Two training articles ago, I covered the general application of auto-regulation during workouts and covered some the most common ways people can make changes on the fly to their program that allows them to get in an effective workout. Then in my last training article I gave an instance when not making the necessary adjustments can really cause problems. While exploring some of the changes we can make to our training, I did talk about moving around rest days, but I did not address just fully skipping a day. I wanted to address just totally skipping a day as another situation because it is more of a last resort kind of thing and should happen even less frequently than normal auto-regulated changes. This is also relative to someone’s specific plan, some people are on a 3 day training plan and have a lot more leeway to take days off compared to someone who is on a 5 or 6 day plan. There are some instances when making slight changes just won’t cut it.
Every once in a while, sometime throughout my workout I will just hit a wall. I’m not able to hit the weight goals I was supposed to that day or I’m just not feeling it and I get frustrated very quickly. This isn’t something that happens very often, but maybe once every few months for some reason everything just goes to hell when I train. I’m not talking about when there is little deviations, but rather when not only is the weight super “heavy” but I also feel drained/sick/injured. When a training day reaches this point, I will usually choose to either do a little cardio instead of weight train or just totally go home. Now this isn’t something anyone should make a habit out of, but you also shouldn’t beat yourself up to bad if it happens either.
Some of times this has happened to me are when my sinuses have been acting up. One time I vividly remember starting my workout on a Hammer Strength Incline Chest machine and rather than doing 4 sets, I was only able to handle doing 3 because the pressure in my head was pounding so bad. Then I went to try and do some pull-ups but only got through 2 sets before I decided to just leave. Leaving was the last thing I wanted to do, but with how bad the sinus pressure was, there was no way I could even lighten the loads for my exercises and be able to get through it.
Other instances would be when I had a bunch of little things add up to a terrible training session. Rather than having just one or two problems, I would have multiple issues going on at once that made training very difficult. Common problems I would run into would be built up fatigue and poor nutrition for the day. Both of these problems combined with a long work day would cause me to not be able to complete a training session.
The other times that largely stick out in my mind are when I have an injury that begins to flare up more than it should. For about a year I was fighting that back injury I talked about and if I was stubborn and tried to fight through it, I would really irritate it early in my workout and then not be able to complete the rest of my workout. Rather than changing up my workout, I would try to power through and make matters worse for myself. Sometimes even after I would try and make little changes, the injury would just not let up on pain or discomfort and I would end up having to leave earlier than expected.
So if you find yourself in this sort of circumstance, it’s okay to go home. Just because you were supposed to train that day doesn’t mean that you can’t make it up some other way throughout the week. Since just leaving isn’t something that I feel like should happen very often, it shouldn’t make a big impact over the grand scheme of things. There may be particular times when you need to just put your head down and power through, but for most instances when you just aren’t physically and/or mentally prepared to be there, rest may be what you actually need.
If I do just totally leave in the beginning or middle of a workout and do not have any rest days left for the week, I will see if there is any way I can fit in some of my exercises I was supposed to do that day on other days. Maybe I will tack on an extra 2 exercises to my next two workouts to hit the missed volume. I also try to hit every muscle group twice a week, therefore that little bit of missed volume shouldn’t make that big a difference if it happens once in a long while.
To me going home is a last resort action that I don’t usually like to take. But I have also been on the other side of the fence and have found myself in a worse off place because I forced myself through a training session that I should have ended. Therefore you should do you best to power through and grind when you need to, but also know when you’ve reached your limit and need to pump the breaks a little bit.