The Key to strength training: consistency

 No doubt this is a brutal workout that I espouse.  After a couple weeks, you'll feel sore or your joints will ache.  I even from time to time experience a weird phenomenon where I get anxious accompanied with muscle soreness and then my central nervous system gets hay wired from aching all the time and I start to feel unmotivated to workout for the simple fact that my body is sore.

At this point, I like to take what I call a break from my usual brutal workouts.  I workout just to maintain muscle memory.  Usually the workout takes 30 minutes to an hour.  I might pop off a couple singles.  I may do a couple doubles.  The key is to only spend about 10-15 minutes on each set and not try to set any personal records.  Just do enough to keep the joints and muscles in tune for your next taxing workout.

When do you do these muscle memory workouts?  Do them when you experience that weird aching listlessness accompanied with having a frazzled central nervous system.  That's my usual cue.  Maybe after you've had two or three weeks of taxing workouts, you go for a muscle memory workout and give your body and mind a break. The reason for the muscle memory workout is just to maintain consistency.

I don't advocate more than 96 hours of rest or even the occasional rarity of 120 hours rest between workouts.  72 hours of break time between workouts is ideal but that can lead to mind and body fatigue after a couple weeks.  If you go to an extreme of strength training only once a week, you'll probably start losing strength after the second week so skipping workouts in the name of rest and repair is a setup to fail in your strengthening endeavors.  Just do the muscle memory workouts and you'll maintain strength so on the next workout you can start making personal gains again.