Don’t Let Monday Ruin the Rest of Your Training Week
Written by: Coach Slater
If you’ve been here long enough, you’ve probably picked up on this trend: the gym is PACKED on Monday, yet strangely not so busy on Tuesday. Monday, it looks like we need to add another three wings to accommodate all the people. Tuesday, you’ve got more room around you than you know what to do with. Then, on Fridays, attendance nears the Monday levels.
Here’s a look at a few months of check-ins. You can see that certain classes have certain trends.
Notice how Monday has the largest attendance at virtually every class time? I don’t know exactly why this is happening, but what I fear is… people are coming in Monday, going super hard to “make up” for some poor lifestyle choices they made over the weekend (eating poorly, drinking a little too much, staying out too late), getting blown out as a result of not “easing” back into it, and then their Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurs…. hell, the entire rest of their week is ruined, until Friday when they’re like “I gotta get in a workout before the weekend”, and then the whole process begins again. My apologies for the run-on sentence. The point is: going too hard on a Monday is ruining their week.
So, if this hypothetical person is you, let me suggest something: Don’t Try to Make Up for Lost Training.
Don’t try to “make up” for your poor decisions from the weekend. Squeezing in extra intensity (or volume in the form of extracurricular running) is the quickest route to overtraining and injury. Four days of above-average workouts are better than three days consisting of one hard day and two mediocre days.
If you’re new to this fitness game, you’re trying to teach your body the “new normal” by attending frequently and consistently. When you’ve been mostly inactive for months or years, hitting the gym hard one day and then resting for three days means your body thinks it has no reason to change its normal procedures. It has no reason to adapt. But, you want it to… that’s the whole reason you joined here! So, consistent attendance is the key at the beginning.
On the other hand, you folks who have been consistently attending 4x and 5x/week for years, don’t stress if you need to miss some workouts. As a general rule, the fitter you are, the longer it will take your muscles turn to flub. Your physique doesn’t like change; it’s constantly trying to achieve homeostasis. So the longer you have been exercising (and the fitter you are), the more time it will take for your body to say, “Well, I guess we don’t need to build muscle any more.” Your normal is much different than the first person in this scenario.
Be consistent. Be humble. Be hungry. Then be impressed by your results.