Quote Originally Posted by Benches505
Your friends perspective is interesting but in the end we all recover at different speeds. Age/health/genetics play a huge role in it all. 10-13 weeks is not enough to make a difference in my eyes. If we were comparing a 10 week to a 20 week then yes, it may be harder to recover.
Definitely good advice here - also I would like to throw out that keeping gains is impacted by your precycle fitness level. If you've got a good solid foundation, keeping what you work hard for during the cycle will be a bit easier.