Why Bad Workouts Aren’t So Bad
By admin
I asked my boot campers on Friday if they had any suggestions for blog posts. I get a lot of my ideas from them, my ladies have the best ideas.
It was pretty unanimous, they wanted me to share my “weird eats”, the foods I think are delicious but everyone else turns their nose up to in a skeptical way. Just the face they make shows disgust… the foods I always say “Don’t knock it until you try it!”
It was a great idea, and I’ll write that post in the not so distant future but not today because of what happened as I was walking out with my clients. One turned to me and asked timidly, “Hey, what do you do when you have a bad week?”
I couldn’t shake her question out of my head when I sat down at my computer (sipping my traditional Friday latte). It is Monday after all, so it just makes sense kicking it off with a dose of motivation…
Motivational Monday!
Everyone Has Bad Weeks
Sometimes life happens and it gets in the way of things you have planned. Mentally and physically, every aspect can become affected. Maybe your kid has an event at school so you can’t make it to your workout after work, or maybe you had a fight with your spouse and you just can’t find your workout groove?
It happens, life happens.
When life happens, and things aren’t going the way you want, it’s easy to get consumed with the idea that you’re the only person in the world suffering. You’re not. Everyone has great weeks and bad weeks. No one is going to have 100% perfect workouts. It just doesn’t happen when you’re living a world you can’t control.
If you don’t get your 3 workout sessions in or each workout felt as if your legs were strapped to cement blocks, don’t worry about it. Instead, use it for motivation for the following week. It can only go up from there!
Too many times we let the bad times affect us in a way that carries on into the future. Thinking, “oh last week was bad, this week will be too.”
As the great Henry Ford said, “Where you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” I love that quote.
Stay on the I can side of thinking.
How I Handle Bad Workout Weeks
I’m not going to lie, right now I am riding the awesome workout train. I’ve had a few weeks of solid training and it feels awesome. I’m really concentrating to keep the momentum going but I’m sure I will have a week where things just aren’t going my way.
On those days, I try my best to shrug it off and take it as a sign. <— I’ll explain more on the “try” part down below.
A sign that my body is tired, overworked and not asking, but demanding TLC.
If I miss workouts because of life, I’ll try to see how I can make it up but if not, life goes on. I won’t gain 10 pounds from missing a workout and I won’t lose all my fitness gains. Life goes on. Workouts will go on.
And perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned…
Stop being compulsive about workouts!
How many calories is it burning? How sore am I the next day?
Becoming obsessive about the workout leads to negative feelings and more bad workouts. Instead, I’ve started trusting the training and focus on just the workout, not all the little parts. It makes it so much more free, enjoyable and rewarding.
Those weeks where things just aren’t great become motivation for the future. The following week, rested and ready for action, I’m able to give more, do more and have more energy along the way.
The bad helps fuel the good! They help appreciate the great workouts.
Make sense?
Don’t Beat Yourself Up
I used to beat myself up when a workout wasn’t going as planned. I would push through it, knowing that I probably needed the rest, but refusing to listen. It’s only an hour after all, just get through it.
Exercise is stress. The whole point of working out is to cause damage and stress to the body to promote change… strength, fat burning, etc. And believe it or not sometimes the body does not need that stress! It needs rest and recovery.
Don’t be yourself up, walk away and commit to trying again in the near future. Accept what you can not change…. You’re tired.
Finally Learning To Follow My Own Advice
This all sounds great, right? I’m pretty sure it was only about a year ago that I started following my own advice. Before that, I would push my body through tough workouts even when I knew it should stop.
I would beat myself up for feeling tired or missing a workout. If I missed a workout, I would do double the next day. Even now, after having so many great workouts, I’m finding it hard to step back and lower the intensity to allow for rest, growth.
In the past, if I had a bad run I would let it consume me. I would question my abilities to the point that I was having bad workouts over and over again. It sucked, I was allowing my brain to run my body. I can’t tell you how many conversations I had with close friends about my own personal doubts.
Why were my training runs so slow? Why did I feel exhausted doing something that should be easy?
Because I was letting bad workouts dictate everything! And not truly listening to what they meant… “take a freaking chill pill.”
I finally took one and it feels great.
When you stop being compulsive, then the workouts will feel great.