Do you ever start a workout only to find that you can't put down the performance you want and things just feel like a struggle? Maybe your reps are lower than expected on a strength exercise, or your target pace feels inexplicably difficult. What do you do then?
This post is for the perfectionists out there who will bail out, deciding it's best to try another day when they're feeling fresher and can deliver the performance they want. Yes, dropping out of workouts can be a perfectionist thing.
On the surface bailing out if things feel a bit rubbish might not seem such a bad idea - perhaps you're wondering "what's wrong with waiting until I feel fresher?" There's not always something wrong with it, particularly if this is a rare occurrence or you know for a fact that your body isn't in great nick. Sometimes calling it a day is the right thing to do if you are seriously down on sleep, recovery or general health, or perhaps your stress levels are extremely high and the time would be better spent doing something to remedy that more specifically.
What's not so good is when we bail out because the workout doesn't feel worth doing unless we achieve our target outcomes. To illustrate, I caught myself on the verge of doing this recently - I started a strength session with a set of deadlifts, aiming for around 8 (which would leave about 1 or 2 in the tank at that weight). But I only just about managed 5 and they felt pretty rough. My instant response was disappointment, which is natural given my aim is to progress, but the warning sign was the sneaky "this isn't going to work today, I'll see if I can bring the next set back and if not I'll bin it."
And I almost bought it! But one of the additional advantages of working in the sport and exercise psychology space is that it heightens my awareness of my approach to my own training, so I was quick to go "hold up..." There was definitely an element of fatigue for me in that workout that I knew was a consequence of how busy life is at the moment, and as I said, sometimes it is best to give yourself a rest. But the bigger catalyst for quitting the session in that moment was my irritation about the rep numbers and the way they felt, and the thought behind that was essentially: "there is no point doing this if I can't deliver decent performance." If we drill down into the implicit message behind that thought, it's the idea that increasing my performance every time is the only important thing about strength sessions, and that simply is not true on a physical or psychological level. So I decided to carry on with the session but finish a few reps shorter of failure on the exercises and focus on quality muscle contractions.
What might be the benefits of continuing a workout despite lower performance or energy levels? Firstly, physiological adaptations to exercise occur on a spectrum, to an extent. With strength training for example, you are still practising movement patterns, engaging your core and stressing the muscles somewhat even if you drop the weight or lower the reps. Strength exercises are also skilled movements, so even performing them at less resistance than usual can contribute to neuromuscular efficiency, even if there is insufficient resistance to trigger much strength or muscle growth - it's a form of practice. You could even use tempo as a variable - reduce the weight and focus on super-slow eccentric (lowering) phases with explosive concentric (contraction) phases. Again, this is all contributing to neuromuscular efficiency and coordination.
Or if you're doing some sort of cardio, if you slow the pace or reduce the intensity you're still raising your heart rate and triggering cardiovascular adaptations at some level. These stimuli are not as significant as they would be if things went ahead as usual, but they're not nothing. So there's something here about holding back from taking an all-or-nothing attitude to improvements. The issue with all-or-nothing attitudes is that only accepting the "all" means missing out on all the experiences between the "all" and the "nothing."
There may be psychological benefits in there too, such as opportunities to work on your mindset or honouring different values. For instance, there is personal meaning for me in committing to workouts that aren't going great because I see great value in doing things even when they're uncomfortable and tolerating not having what I want. Equally, there is a self-respect element in doing workouts despite lower performance - that is, I am choosing not to engage with training in a tyrannical manner, but one that is holistic and mindful of the bigger picture.
But perhaps more importantly when it comes to making consistent, long-term progress is that in committing to the session anyway means you are drilling in a habit. In one of our recent blogs I discussed how a fixation on progress every single session can disrupt our consistency, and one of the gremlins behind that is the idea of "there's no point if I don't perform at my best." Consistency, even if all of the sessions aren't perfect, is more effective over time than perfect sessions done inconsistently. There's a reality to acknowledge here which is that you aren't in perfect condition every day, and if you wait for perfect conditions you risk this inconsistency.
Equally, there is a lot more potential in doing regular exercise/training than just performance outcomes - it can be a vehicle for improving the way your relate to yourself, cultivating a better approach to challenges, or establishing the kind of physical foundation that will afford you access to a broader range of activities and experiences throughout the rest of your life. Exercise is a foundational pillar that supports everything else. So if you look at it like that, then yes, unless the workout is going to only wear you down further and you are in desperate need of recovery, it is absolutely worth doing!
So the take-home from this blog is that before you bail out of a workout if it isn't coming off as you'd like, look into the assumptions underpinning your logic. Ask yourself what the implicit message is behind the action of abandoning the workout if your performance isn't as desired, and consider what pattern is being put in place by doing so.
Chloe
Psychology of Movement
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