Stick to the plan, unless someone keys your car!

Most of the time, people come to the gym for results. They have a specific(ish) goal of what they want to look like or how they want to perform in athletics or something of that nature. Chasing goals involves formulating and following through with some form of plan. But what about those times when you go in with something different in the back of your mind? Something happened at work and you're not happy about it. Fight with a friend or family member. Someone backed into your new car. Stuff like that...

The plan might exist but it goes all to hell when you get under a bar or lace up your shoes. I've had plenty of those moments, and seen quite a few from others. I've walked out of the house and run 8 miles straight (for those of you who know me, you know that's NOT normal and I sure as hell didn't train for it), I've unracked a bar to do a set of 5 squats, and fallen into the rack barely breathing after 30 reps. I've watched a friend get onto the Jacobs ladder and get off 4 hours later stumbling and half dead. Unplanned 1,000 lb prowler sessions, 100+ rep leg press drop sets that nobody planned on. Stuff like that. There's a certain place your brain goes during bad ideas like this, and it has nothing at all to do with ones training plan. It's an instinctive form of therapy that only a select few understand. Meatheads like myself refer to it as the "void," and I'm sure many other names. I'm sure a few of you have names for it of your own. It's a powerful tool, but it should be used sparingly. 

Going into the void is a great release from life's occasional clusters, but it's generally not a particularly productive activity. We should always seek to push the boundaries of our physical capacity, but forays into the void are the kind of things most mortals don't recover very well from. A strategically planned training template pushes the body but allows room for recovery. So, moral of the story, sometimes it's perfectly alright to throw the plan out the window and relieve some stress under a bar or otherwise during training, but be mindful that going all out crazy all the time isn't as productive as it might sound like. You progress by recovering from training, not from walking out "demolished" or "gassed" or any other super hardcore sounding term that describes your close call to rhandomylesys!

Steve Decker