I had an interesting discussion yesterday with one of my long-standing clients.

As we were finishing up our session, in which she had just hit a personal record deadlift of 210 lbs (not bad for a grandmother of two!). She is working towards competing in powerlifting, and I have no doubt will be a smashing success.

That’s one of the things that keeps her going.

However, she asked me when it would be best to move more to a maintenance style of training and what that would entail. I had to think about it for a second, but the more I thought the less appealing the sound of “maintenance” was.

Unfortunately, I see a lot of people in the gym who seem to be “just trying to maintain”, and I get that. There’s a point where you don’t want to get leaner, bigger, stronger, or whatever. At some point people become happy with their results and don’t seek to push it further… I guess.

But I gotta tell you, There aren't too many times where I’ve never been satisfied with my progress. I’ve achieved goals that I’ve set for myself and been proud of that. But completely satisfied - not usually - there is always something to be learned in the journey and used next time for the battle. After thinking about it some, I realized that to me the idea of just “maintaining” is really just a controlled backslide.

I think that if you decide that you’re not going to improve anymore, you’re inviting some trouble. Think for a second about how hard you worked for your results. Think about all of those times where you pushed yourself further, trying to add another five pounds on the bar or complete just one more sprint. That attitude is what got you to where you are now and is responsible for the progress that you’ve made. That’s the attitude that kept you showing up day after day and pushing hard.

Now you’re suddenly going to stop that trend and just start going through the motions? That doesn't make sense to me. How long is it going to be before your four-day per week maintenance program becomes three, then two days? Man, the weights feel heavy this week… maybe you should go lighter. You’re just maintaining, right? Do you see where I’m going with this?

Now, I’m not saying that you need to be balls-out, driving towards a goal with no prejudice 100% of the time. That's just silly and inviting a mistake. However if you did achieve your goals, lets say you were happy with your performance and or physique. I would find it hard to believe that you couldn't come up with some way to challenge yourself and stay out of maintenance mode.

Seems to me that those who try to stay in one place will soon find that life is passing them by.

Til next time...