Bad Workouts

BAD WORKOUTS

By: Rick Moore

You can string together 3 muscle-ups at the drop of a hat, yet today you can’t get one in the WOD. You just missed 3 straight attempts at 70% of your 1RM snatch. It’s PR day and you only increased your max by 5 lbs. In other words you’re having a bad workout today. It happens to all of us, no one is faulting you, but depending on how you handle it is what matters.

I’ll admit, I’m one of the ones who sometimes can’t handle it. (Just ask some of the other athletes and trainers who have been working at CFMK since the beginning.) I’ve yelled at myself, ripped off my wrist wraps, stared at the ceiling in utter disbelief…I am my biggest critic when it comes to what I think I should be able to do. If I can’t get that muscle-up or hit that snatch when I know I can, it frustrates me to no end.

I’m constantly working on ways to keep my cool. Sometimes you just need to laugh it off. Maybe you need to take a step back and think the movement through. Ask a coach or other athlete around you what you may be doing wrong. Perhaps the best thing to do is just swallow your pride and scale the workout. There’s no shame in that.

Even the Rich Froning’s and the Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet’s of the world have bad workouts from time to time. They’ll be the first to tell you. They’re not going to get 100% of their 1RM on their lifts on every attempt and neither will you or I. Take a step back, take the time to dissect what went wrong, and hit it harder in the next workout or the next time that lift or movement comes around.

I know there aren’t a whole lot of athletes at Max Kane Health & Fitness who suffer from this, but if you do, take it from me…letting everyone know that you’re having a bad workout by yelling profanity at the top of your lungs isn’t exactly very professional and frankly it’s just douchey.

I’ve told everyone I’ve looked like a tool while doing it and have no problem admitting it. Keep cool, take a breath, and go at it again. If that doesn’t work, tomorrow is another day. You’ll have a whole day to reflect and recover and get back on the horse. It’s not necessarily life or death if your squat only goes up 5 lb. after a 10-week strength cycle. Try it again the next week and you might get a better result. In the meantime, keep doing your own research on getting better and ask your coaches for advice. That’s why they’re there. So get up, dust yourself off, and get back to being awesome.