee. Sure he was messed up to begin with but to do natural glute ham raises, even on top of 2 or 3 folded aerobic mats was overkill for my knee. The knee cap gets caught in one position and gets compressed when you do them so... I would reccomend against them. If you have a machine though, I have no idea how that feels/works.

I feel comfortable doing natural GHR's. Maybe my mats have less friction than yours, because my knees are never a concern doing them. If they are in the future, I can use shorter mats that will let my knees track off the edge of the mats and then the knee caps are free to move.

Wish I could try out a GHR machine though. I can't even do one rep with a natural GHR. ALMOST up to doing a full negative with no faceplant!

I don't know how much you can stimulate your hamstrings with your squats

Almost not at all lol (for me). Maybe they do get stimulated, but not even close to the amount my quads and glutes do.

I am with raptor , keep RDLs in using higher reps , sth like 3x6-8.

The thing is, I want to do the 5/3/1 program as planned. I read the entire book (~100 pages) the night I got it and I don't want to change anything. Basically, the bottom line is this:

1 year ago I was benching 210x5. 1 month ago, I was benching 210x5.

It's time for slow, consistent gains that won't go away. And that's why I chose 5/3/1. Slow progression, but it will add up over time. 5/3/1 pretty much guarantees a 5lb gain every month for upper body and 5-10lbs a month for lower body. That's 60lbs on my bench press in a year, which is more than it's ever gone up (not counting noob gains my first year). And lets count it as 90lbs on my deadlift in a year, so I can go from like 350 to 430 in one year.

That's excellent progress. Once my knee heals up, I can put 90lbs on my squat in a year and go from 380 to 470 max. AND KEEP THOSE GAINS. I've made a 70lb gain in 7 weeks using a 4/7/7 rep scheme squatting 3x a week, but those gains diminished soon after. I've done smolov jr for 9 weeks and gained 80lbs off of it, but those gains diminished as well.

Time for me to just make slow, consistent progress without even having to go overboard with frequency and stuff.

About setup , i use something different than you: i load the bar at the ground , make the 1st rep a regular deadlift and then carry on with the RDL reps , very easy and convenient.
Just my 2 cents.

Oh I see... do you count that first deadlift as part of the set? Meaning 1 deadlift plus 5 rdl's equal one set of 6?

What was your concern with deadlifts if you didn't start the program with them lol?

Deadlifts have been given a bad rep for injuries lol... but then again, everytime I see people do them on youtube they do it with horrible form.

Well the question is - do you REALLY need to get that heavy when doing your RDLs? Use them more as an assistance exercise in the higher rep ranges.

Yes I do! I need to continue improving my hamstring strength, not just get them to a certain point and stop. Since I've neglected them for so long, I've been hit with jumper's knee (along with other reasons... basically quad-dominance ruined me).

I'm switching to regular deads next week.

Man I always screw my de-loads and end up losing strength.


 

May I ask what is the purpose of your twice daily squatting? Is it maintenance? Are you increasing your squat?

Seems like your top single for a few months now has been 440... maybe 455 a while back. I'd like to know what this little experiment is looking for.

I hate the American style of squatting once per week also. But dammit, I got jumper's knee in both knees (but heavy in my left knee) and gave in.

I'm doing 5/3/1 now. You should look into that. Slow, consistent gains.

Yea I might do one-armed flys and unilateral tricep extensions to have my lagging parts catch up.

I did that for my rear delts and it worked awesomely (it's in my log). Don't see why it wouldn't work for my other body parts, except for the pecs, which is probably caused by a postural problem.