THE MYTH OF 'MAINTENANCE'

Throughout your training career, the rate of progress will show different types of expression. In your very first year of training, you are floating through the 'honeymoon period' of weightlifting: you get stronger fast (provided you do the right things), you get hooked into the rapid transformation you see in yourself, and it seems to you like this process with last forever.

As you advance in your training, the stronger you get, the harder it is to keep making progress (mind you: I did not say your progress stops). The closer you get to your maximum genetic potential, the more challenging it becomes to climb up the ladder of success. This is a natural development in everyone's training.

Here is the crucial thing for you to know:

'Maintaining strength' is the default mode we revert to when training starts to get hard.

I am telling you why the concept of 'maintenance' is flawed and will likely lead to you losing interest in barbell training in the long run.

Firstly, 'I just want to maintain' is an excuse for not taking your training any further. Why would you resign yourself to stagnation? Why would you stop building on the strength you have so far accumulated? Would you rather move forward and up, or keep turning in a cirlce for the rest of your training career? What implications do you think does repeating the same weight over and over again have on your mind?

Secondly, I bet you that if you squatted 80kg for a triple for an entire month without adding weight to the bar (because you convinced yourself that 'maintenance' is the way forward), that there will come a point where you want to try 81kg. Correct? So 'maintenance' is a myth, right?

Lastly, 'maintaining' your current strength levels does not make you stronger. What do you think is the purpose of strength training?

As you are reading this, your squat is probably not 1.5 times your body weight, your deadlift is likely not twice your bodyweight, and you are likely not bench pressing your own bodyweight for reps. They day you are hitting those numbers, you can say that you've 'made it'. For the purpose of living a life with better quality, as well as having improved various parameters of your health. Something which barbell training does arguably better than anything else.

Until this point, 'maintenance' remains a myth.

So get under the bar, and do what is required.

You know what that is by now.

#strengthtraining #barbell #getstronger #hamptonwick #teddington