Maintenance Mode
By Gus
When Life Throws You a Curveball, Your Fitness Doesn’t Have to Fall Apart
Let’s face it, life isn’t always a smooth ride. There will be times when work, family, or other commitments demand more of your time and energy, leaving less for your usual workout routine. Whether it’s a new job, a move, a family emergency, or simply a busy season, these situations often necessitate putting your training into “maintenance mode.”
What is Maintenance Mode
Maintenance Mode is a concession. An acceptance that our training is not approaching the threshold of our potential. If we are not training with sufficient stress to create an adaptation, we’re not training. It’s exercise. Successful maintenance mode is exercise that will allow you to carry on with training when the temporary interruption is resolved.
The Importance of a Strong Base
Think of your strength and fitness as a fortress. The higher and thicker the walls (your base of strength), the more resilient it is to attacks (periods of reduced training). A solid foundation allows you to weather the storms of life without your fitness crumbling completely. When you return to regular training, you’ll be able to regain your previous level of fitness much faster than if you had let it deteriorate significantly.
If you’re still in your first novice linear progression, it’s worth doing everything you can to attend every workout. No skipping! Keeping that pump primed keeps the base strong and what you do in those first several months of training is the base you’ll build on forever.
How to Implement Maintenance Mode
- Follow a (Different) Program
Even with the goal of maintenance you need to make a program, and comply with that program. If you can’t follow it, it may as well not exist. If you have a coach, they should create this with you! If not you’re going to need to look at your calendar and figure out what’s the simplest way to reduce your time in the gym, but still hit all your essential elements: squatting, deadlifting, some form of pressing, and some form of conditioning.
My go-to program has been to do one lift a day 5 days a week. This works for me because getting to the gym is not an issue, but setting aside the time to workout is! If I make myself do at least one lift it’s never a full body workout but it’s always done in 30 minutes. I rotate between the Squat, Press, Deadlift, Bench, and Power Clean. If I get less than 5 days in the week I skip forward to the squat again so that I’m squatting every week at least. Does this mean my bench and power clean don’t get enough work? Yes. Maintenance mode is full of concessions.
Your program might be centered around one complete training session a week with two ten-minute at home workouts. Or maybe full sessions but three sessions over two weeks. It’s your calendar we’re looking at here.
- Do Your Fives
In maintenance mode there’s not room for heavy singles or maxing out. Sets of four to six reps… I say just do fives and be done with it… will be the best bang for your buck. Keep the weights moving up. On your big lifts you may even find you can keep setting 5-rep PRs if you move up 2.5-5lbs per week – that’s great success on maintenance mode.
- Maximize Nutrition
You have to eat! You may as well eat better. The better your food quality the better you’ll handle the stress life is throwing at you. There are lots of meal prep services that can put your food on autopilot saving you more time too.
- Bodyweight Training at Home
Everyone could use more push-ups and pull-ups. Install a pull-up bar over a door in your house and do one round of Cindy every time you walk by it. If you don’t have a pull-up, now is the perfect time to practice! With improving bodyweight movements doing them more often is better for practice than a longer amount of time at one session.
Remember
- Maintenance mode is temporary. It’s an approach to navigate a busy period in your life. Every week be honest with yourself if maintenance mode is still necessary or can you get back to a training program.
- No guilt, no shame. Life happens, and it’s better to adjust your training accordingly than it is to crash and burn.
- Focus on what you can control. Even small efforts can make a big difference in preserving your fitness.
- Celebrate your consistency. Staying active, even in maintenance mode, is an accomplishment.
