Bad days in the gym are inevitable to anyone who is regularly pushing limits in the gym. I’m sure everyone has heard that there are going to be good days and bad days and that doesn’t specifically just mean in lifting. Although in the world of fitness the way you overcome (or don’t overcome) this “bad day” can have pretty lasting effects in the near future depending on how you act on it.
One of the first things that should be done is to try and recognize why it is a bad day. There can be many factors that can play into a rough workout session. This could be due to lack of sleep, poor diet leading up to the workout, a few days off, not hydrating enough, stress, but whatever it may be you should try and figure out why your performance is not where you’d like it to be. Within all these factors some people may not realize how much some factors can actually affect them. For me I have noticed I always perform terribly in the gym at the beginning, middle, and end of semesters at school. The reason being, added stress from new classes/ changing diet (beginning), stress from mid terms (middle), and lastly stress from finals (end). Although lots of people find the gym to be a big stress reliever I am sometimes unable to overcome this built up stress making my gym performance very sub-par. By recognizing what is causing the poor workout there is no mystery and no reason to freak out and think all the progress you’ve made is slowly diminishing.
Once you’ve identified the issue now its time to get your head back into what you’re in the gym to do. There is no more pitying yourself because you know it’s a bad day, no more dwelling in the fact that your workout so far has been a waste of time. You must find some sort of motivation to try and get your through the rest of your workout. Try more than just one thing. What I used to do was change my playlist, listen to some sort of new music. If I am listening to a mainly rock and roll playlist maybe I change it to techno style music or maybe even tune out music all together. Another thing that helped me get through these bad days is watching other people workout either on my phone or right around me. Go on youtube and watch some workout videos or lifting motivation. Those videos never seemed to disappoint me in getting my head back to where I needed it. For me now I think of my goals (which are written down in my notebook), but I think of what I want my numbers to be for my first powerlifting meet I would like to join and know that taking a day off could jeopardize those goals. This leads me to the next phase.
Change what you’re doing!! (only for that session though!) Many people will tell you to try to get your head right then go pound out a PR on bench press. In reality though, you’re having a bad day, you feel weak, and failing a PPR will bring you right back to phase one (you actually would have probably just up and left the gym at that point). In all seriousness though, change your routine for that day. When I have bad days like this it usually falls on a power day where I am supposed to be strong but when it goes badly I usually change the routine to a more volume specific day that doesn’t take all my effort to finish a set. Also I try my best to stay away from compound movements seeing that they are the most tasking, instead of squats I’d do leg press, instead of bench I do flies. Theres so many different exercises that can be done and thats why bad days in the gym are a good time to go experiment with exercises you may not be used to doing. Maybe even implement some bodyweight work or some abdominal exercises.
If you let the bad day in the gym control what you do it will be harder to overcome it in your next session as well seeing that it will still be in the back of your mind. On the other hand if you take control, get your mind right, and still finish out an effective workout you would have taken a step forward instead of two steps back.
