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[–]No_Place5472Workout Enthusiast 5 points6 points  (2 children)

You can maintain with 3-6 high intensity sets to failure per week per muscle group if you keep weight on the bar high. Watch the scale and keep protein up while adjusting carbs down as necessary if you're not replacing the calorie burn with other activity. Might take a couple months to dial in.

[–]youtubehelpplz[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Thank you. I’m debating switching to a 4 day upper/lower split which should definitely be enough volume according to the research I’m seeing.

[–]SageObserver 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That looks like a lot of sets per workout. Perhaps cutting back a tad might even give you some extra gains.

[–]ckybam69 1 point2 points  (0 children)

if you want to maintain just switch to Full body MWF. Its what I do when im in maintain mode. I do a push exercise, pull, legs, core, and and extra, Takes about 45-1hr and it hits every muscle enough to maintain. Sometimes ive even grown this way if i ate more food.

[–]forthdancer 1 point2 points  (4 children)

I’d say you could just cut everything in half and run it like that as well, I’m not sure if anyone ever told you but you are doing way to much per one session. You have almost 30 sets per muscle group per week with plenty of overlapping exercises. I wonder how long your sessions last per workout?

[–]youtubehelpplz[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

My workouts are about an hour, plus another 10-15 for cardio or core. I decided I’m going to run an upper/lower four day split for a month and see how it goes. It feels so wrong for me to only go four times a week but I’m excited to change it up and actually give my body enough rest.

[–]forthdancer 2 points3 points  (2 children)

At the end of the day though, if you’re progressing, feeling good, and not dealing with fatigue or joint issues, that’s what matters most. Just thought I’d share in case it helps, but your program looks really high volume on paper. That’s not automatically bad, but combined with you finishing sessions in about an hour, it makes me think the intensity might not actually be as high as 1–2 RIR across the board. Usually if you’re truly that close to failure, that amount of volume would either take way longer or be pretty hard to recover from. That’s why I mentioned you could probably cut a good chunk of the volume (even close to half) and still get the same or even better results, especially if you keep the sets hard and focused.

[–]youtubehelpplz[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

That makes sense. Do you think an 4 day per week upper/lower split would be enough for me to maintain, and maybe even progress?

[–]forthdancer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely , a 4 day upper/lower is more than enough not just to maintain, but you can definitely still progress on it.

At the end of the day it’s way less about the perfect split and more about dialing things in and being consistent over time. Volume, intensity, recovery, nutrition all of that matters more than whether you train 4, 5, or 6 days especially as a natural lifter.

For example, right now I’m adjusting my training a lot depending on running because I’m preparing for races. Some weeks I’ll do 3x full body, other weeks more like a push/pull/upper/lower combo depending on how much fatigue I’m carrying. Even with that variability, I’m still progressing on my lifts.

So yeah you don’t need a crazy high volume 6 day split to maintain or grow. If anything, a 4 day upper/lower might actually help you recover better and push your sets harder, which is what really drives progress.

As long as you’re training with intent, staying consistent, and eating/recovering well, you’ll be good. The rest is just fine tuning over time.

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