How to Absolutely RUIN a Workout!

A couple days ago, I decided to do another round of Insanity: The Asylum.  After a couple days off from the program and mixing in some P90X2, I forgot just HOW HARD that program is.  Any time you are working out for 45 minutes plus with hardly no breaks…it’s tough, to say the least!  

However, sometimes I honestly believe that we make our workouts even tougher for ourselves by not paying attention to 3 specific areas that we need to be prepared in before facing a challenging workout.  

When I look back at some of what I consider my worst, least enjoyable, or even flat out miserable workouts…I notice that I have dropped the ball in one of these 3 areas: Physical preparation, Nutritional Preparation, and Mental preparation.

I have found the key to being prepared in all of these 3 areas is to actually schedule your workout ahead of time.  Prepare for your workout much in the same way that you would prepare for an upcoming athletic competition, running a 5k, or even going on a long hike.

We would never just jump into doing one of those things, No…we would get plenty of rest beforehand, we would make sure our nutrition was right on and that we were well hydrated.  Also we would have taken care of things in our lives that could potentially distract us from doing our best and making the most out off the specific event that we are doing.  This is how we must view our workouts.  

Don’t just write your workout off as just something “you gotta do” but place a higher value of importance on it so you can prepare and plan for it properly.  One of the best ways to do this is to…schedule your workout.

SCHEDULE YOUR WORKOUTS

It really is important to schedule your workouts, the week before, the day before…something.  That way you show up prepared and ready to work.

I always try to plan at least the day before when I am going to workout the next day and take the needed steps to make sure that I am prepared when the time comes from a

#1 Physical Standpoint

#2 Nutritional Standpoint

#3 Mental Standpoint.  

Failure in any of those three areas can absolutely wreak havoc on your workout that day.

Last night, I did not follow my own advice…and paid the price!  Here is just a little proof of how I sabotaged my workout last night.

Mistake #1 – Not Prepared Physically

Due to not planning the day/week before, I went into last night’s workout really late.  I did not start til around 10:00pm, which is WAY too late for me because I am normally asleep or at least on my way at that point! (yeah, I’m getting old!)  It is soooo hard to workout or to do anything really that is tough and challenging when you are already being challenged by being TIRED.

That is why it so important to plan ahead of time when you are going to workout so that you show up well rested and ready to go.  Plan it the day before, the week before, the month before…whatever.  Just plan it!

Not scheduling it, at least the day before, is a recipe for disaster for me. I don’t give it my all to the workout and many of the exercises I didn’t finish and several of them were ones that I normally get through just fine.  I was just flat out too tired!  Hey, we are human – It happens…, but scheduling your workouts in advance really helps to avoid that potential pitfall from my experience.

Mistake #2 – Not Prepared Nutritionally

I was not ready from a nutritional standpoint before I began my workout either.  I ate about 30 minutes before working out and that is not enough time in between for me to feel good during a workout.   I ate late in the evening (even after dinner), and felt it the entire workout.

Have you ever done Power Jumps or Mary Catherines with “slosh stomach?”  Not cool.

Other times, I have went into a workout being hungry.  This is really bad too.  The whole workout, you just can’t stop thinking about how hungry you are…just another way to sabotage it and set yourself up for failure.  

This is just another recipe for workout disaster and unfortunately I have done both several times before,  but this time I was just TOO FULL and it added on to the misery of being already too tired and having to face an extremely challenging workout that I really needed to get through!  Big Mistake…

Mistake #3 – Not Prepared Mentally

Once again, due to the lack of scheduling and planning, Thirdly, I had stuff on my mind that hadn’t bee resolved and wasn’t truly able to focus in on the task at hand.  It was really late and I had other things to do and take care of after my workout that could have been done earlier.  These things sat heavy on my mind and burdened me throughout the exercises and tempted me do just do half of my workout (which I did).

We are busy, I know…I have 2 kids and about 3 different types of jobs that I do (including this one), so it’s easy to get distracted and to get off task, but when you are doing THESE types of strenuous workouts…they really demand your undivided attention and to accomplish that I need to plan and prepare for the upcoming workout so I am prepared and ready to just get after it…scheduling and planning ahead helps with that big time!

So there you have it, 3 ways to RUIN a workout, and I happened to accomplish all three and in the same night!  Many people will say, “At least you showed up and did something!”  And that is true…it beat sitting on the couch, but make it easier on yourself If you can by just setting a little time aside to schedule and prepare.

Lesson learned for me…Plan ahead and Schedule, Schedule, Schedule!  Things come up that we can’t always anticipate of course, but scheduling and planning just a little bit ahead hopefully can stop us from sabotaging our workouts by controlling the things that we can control.

Jared Smith

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