"Trying to maintain" never works

UPDATE: its a free post now

I saw a 40 year old Marine yesterday with shoulder pain. He came in for his left shoulder, but mentioned his R bicep and elbow was also hurting.

We dug into his normal workout routine, and this ALWAYS comes up with patients with years of pain:

“I’m just trying to maintain.”

This sounds good in theory, but after I dig into my clients actual routine, is NOT what is going on.

What’s usually going on is heavy (ego) lifting is traded out for high volume, lower intensity work because this FEELS like work

Despite it not doing anything for you.

His routine was 4-5 sets of 3 chest exercises and 3 sets of max reps pull ups 2-3 times a week.

Like usual his chest exercises were BARBELL

• bench

• incline

• decline

He would choose a weight that felt hard but did not hurt his shoulder, so by set 5 he felt like he did something (tired). The weight had not changed much over the last several months.

If you can do 5 sets of 10 of ANYTHING, it is NOT intense enough to force your body to adapt to anything

You are actually getting weaker, so the opposite of maintain.

This is why are rehab programs work. They aren’t actually “rehab” programs, they are just normal strength programs designed to intelligently progress you and avoid the common pitfalls that cause overuse injuries.

If you are often injuries, you can use these same strategies I used for him to get out of this rut and actually “maintain.”

#1 Use dumbbells or machines

If you have shoulder restrictions, a barbell is going to make them worse. Mostly with back squat, bench, and overhead press.

Deadlift the barbell isn’t as big of an issue, the bigger issues are with

• to any sets/reps

• too many times/week

Dumbbells (for bench and overhead press) and machines (for legs) can help you just target your legs and not having to worry about fighting the barbell AND gravity.

For deadlift I think 1-2 heavy sets, leaving 2-3 reps in the tank, 1x a week is sufficient for MOST people.

You can also do RDLs instead of deadlift - its a better hamstring movement and can actually be done more often since it’s not moved from a dead stop.

#2 Slow the reps down

Use a 3-4 second lowering, hold 1 second at the bottom, then drive the weight up with intent. The slower speed will force you to go slower, then you can start to rebuild the structures that are hurt/tight anyway.

#3 Use a better rep scheme

Work + intent is really all that matters with strength and muscle size. I use 2 rep schemes

Rep scheme #1

For safety reasons, I prefer dumbbells or machines for this rep scheme, and it is as follows:

• 1-2 warm up sets

• a set of 6-9 reps, try to hit muscle failure

• a set of 12-15 reps, after a 3’ rest, with a LOWER weight, still trying to hit muscle failure.

This is the scheme that

BowTiedOx

recommends and I find it highly effective, especially for muscle size.

#2 Hypertrophy clusters

Strangely enough not everyone can follow the 6-9, 12-15 rep scheme (for a variety of reasons) so another rep scheme I like is just hypertrophy clusters

• 5-8 sets of 5

• 6-10 sets of 4

• 8-12 sets of 3

I prefer this rep scheme for barbell bench variations personally.

The lower reps helps you lift a heavier weight. The sweet spot for this is 25 reps, but you can take this up to about 30-40 reps/session.

The lower reps means you can use a heavier weight, so it is a great way to build strength. It’s not as great for hypertrophy but still works.

Start lighter for your sets of 5, as it feels easy increase the weight. After 3-4 weeks move to 4 reps, then 3-4 weeks later 3 reps.

For a more details on hypertrophy clusters follow Jake Tuura

Pull ups

Pull ups also benefit from that sweet spot of 20-25 reps per session. To continue to improve at these, the more reps you can do NOT TIRED, the better.

Doing them fatigued

• increased your injury risk (IMO)

• doesn’t make you stronger

• forces or engrains bad habits

If pull ups hurt, the first, most obvious choice is to do pull downs. You can use the rep schemes I listed above, and also make sure your technique is correct.

Click below to see correct technique. This is how pull ups should be done too.

correct pull down technique

The best way to do pull ups is

• more sets

• less reps

I have a variety of marines of different height/weights (170 to 230#) using the strategy and maxing their pull ups on their fitness tests and/or making huge improvements after a surgery.

Since 20-25 is the goal, just break up sets to hit the TOTAL number but not be struggling to complete the set.

10x2, 5x3, 7x3, 8x3, 5x5, etc. You get the point.

When you are fatigued - stop.

Training is corrective

These are the strategies I use personally and with my clients to avoid overuse injuries. They aren’t “rehab” magic, they are just intelligent program design using progressive overload.