What if I miss a session?

What if I miss a session?

We're all busy right? And as much as we prioritise our health and fitness sometimes life just gets in the way. There is a quote from an ex GB rowing head coach from when he was coaching Canada that I love and have paraphrased below:

'An environment is created where we have a goal and we go for that goal. We all have a point of which we stop, where we back off. It doesn't matter how determined you are, what ambitions you have or how much you want to get there. There are times where we will back away from it. It can be for many reasons, it might be that your partner wants you to stay home, it might be that it's cold or that you are heavily fatigued. So we create an environment where the goal is to push that point back further down the line until it becomes that last stroke of an Olympic Final.'

And that's talking about fully funded professional athletes not the majority of us who have full time jobs, dependents or any number of other responsibilities that take up our time. And there is a reality that sometimes life just gets in that way. Maybe something is urgent at work, a child is sick, a friend is in town who you haven't seen for a while, etc. For me personally adding coaching on top of my full time job and a want to train has been difficult and I have had to learn to rebalance what I am doing as well as focus on quality over quantity.

So what to do when you miss a session? Well it depends what it is but ultimately if you are in a place where you're schedule is packed and your are already training the majority of the week then one session here and there missed isn't going to break the bank, you have to give yourself some slack. For me personally, yes I want to be fit and healthy but any thoughts of being a professional athlete disappeared many, many moons ago. So why would I stress out if I miss my 2nd  session of the day because my Fiancé  decided to pick up something nice on the way home for dinner as a treat and wants to have an impromptu date night.

For a lot of us there is the urge to 'catch up'. Sometimes, that might be appropriate, if you missed 15 minutes of heavy squats and you can tag that onto the start or the end of a session then great. There are other times where trying to catch up on a missed session will do more harm than good. Physically it's pretty simple, if catching up means that you are going to have to over train or more importantly under recover then it's probably not worth it as the benefit will be minimal and at times it will even be detrimental. I knew an athlete at university who, if he missed a day of training, would 'punish' themselves by doing a crazy amount of intense sessions the next day which would then wipe himself out of days afterwards making the quality of their training afterwards really low and ultimately resulting in missing another day in the near future… it was a never ending spiral that ended in injury and a substantial time on the shelf recovering. There is then the phycological side, this is arguably the more difficult part…. I get the side of things where you have to have a certain level of dedication to your goals and there will be days (probably a lot of them) where you don't feel like getting out of bed early, or walking to the gym in the rain or the pull of the sofa is just too great. It is easy to fall into a habit of skipping sessions on a regular basis and that, if you have a goal, is a dangerous place to be. BUT… Missing one session here and there is a totally different kettle of fish. An old crewmate of mine used to say ' It's a training plan, but how often in life do things go fully to plan?' the reality is, not that often. So a lot of times the answer if you miss a session is to give yourself a break. These things happen, if you can, adapt your plan if it's an important thing you missed to make sure that everything is still achievable without causing harm or simply just miss that session and carry on with the training plan there after. It's not going to break the bank and there is certainly no need to punish yourself for it. In a world where it starts to happen regularly, step back, review why it's happening and adapt. For example I know that Monday's are my busiest day in my day job and the day I coach in the evening. When I first started coaching I was still planning two sessions a day in on a Monday and consistently not completing them. The reality was that it just wasn't a realistic aim, so now when I plan my week I double up on different days rather than a Monday. I get the same quantity at a better quality because I'm not rushing, doing it tired or impacting any other area of my life. Psychologically I also don't start off the week by missing a session so I am setting myself up for success in more ways than one.

Ultimately the goal is to have a long, happy and fulfilled life and exercise is meant to enhance that, it's meant to be fun, not something that stresses you out. It's why I love the community aspect of CrossFit because no matter what level you are or what your goal is, everyone is in it together. So don't sweat missing the odd session. If you are training 3 times a week and can fit it in another day, great, go for it. But if life doesn't allow it that week, shake it off and go again, missing the odd session here and there, as long as it doesn't become a habit, isn't the end of the world. 

Andy