Maintenance Isn't Reverse
A client emailed me recently. They’d been away from sessions for a few weeks—kids’ fixtures, work deadlines, family admin. Fitness had tailed off. The scales had crept up. They could feel it. The smart part was they’d named it for what it was: a season. The kids needed them, work needed them, and their priorities had to shift—if only for now.
My reply was simple: you’ve read the room correctly. Not pandering—just reality. After a good few years working together we both know there are moments when different needs take precedence, and in this instance our sessions need to take the backseat.
The idea that any of us will hold peak strength, low body fat, and race-ready aerobic performance all year is a likely a fantasy. Life ebbs and flows, it’s dynamic, complex. The win isn’t clinging onto summer when we’re deep into winter; it’s choosing the right gear for the road you’re currently on.
It’s also not about stopping a temporary dip in numbers, within reason. It’s about picking maintenance over a complete meltdown, and rebalancing in the short-term over quitting for the long-term.
In the next week or so I’ll release the 2025 edition of our IFT Quick Guide: Festive Fitness Balance for In-Person and Remote clients to access. Unlike the rest of the series—sleep, recovery, building muscle, fat loss, mindful eating, and the like—this one is more about permission: holding the line, enjoying the season, and leaning into connection with the people who matter most to you.
That’s the spirit of this article: how to set a solid floor for your health when life asks more of you elsewhere.
The Gear Shift Most People Miss
We’re often taught to have two gears: full throttle or handbrake. If we can’t go “all-in”, we tend to drift into the realm of “not-at-all”. That all-or-nothing reflex we all likely have to some extent is just present bias hiding inside of gym clothes.
We often forget that there is a third gear we all have access too: maintenance.
It’s not reverse. It’s forward — just not as fast.
It’s what can see us through December and the Christmas period maintaining muscle mass, protecting VO₂ max, anchoring sleep, and holding the line on our regular habits until life loosens its grip a touch, and the seasons begin to change for the better.
In my own world right now, I’m a touch higher in body fat than this time last year, but I’m also more muscled. A trade-off in the short-term I’m happy to make. I’m still training 4-6x per week, heavily benefitted by the proximity of the gym to home. Likewise my VO₂ max is steady (this still takes some input for sure…). My heart rate, HRV, and sleep consistency are all fine, not where I’d like them to be, but good enough for where I’m at.
As with many across the health and fitness industry, the upcoming month is likely to be quieter — clients ill, trips away, events, kids shows — which actually gives me space and time to revisit a CPD course from earlier this year that I likely rushed through on first attempt (US time zones didn’t help). I’m reading more, but topics outside my field of work, so it feels lighter when I go a day or so without it.
Different seasons, different gears.
Your Life Is a Entire Portfolio, Not a Single Stock
If you tried to keep every area of life at an all-time high, you’d eventually succumb to the pressure and snap. Portfolios need rebalancing from time-to-time. Some seasons or quarters favour family and home life, others work, occasionally fitness can take true priority. The goal isn’t equal weights — it’s intentional weights.
When family or work asks more of you, you up-weight them. Meanwhile, health shifts from performance into preservation (“what’s the minimum input I need to maintain X/Y/Z…”).
Muscle: We’re not chasing aggressive increases; we’re protecting what we already have.
Aerobic Base: It may not be the time to maximise running volume or chase PB’s; but I can keep a floor of capacity still.
Body Composition: Don’t panic; aim for stability, within a percentage window you can easily move back towards (eg., 15% +/- 2-3%).
Sleep and Stress: Treat them as multipliers; everything else will accelerate downwards if we don’t keep a handle on these.
That’s still progress—just a different kind than we may be used too.
The Psychology That Eventually Trips Us Up
Present Bias: If today feels hard, we undervalue modest actions.
Solution: shorten the feedback loop—consider tracking sleep, steps, mood, not just appearance in the mirror. Keep yourself grounded in the reality of today.
