Right, so there is bulking and cutting, but you don't want to spend too much time on either extreme. The rest of the year (or for that matter, your life once you've hit the muscle size you'd like ot be) how do you go about maintaining it? Do you still need to eat such a large amount and workout as often, or can you back it down a bit, say to only 3 workouts a week with more reps... I'm a little lost here :)

Right, so there is bulking and cutting, but you don't want to spend too much time on either extreme. The rest of the year (or for that matter, your life once you've hit the muscle size you'd like ot be) how do you go about maintaining it? Do you still need to eat such a large amount and workout as often, or can you back it down a bit, say to only 3 workouts a week with more reps... I'm a little lost here :)

You basically use your diet to control things, when you cut you cut back on calories 500-1000 calories from maintain level. When you bulk you incease calories 500-1000 over maintenance. What do you do during maintenance? You eat just enough calories to maintain your body weight it is made up of BMR and activity level.

The weight routine doesn't need to change during any of this. Workouts remain the same, you might want to change for specialization or variation. But activity level can remain the same.

You basically use your diet to control things, when you cut you cut back on calories 500-1000 calories from maintain level. When you bulk you incease calories 500-1000 over maintenance. What do you do during maintenance? You eat just enough calories to maintain your body weight it is made up of BMR and activity level.

The weight routine doesn't need to change during any of this. Workouts remain the same, you might want to change for specialization or variation. But activity level can remain the same.
I agree with this to a point. Eating "over maintenance" calories will cause you to recover faster than eating "under maintenance" calories. Therefore, you can workout your muscles with more frequency when eating over maintenence. I know your philosophy differs from mine on this, but I think this makes full body workouts so optimal for maintenance/bulking. When cutting and trying to do full body workouts, I found that I wasn't recovering fast enough before my next workout and I started having workout after workout where I just felt like I either couldn't complete it, or would complete it with such low intensity that it seemed pointless. For cutting, I think that working out each muscle group once a week works much better in terms of the body's ability to recover. But that's my own opinion.

cabeasle, to answer your question, for maintenance you have to figure out how much cardio and lifting you are willing to make part of your regular lifestyle. Once you figure that out, you tinker with your diet (like rtestes said) until you find a place where you are no longer gaining body fat (not weight). Once you hit that point, you're at your own personal maintenance. It's not an easy balance to find, but once you do it's very satisfying.