A hot topic that has been brought to my attention time and time again from clients is if they are not feeling 100% up to training on a day that they want to train should they take a day off or not. Perhaps they had a long day at work. Maybe they had to work an extra hour or two…Or they broke up with their girlfriend or boyfriend the night before. Sometimes these things might come into play and effect one’s attitude and make them not want to necessarily head to the gym. So I get asked the question, “Should I just skip that day or should I give it 50% of my best?”
In my opinion, you should always commit to a day that you say you’re going to be working out. There’s a few reasons behind this. One reason being that if you say you’re going to skip one day then that trend might continue to the next day. Then you’ll have skipped two days in a row and not just one. Just like many things that occur in progression, if you do more of one thing it’s going to lead to the probability of the other thing occurring more often… and you’ll build a habit out of skipping. In this case, skipping a gym day completely due to some unsuspected circumstances that may affect your mood or your energy levels will lead to another day of skipping.
Therefore, a good way to turn feeling crappy about heading into the gym to the positive, the best solution would be to go to the gym and give your best efforts.
So what if you feel a little depleted? At least get started and go through your warm-up routine and go through the proper exercises that will help you feel better walking out than when you walked in.
There is a similarity to the above-mentioned about “skipping days leads to skipping more days.”
Showing up and giving your best will lead to more days of showing up and giving your best.
Not only will you feel better leaving the gym then when you walked in you’ll also probably remove some of that negative energy that has been haunting you all day.
When you have qualms about skipping days at the gym and not showing due something not going right in your day, the best thing to do would be to follow through with your commitment to your health and fitness.
Everyone always says the hardest part of staying in shape is showing up right? Well the easiest way to get out of shape is to just not show up at all. So do yourself a favor if you’re feeling a little crummy. Give your exercise routine the best that you can give every time that you get in to your workout. Unless you’re shivering from a fever, have a broken leg or bleeding profusely… there’s no reason you can go in and get some physical activity in to improve your journey to Lifetime Fitness.
