Bad Workouts

Having occasional bad workouts is part of the deal with serious training — and the longer you train, the more frequent those less-than-stellar sessions will become.

“Bad” can be defined in various ways but for the sake of this modification, we are going to use it to describe drastically decreased biofeedback markers as compared to the norm. Once it’s been determined that a modification needs to be made based on poor biofeedback, we recommend isolating the variable with the greatest negative impact and reducing the session’s reliance on it (through as little modification as possible).

Example 1:

You only had 3 hours of sleep the previous night and little food before your session — so your energy is very low. You attempt to work around this by acutely (i.e. only a single session) reducing the set volume to ensure the work you are able to do is as productive as possible.

Example 2:

You are in a caloric deficit and just had a large macro drop — so your strength is taking a hit. You attempt to work around this by acutely (i.e. only a single session) reducing the load you are using in order to more easily get the prescribed volume in without exceeding the prescribed intensity.

This should be an absolute last resort. Exhaust all other resources and efforts before having to modify based on a bad workout.

This is NOT an excuse to leave the gym out of frustration.