I wish this is not how life is, but unfortunately, it is how things work. Life will be full of peaks and valleys. One moment you’re on top of the world thinking nothing can stop you. Then life comes along and will always knock you down a few pegs.
This is very true in the gym.
Aside from the stark beginner or newbie who can basically look at a barbell and get stronger…ah…the good ole days…
I have a regular interaction with one of my long-time clients about this very topic weekly.
We were doing a good old-fashioned dumbbell bench press the other day, and he was moving the 95’s pretty well, and that’s what the program called for the day. But things were moving so well that we decided to bump up to the hundreds.
We were scheduled to hit 6 reps, and at about the 3rd rep, his body just said no.
We went back down and finished the rest of our bench session on a high note.
But boy oh boy, if you could have seen the look on his face when I got those 95’s back out, you thought he was going to kill me.
But this is a good learning lesson for individuals because we have to put a few things into perspective:
1. This was his fourth training session of the week, and that accumulation of fatigue definitely had a role in his performance.
2. He was a little undernutrition and slightly sleep-deprived from the night before, and the guy has a lot going on outside of the facility in general.
3. Sometimes it’s just not your day.
At this point, I always try to emphasize that progress in the gym, or life in general, whether it’s weight lifting, learning a new language, dating, or not always upsetting your wife- isn’t going to be linear.
To make it super simple, if I was in my 50s and still moving around 100-pound dumbbells like they’re a pool noodle, I will be very happy.
You are going to have great workouts, and you’re going to have subpar ones. It is inevitable.
(NOTE: I will argue that your average workouts are the ones that do the most for you. Those are the workouts where you show up, do the work, and nothing remotely interesting happens. Then you go home, binge-watch Yellowstone, and call it a night.)
Peaks, valleys, struggles, and wins will be there. However, just as long as that overall trend is inching upward, that’s what we have to keep in mind. Often, it is better to zoom out and look at the big picture overall to really see that progress.
We can triage this another way. Missing lifts routinely is something else entirely and speaks to a much larger systemic issue.
- Poor recovery in between sessions.
- Too much overall volume.
- Not enough DMX.
Remember, not hitting your goal number every single day is not going to set you back. You still showed up and did some work, and that’s not nothing.
Consistency trumps your feelings every single time.
If you want to come in and talk about your feelings, make sure you schedule your consultation using this link!——> https://getjdfit.com/free-intro-social/
