Maintenance is not a thing
Maintenance is not a thing.
It’s just not. Our bodies are living, breathing organisms made up of somewhere in the region of 37.2 TRILLION cells. Each and every one of those cells is CONSTANTLY doing something. There is literally an uncalculatable amount of chemical reactions and interactions happening every moment. Yet some people want to convince themselves that somehow, through mediocre training and substandard diet conditions, they are somehow able to control ALL of these cells in such a way they are able to stay exactly the way they are?
You know what that is?
It’s bullshit.
You show me a person in any gym who is completely 100% satisfied with their performance and their body, and I’ll show you a liar.
Maintenance is an excuse for people who can’t or won’t put enough effort into themselves to keep moving forward.
And that’s fine. It really is. Because you can justify your mediocrity to yourself however you like. I just want no part in it.
I’ve long subscribed to the opinion, ‘You’re either growing, or you’re dying’. If you’re not moving forward, or even if you’re just staying on the spot, you’re effectively going backwards anyway because time is elapsing and you’re still the same. Now that’s not exclusive to lifting weights, that’s in all facets of life. Personal development, like training in the gym, is something that needs a proactive approach.
Your body is an adaptive organism, it will ALWAYS adapt to the stimulus or stress that you input, good or bad. It is this mechanism that we exploit in order for any kind of training to actually take effect. So when you put some serious stress in your body by flogging yourself in the gym, your body will respond. But it’s a double edged sword…because if you’re not straining and causing stress then your body will very quickly return to its sedentary, couch bound self. Things switch off as fast as they switch on. Sometimes faster, and then you go to your coach and tell him that the programming was a problem when in reality it was just you stopping 2 reps short on every set.
So get in the gym. Cause some stress, ALWAYS be pushing to achieve MORE. Never be satisfied with the same. Every week you should be adding reps, or weight, or both. It doesn’t have to be much, but it has to be something, because if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
But don’t tell me that you’re training for maintenance, because it’s not a thing.