Monday Motivation: 5 Ways to Salvage Crappy Workouts

Ray Lewis taught us all something about dealing with adversity. The 37-year-old Baltimore Ravens linebacker could very well have played his last NFL game after tearing his triceps in October, but he returned to the field on Sunday after missing 10 games and helped the Ravens stifle the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Wildcard round. One of the hardest hitters and greatest leaders in NFL history, his unforgettable pre-game speeches and unmatched on-the-field intensity are simply inspiring.

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How can we channel our inner Ray Lewis when we face adversity in our strength and fitness pursuits? I recently got my wisdom teeth out, which threw a major wrench in my training and nutrition plans. While it’s no torn triceps (although my girlfriend may tell you I acted like it), it forced me to find ways to make my training worthwhile even when I wasn’t performing my best.

We’ve all been there. You’ve got big plans at the gym. Maybe you’re maxing out on the bench press or seeing how many pull-ups you can do at once. You’ve trained hard for weeks, maybe months, getting ready to hit a big personal record. You walk through the gym doors, highly-caffeinated beverage in hand, in the zone and ready to crush your workout.

But then the unexpected happens. Maybe you tweak your shoulder and can’t bench or your low back is too stiff to squat. Maybe your warm-ups feel heavier than usual. Maybe you slap the plates on the bar, unrack it, lower the bar, and… it doesn’t budge. You miss the lift. After all that hard work, you have nothing to show for it.

What do you do now? It would be easy to give up and go home. But quitting is NOT an option. There’s always a way to salvage a lousy workout and make it worth your time. Unless you’re injured, now is the time to take a breath, refocus and find a way to get better despite the circumstances.

Here are five ways to finish strong when a workout doesn’t go as planned.

1. REPETITION PERSONAL RECORDS

If the bar feels like a million pounds and heavy sets are out of the question, going for a “rep PR” is a great way to make sure you still make progress. Take a look at your log book (you are keeping a workout log, right?) and find a weight that you’ve done in the past. See how many reps you did, load up the bar and do more reps than you did last time. For example, if one week you deadlift 315 pounds for 5 reps and next week you deadlift 315 pounds for 7 reps, that’s a “rep PR.” Simple and effective.

This tried-and-true method is a staple of Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 system, which instructs lifters to attempt weekly rep PRs rather than frequently attempting one rep maxes. It keeps you healthy by warding off lifting too heavy, too often. It builds muscle by pushing you into a moderate rep range. And it keeps you motivated because you become aware of more ways to measure progress than just your heaviest lifts.

2. TOTAL VOLUME

Similar to the first method, you can create progressive overload (e.g. a gradual, systematic increase in weight, reps, etc.) by increasing the total volume you perform. So if wanna do a few low-rep sets of a heavy weight or a few high-rep sets of a moderate weight but those plans go out the window, you can do many sets of submaximal weights for low reps.

For example, Johnny Meathead walks into the weight room planning to squat 400 pounds for 3 reps. He smashes the first rep, but the second rep is a struggle. He racks the bar, knowing he would get stapled to the floor on the last rep. Rather than risk failing with a heavy weight (a surefire way to grind progress to a halt), he backs off to 315 pounds for 5 sets of 2 reps. While 400×3 isn’t the same as 315x5x2, he still gets a training effect and does enough reps at a moderate weight to hone his technique. If we assume his 1-rep max is about 410 pounds, then 315 is between 75 and 80 percent of his max, which is plenty heavy enough to make gains.

Lots of sets of low reps at submaximal weights is the bread and butter of the Sheiko method that I used to set three PRs at my last powerlifting meet. Rather than think you have to go all out with high weights or high reps, meet somewhere in the middle.

3. TRY NEW EXERCISES

Give new exercises a try to help you cope with a crappy workout. Sucky back squats? Try front squats or split squats. Bad bench press? Go with a shoulder press or dips. If you’ve never done an exercise before, you have no previous notion of how you should perform so you can’t be as hard on yourself.

This goes not just for exercises, but for body parts as well. Target weak body parts to make an otherwise lackluster workout more productive. If a heavy leg day goes south, work on lagging muscles like glutes or hamstrings. Shoulder hurts on bench press day? Focus on your upper back instead. When’s the last time you gave your rear delts some love?

4. GET A PUMP

Sometimes you gotta just give in and bro out with some pump work. This is a useful solution if your technique on the big lifts is way off. Squats, deadlifts, presses and the like are complicated lifts that take tremendous coordination and laser focus to do correctly. Some days you can’t dial it in, so rather than perform a risky exercise with sub-par form, use simpler exercises and do light weights for high reps.

The jury is still out on whether “the pump” has any direct impact on muscle growth, but it does bring restorative blood flow to muscles that can speed up recovery and leave you feeling refreshed rather than demolished. Powerlifters often do these as “extra workouts” to help with injury prevention.

Channel your inner body builder and do some easy exercises for a quick burn. Some examples:

• Dumbbell biceps curls
• Cable triceps pushdowns
• Dumbbell shoulder raises
• Band pull aparts
• Barbell shrugs
• Step ups
• Stability ball hamstring curls
• Hanging leg raises

This is a short list, of course, but gives you an idea of how simple your “pump” exercises should be. While they won’t built a ton of strength or muscle, they can keep you from taking a step backwards with a wasted workout.

5. DO A KILLER FINISHER

People love getting their asses kicked at the gym. Nothing makes people feel accomplished like lying dazed in a pool of their own sweat. Many people feel like that’s the only way to validate the workout. Hence why CrossFit, Insanity, fitness boot camps and the like are so popular.

Fatigue is not a worthy goal and does little to directly make you bigger, stronger, leaner or more athletic. But it does have it’s place. If you feel guilty about the effort you put forth in your workout, polish it off with a short balls-to-the-walls finisher to burn some fat and make it feel like you did something worthwhile.

You don’t have to get complicated. Pick an exercise (or exercises) and do it/them for high reps for multiple rounds with limited rest. Sprints, kettlebell swings, burpies, squat jumps, and mountain climbers all make for a lung-bursting good time. Grouping exercises into complexes and then pick an implement (barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, body weight, etc.) is a fool-proof way to make yourself feel fulfilled and miserable. Here’s a sample barbell complex from Joe DeFranco:

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DON’T. GIVE. UP.

Live by these three words and use these five methods to make sure your workout never goes to waste. No one can bring it all day, every day. Don’t wimp out and quit. And don’t beat yourself up to the point where you drag ass through the rest of the workout. Focus on one area where you cannot fail and attack it.