So, I'm getting fairly close to finishing the SS program. Maybe another month or two, but I'm microloading every lift now, and am very close to a DL and squat reset. I'm going to do the advanced novice program when the time comes, but I was looking for some input about after that.

If I decide to keep on full-bore lifting, I'll do the Texas Method or something like that, no need for advice. Alternately, however, I was thinking about cutting and doing a cardio phase and here's what I'd like input on. Is there a good "maintenance" lifting program, for lack of a better word? Like, if I took a few months to focus on running, stopped eating big, etc., I'd still want to maintain most of the muscle and strength gains I made with SS.

Maybe this is just sort of a common sense thing, but is there a specific program for this kind of regimen? Would I just lift big once a week, or something? Continue lifting at the same rate but w/out eating a lot? Dunno, just looking for input from those who have more experience than myself (i.e. almost everyone) with bulking, cutting, and getting into intermediate level lifting.

Just do crossfit. If your shoulders explode, start a thread "Crossfit sucks because my shoulders exploded".

Even though I think you're kidding, I'm going to answer seriously, since I've considered Crossfit. Two problems:

1) I'm just not that gung-ho about cardio, period.
2) their WODs from what I can tell often seem incredibly scattershot and bizarro. Walk on your hands for ten minutes! Then swim 1500 meters!! Then do 10,000 pushups!! Then hold your breath for ten minutes while playing Trivial Pursuit!!! Then powerclean 150 lbs 90x!!!!

1) I know. I'm not either.
2) I have problems with their methodology, but the idea is decent. You can sub in a variety of Tabata/EDT/KB/Strongman style stuff if you wanna develop your own. It may be better and likely can't be that much worse if you know what you're doing.

FWIW you can probably get by maintaining by just doing 2 full body workouts a week. Or maybe combining it into like a muscular endurance 2x a week and then a regular heavy day. Whatever. Iunno.

Quoted from AZK in this months cross fit thread.

"I go in planning to do a CF WOD. If I think the WOD will take me longer than 15-20 minutes, I either cut it down, i.e. 3 rounds instead of 5. or I do a ME day. CF has ME days, just not as many as I'd like. I always keep the weights as Rx but mess with first the rounds, then the reps. I'm too ADD in the gym to just do SS, but don't see the importance of doing metcons 5x a week and would like to improve my overall strength numbers, so this is a pretty happy medium. So just as an example.

If the workout of the day was fran, and it took me 30 minutes to do fran I would maybe cut it down to 15-12-9 instead of 21-15-9, or Michael which is 3 rounds of 1/2 mile 50 GHD sit/ext, I might cut this in half to 1/4 miles and 25s... Also, so that I don't end up back squatting or something and then seeing hte gym doing the same WOD the next day, I try to work on similar movements...so for the fran example...if fran takes me too long but that's what they are doing, I will spend that hour doing 5x5 thruster ME and practice my kipping pull ups...

make sense?"

So that is one to way do cross fit with more of a strength emphasis. If you are not into doing cross fit but want to work on cardio or other things while maintaining your strength look up stuff on in season training for athletes. If you are just looking to add like hiit or 1 met con session a week to regular lifting that is easy to do also.

Sort of makes sense after parsing the abbreviations for 30 minutes. So, essentially, just pare WODs down to a more manageable size? I'll think about that, thanks for the input.

I was sort of looking for something more along Thremp's last advice, though. I'm fairly set on just running for cardio and was more interested in what kind of lifting you can incorporate with cardio to minimize strength losses. I guess I may have to just do a little trial and error to figure out what the minimum is I can get away with.

Isn't normal crossfit suppose to be scaled for everyone? I see people grinding out 1 hour WODs and just think "Idiot." I don't know if this is justified or whatever, but I still don't care.

Yeah, as I understand it, its scalability is supposed to be one of its features. But I suppose for a lot of people the masochistic overexertion aspect is one of its selling points, too.

Overdoing it used to be, at least, a key thing they prided themselves on. The had a mascot called rhabdo or something, after a very dangerous condition you can develop when you work out way way too much. It involves vomiting, but more than just the kind of thing Arnie did back in the day.

CF fans also used to promote their work-outs with little talk about scaling them down that I saw, or being sure you were even ready to do them in the first place.

Vomiting is pointless and not healthy. Anyone who pushes themselves to vomiting needs to get a better grip of their abilities instead of just being like "Oh I yaked. I'm hardcore." I'll be happy to go to crossfit gyms all over America and drink 32 ounces of milk and some lemon juice, do 15 jumping jacks and defile their equipment for free.

I've puked twice because of workouts, long ago as a young man in short but extremely high intensity workouts. Think three minutes of hell, which you complete and then your body after the fact produces a shock like reaction of puking. I wouldn't encourage anyone to workout until they puke, but I doubt those workouts were unhealthy. I would encourage people who feel that they need to puke to let it happen.

