Super-man maintenance training
Keep your gains while side-questing
I’ve been talking for a while about doing as much side-quests as you can
Experimenting, getting good at something, focusing on other parts of your health
Personally, I am on my endurance and strength arc.
Inspired by guys like Ross Edgley, I felt like my approach to fitness was not align with my purpose of achieving peak longevity and health and tapping into my full potential.
Endurance is primal and key for mitochondrial and hormonal health, especially zone 2. And strength gets you an indestructible body (aka one that never ages) capable of generating explosion and force.
Anyway, today is not about this in particular.
This is for people like me, who never went into learning a sport at full-time since they were kids and were never truly passionate about learning just one
Honestly, I just want to get reasonably good at sports I find extremely cool and that I would be a good fit. Also, achieving longevity and health at a biochemical and physical level is also key for me.
Some side quests I’ve been talking about and everyone can do them:
Strength training (powerlifting or calisthenics)
Running (for distance or speed)
Open-water swimming
Hiking
Martial arts (Muay Thai, BJJ)
Climbing
Other side-quests exist but they are not as physical like learning new languages, helping in charity, donating blood, travelling, board games, writing, cold/heat exposure…
But people, including me, don’t want to all of a sudden dedicate 6 months primarily to a modality like hiking or swimming and compromise their physiques
I don’t particularly agree with training for aesthetics ONLY but I respect who trains to look good and for vanity
If you really commit yourself to build a top model Hollywood movie style physique, you can optimize for that and go for 6 days a week in the gym machines
But side-questing and training for strength and endurance will still get you a dream body, better than 99%.
The muscles will be there and they will be freaking big. You’ll just be stronger, mobile and functional than a bodybuilder.
Anyway, I understand that optimising for swimming and hiking might not be the best approach to maintain your physique, as aesthetic as it might be.
So why not insert quick, maintenance workouts in your week, so you don’t throw away your gains while side-questing?
Turns out muscles are extremely dynamic structures: if you use them, they stay. But if you stop using them, they will go away
Your body don’t want useless flesh hanging around. You gotta transmite the message “I still need my muscles these big and strong, please body, keep them there”
There is basically 2 things you must do:
1 - Mechanical stimulus
2 - Healthy protein intake
The first one is the most important by far, is what makes guinea pigs like myself go days without food intake and ending a big fast without muscle loss
For this, you have to do a simple straight to the point workout. No need for failure or too heavy sets. You don’t want to waste your side-questing energy here. Just a light hypertrophy focus workout.
Pick a weight you can go for 12 reps and 4 sets, and exercises that target big muscle groups.
Squat
Deadlift
Standing shoulder press
Pull-ups
Pull-down machine
Rows
Push-ups
Kettlebell swings
Divide this whatever you want on a 7-day period. 3 short workouts, 1 long one, 2 medium… Even a push-pull-legs regular workout will be enough.
This should be enough of a stimulus to communicate that your prior gains are still necessary.
Here I talked about maintaining gym-related results because that is what I know. I believe to maintain swimming and running capacity you would need to take similar approaches for those venues. But I’ll talk about what I know better.
Since you are living for the long term and not for a 3-day fast, protein will be essential.
A high protein diet made out of whole foods will get you a proper flow of nutrients that will sustain muscle, so your body will never need to destroy it for energy.
Of course, growth and gains are not guaranteed since I expect you to be getting better at other stuff.
Good dataset today!