All-or-Nothing Thinking: If you can’t do the 60-min session, you skip the 20-min version that’s still available to you. If you can’t make your usual 3x per week, you drop back into nothing, rather than a temporary switch into 2x or even 1x a week.
Solution: Shrink the unit of thinking—something always beats nothing, and often leads to more in the long-term.
Identity Rigidity: “I’m the person who trains five days per week.” Great—until the newborn arrives, or your colleagues are all off sick and you’ve got to pick up the slack.
Solution: Upgrade the identity you have for yourself—”I’m the person who always keeps my baseline” (i.e. your minimum effective commitment)
Define Your Minimum Effective Commitment
When life is full, excellence looks much more like reliability.
Create a maintenance kit for yourself—the smallest set of behaviours you can reliably fall back on that keep the engine ticking over in the background. Don’t overcommit.
Movement
Steps: Ideally 7-8k+ on busy days. Errands, school runs, walking calls, dog walks.
Strength: 2 session/week, 25-35mins, Total Body. Push, Pull, Hinge, Squat, Carry. 1-2 working sets (eg., above an RPE 8, or 2-3 Reps in Reserve) is enough to preserve muscle mass and strength levels for a surprising long time.
Cardio: 2x 20-30mins Z2 (eg., at the level in which you can maintain sentences but aren’t chatting), or a longer, single session at the week’s. Breathe through your nose only to regulate intensity.
Nutrition
Protein Anchor: 1-2 palm size servings per meal (aim ~1.6-2.2g/kg across the day as a loose guide)
Meal Build: Protein + Veg/Fruit + Whole-food Carbs + Healthy Fats
Simple Rule: Ideally don’t let two “off-plan” meals fall back-to-back. Get back on your Minimum Effective Commitments ASAP.
Recovery
Sleep Window: Protect the opportunity (eg., 10pm-6am) even if the sleep itself is broken.
Wind-Down: 20-30mins of light removal (eg., no screens, or red-light shifted), stretching, or reading before bed.
Stress Outlet: We’re looking for something to temporarily replace the outlet exercise was offering us. 5-10mins of breath work, or a short walk outside in nature…
Accountability
Micro Check-Ins: 5min each Sunday—What worked for me this week? What’s the current bottleneck? What’s one tweak I can make as of today?
How to Downshift Without Guilt
Name the Season: Just as my client recognised in their email. “For the next six weeks, family comes first.” Clarity kills guilt.
Write Out Your Minimums: two strength sessions at-home, one long walk on the weekends, three protein-forward meals a day, 7-hour sleep opportunity. Done.
Trim Friction: For the time being… same two workouts each week (aiming to progress repetitions or load), same weekly grocery list, standing walking times (eg., take the dog out at lunch-time each day). Decision fatigue is the enemy in many situations.
Close the Loop Fast: If you miss a day, return to baseline tomorrow. No penance required.
When to Up-Shift Again
Set yourself some re-entry triggers:
Children’s schedules are starting to renormalise.
You’ve finished up a big project and stress levels are starting to reduce.
Energy and sleep are beginning to re-stabilise.
On that week, look to add back in just one dial: a third session during the week, a harder interval attempt, or 10% more training load/volume.
Progress resumes. A period of maintenance makes it possible.
What “Good” Looks Like in a Busy Phase
Body Composition: Stable within a few pounds of where you want to be.
Strength: Lifts are within 5-10% of your known bests on a rep-range.
VO₂ base: One long effort that still feels easy to you; resting HR is steady (eg., within 3-5 beats of “normal” night-to-night)
Sleep: A consistent window for sleep opportunity, even if the quality overall may vary.
Mood: You feel “held together”, not fraying at the seems.
The goal is not to tread water. It’s to move fluidly without aggressive compromise.
A Short Note on Compassion
Our health and fitness isn’t a moral scoreboard. Some months you’ll inevitably be a better coach, partner, friend, manager that you are a recreational athlete. That’s not failure; it’s being a functioning human being. The tricks is in refusing the false choice between “all-in” and “off the wagon”.
Choose the third gear. Drive the road you’re on.
AK.