Since I'm here I suppose I should address the OP:

Maybe your diet can get better, but I wouldn't suggest trying simply to reduce your intake. Strength is pretty closely tied to recovery, and food is an important part of that. I think a reasonable thing to consider is continue on the path your are on, whatever intermediate strength program that you are interested in, but add in one (then two) HIIT/CF style workouts or one of those plus an easy run/bike/swim.

I agree that is not healthy etc but I think if you don't at least on a very rare occassion puke then you aren't pushing yourself hard enough .

I read somewhere that puking is one of the most catabolic things you can do to your body. Ive had to goto the bathroom and wait it out a few times but never been all the way And rhabdo causes kidney failure I believe and can possibly be fatal (altho again theres a big difference between going too hard and puking, and getting rhabdo)

-Mike

I've puked several times myself, typically from a random smattering of causes. But if anyone thinks that puking is an indicator of a quality workout, they're idiots.

Puking can be a good indicator of a quality esophagus/liver workout in my experience.

-Mike

I used to regularly puke doing thaiboxing training.

Always the same way.I'd leave my shift at work ravenous,then rush home to eat the family meal,then have to rush out again 20min later and do hill running/sprints/bw drills in the park on a full stomach.All the while trying to beat my training partner nemisis who i was always battling to finish first.I know better now than to eat anything big before training anything intense now.

Off topic and I apologize. But there's usually a decent pile of puke at the finish line at road and cross country races especially the shorter ones (3 mile - 10K).

I feel like maybe I'm not explaining myself well. If I don't immediately pursue an intermediate lifting program post-SS, I'm going to start running a lot. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do between these two options, but I don't see myself doing CF.

What I'm curious about is, if I opt for a cardio/cutting phase after SS, what is the minimum amount of lifting I'll have to do to maintain my current strength levels, or is this even possible? Thremp's advice earlier in the thread is more what I'm looking for, although thanks Shemp for the thought about how to incorporate CF in a lifting routine--something I may want to try at some point.

Maintaining strength on a cut is pretty tough and as far as I know you hafta lift about the same amount as you did previously to build strength.

-Mike

OT, but, I have warmed up a lot to the texas method and intermediate 5x5.

I do think that at some point it's worth it to try diving into the moder advanced programs.

I am a really big fan of the Boris Shieko programs, specifically the 4 week prep cycle for beginners, but there are a number of good programs out there for up and coming powerlifters.

And obviously most trainees aren't at this stage and would be fine with one of the intermediate programs. I've heard a lot of good things about Franco's WS4SB program but it isn't discussed here.

does ws4sb incorporate bands/chains? All that **** seems totally unnecessary for novices.

I don't think so. It's some defranco thing. That replaces a lot of the powerlifting specific stuff like DE and chains and stuff with more RE and ME work. I don't know a lot about it, just that I've heard good things.

I think the RE is sort of pointless and I think in WS4SB DeFranco is trying to create a cookie cutter program for a type of program that doesnt lend itself that well to cookie cutter. It doesnt explain how to modify the program to fit ur needs (ie. drop the RE and add a DE upper day if you dont care about nonfunctional hypertrophy) I also dont get the reasoning behind dropping the DE upper day in the first place...dont athletes need explosive power in the upper body too? It also includes bands and chains etc for "not so skinny bastards" trying to reach an even larger audience(more advanced lifters). I think if you were gonna run a program like this you would be better off designing your own based on the westside principles, and if you arent well versed enough to do that then you should go with something else for your intermediate/advanced programming. Oh yah also, not enough compound exercises imo...I should add I think DeFranco is a great coach with some really good ideas, but again I think that is on a personal basis where he can tailor the program to an athletes needs. Also, I still think you can get probably fairly good results just running the cookie cutter, but not as good results as if you did something else (basically a disclaimer against ppl who say YO I RAN THIS AND GAINED 100LBS ON MY SQUAT DOOD)

-Mike

ah

I am not so much a fan of westside

I think the volumetric approach on the bench and squat are going to be most effective for most natural powerlifters even at an intermediate level. The deadlift is more debatable but is generally chopped up into assistance work or variations anyway. Even GPP or hypertrophy/RE work has a place. That's why I'm a big fan of the Sheiko cycles, or at least the premise. Upper/lower splits seem extremely stupid for athletes, and somewhat questionable for many powerlifters. The westside program is the only one that really does anything like that but obviously also has a very high volume of assistance work and other with significant carryover to the core lifts. Even so...

I don't really buy the whole DE, explosive speed argument. I've heard a lot of guys who don't lift in gear say they don't get much out of the dynamic bench work at all. Not sure on the squat. And all of the DE box squats might be good for reversal strength and speed out of the hole but that is only completely relevant for everyone in multiply feds or individuals with an actual sticking point.

If an athlete really wanted to focus on explosive speed for performance, then they should just be doing full squats and olympic lifts and plyometrics in the off season. That seems like the program that practically every top T&F or Olympic athlete's training is based on

I think lighter days are a good place for DE work. The reduced intensity should allow you to get some quality work in without burning out.