Putting a crappy workout in perspective....

So, I didn't have a great workout today. Back is usually a great workout for me, but I haven't been eating as well as I should and my sleep hasn't been great the past two nights. So, I had a low energy workout and didn't get to have that great "elated" feeling I always look forward to after good training. I DID hit my target weight and reps, but it felt really heavy and I had the "I don't want to be here" feeling.

I figured I blog some of my thoughts on days like this as they might be useful to someone else out there.

I learned a long while back (about 10 years) that what REALLY matters in your training is the cumulative effect of everything you're doing. I was doing the first Muscle Media contest back in the 90's. This was the first "high pressure" training I had done, in that I had a time line and really wanted to do well. It was a period of about 5 months of hard, committed training to learn from.

Anyway, I rarely - if ever - had a perfect workout or a perfect day of eating or rest. I did have a few and I had plenty that were good to very good, but I used to get frustrated very often beacuse I rarely got everything "right" consistently. "Right" being PERFECT, of course.

The learning in all of this came at the end, when I was in fantastic shape and felt great and had learned a ton about my body and training and dieting.



In the end, I realized that what really mattered was the NET accumulation of good workouts, good diet days and good rest. I rarely got it perfect, but I probably averaged out to an A- or B+ in the end and I got a great result.

Whenever I get down about not having a great workout, I remind myself that I'm still accumulating the workouts I need to get here I want to go in the end.

ttys

Adam

Adam Farrah is a Personal Trainer and Freelance Writer for Mixed Martial Arts, Kettlebell Training, Weightlifting, Bodybuilding, Power Lifting and Nutrition. He serves Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and the online and internet community.

Adam's blogs are alphanolimits.blogspot.com and adamfarrah.blogspot.com.