Hello, hello, it is Michelle from the Strong and Simple Podcast. Happy to be here with you again. And today we're going to talk about how to assess if you need a rest day or if you need to push yourself to work out when you are lacking quote unquote motivation and push yourself is just lack for a better terminology in, as I'm thinking about where we're going with this episode, because when we are thinking about following a training program, when we're thinking about working out, first of all, there is a difference between a workout, there's a difference between workout, movement, training, okay?

Movement can be literally anything that you're doing to move your strength training, it's a Zumba class, it's yoga, it's rolling around on the floor. Okay. That's movement. All those things are movement. Now, if movement is in a more structured kind of format where you are doing a certain series of exercises or maybe you are at a class, Right? I would consider that to be a workout. The purpose is a workout.

And then training for me, when I'm thinking of those three terms, training is when you may not be training for a specific event, but you're following a structured program that has some kind of goal on the other end. So, excuse me, whether you are training for a 5k, you are training for a powerlifting meet. You are maybe not going to a powerlifting meet, but you are training to hit a new one rep max on your deadlift, your bench press, et cetera. You are training to get stronger and you're following a structured program that's a set of workouts that are designed to help you reach that goal. All right. So for me, training is that. It's very structured part of a larger program with a specific goal and outcome that's beyond wellness.

Okay. A workout is the goal might be to get sweaty, to get your heart rate up. It's good for your heart, right? It's good for your lungs. It's if you're doing strength training, it's good for your muscles. It's good for your bones, right? The workout, like the purpose is overall wellness: cardio wellness, strength wellness, bone health, all these things. You're going, you're moving, you might be lifting some weights, but while there might be structure in the workout, it may not be with this grander scheme of having progressive overload, reaching you to a specific goal beyond, maybe it's weight loss or burning calories, things like that. Okay. And then movement is just moving, we're moving, we're moving and grooving, right? So this is where I kind of think of these three things.

And Sometimes we don't want to do any of those things. Okay, sometimes we don't want to do any of those things and we say, oh, we're just not motivated. I don't want to work out today. I don't want to move today. I don't want to go for my walk. And you know what? Fair enough, because we're human beings and there's different reasons for us wanting to do things. And I use the term motivation, again, for lack of a better term here, because motivation is literally just the desire to do something. And as humans, typically, if there is something that is more desirable, sometimes it's easier sometimes it's like less work, right? It's going to be more motivating to get that like instant gratification of whatever you're gonna get on the end of that activity. And I think we oftentimes use this term motivation to also lump in when we're having a particularly wild week at work and we are exhausted or our kids are homesick and we're exhausted or we're having really bad hot flashes at night and we're not sleeping and we're exhausted, right? And then we're like, oh, and I'm just not motivated to work out. It may not even be that you're not motivated to work out. It might be that there's like other contributing factors that are impacting, that are interfering with that drive or desire because right now your body's like, I want to sleep, right? But then we feel like a sense of guilt or we feel badly about ourselves as a person because we don't have the quote unquote motivation or the drive to push ourselves to do the workout. I hope that makes sense, right? Like there are sometimes these other factors that are impacting us that are greater than motivation or are in fact driving motivation to do something. And that drive is more so than the drive to work out or move or train. And there are going to be times when sometimes you just like don't feel like working out or you don't feel like training. And it can be for any number of reasons.

I think it's really important when you're having those moments, especially, I mean, at any time, but this comes up a lot for folks who I work with who are either one-on-one clients or small group clients or straight up strong members, right? Who are just like, they're training and they just don't feel like doing the workout. And here's what I suggest that they do is just take a moment to check in with yourself, all right? Because there are times when it's okay to check in with yourself and go and do the workout.

And there are times when it is okay, it's actually always okay to check in with yourself and choose to not do the workout or the training session or the movement activity that you were gonna do, okay? It is always okay. You have the autonomy to choose to not participate in that activity, okay?

But when you are training, either for an event or for a goal that you're working towards, there does come a time when you have to assess and find that nuance for yourself of when to sometimes do the workout or training session when you don't want to do it. Because without the action, without the work, just like anything else, you're not going to reach your goal. So if you have some sort of very specific goal surrounding fitness, whether that be some sort of gaining strength goal, being a race goal or event goal, anything like that, you can't reach your goal unless you work towards the goal. Okay. If you are in elementary school and you're learning to read, you need to practice your phonics lessons. You need to practice your reading fluency. As you get older, you're practicing reading for understanding.

When you're in school and you're learning math, in order to be more fluent with your math facts, you need to practice your math facts. So in your fitness world, in order to become faster, stronger, increase your balance, increase your speed and agility, increase your flexibility and mobility, all of these things, in order to do those things to make progress in those areas, you have to practice them. And if you are always missing your sessions, then you're not getting that practice in, and it's going to be that much longer until you reach that goal, which is then going to impact your motivation because you're not getting that gratification of making progress.

So that being said, this episode is primarily geared towards folks, everybody, but if you are somebody who wants to start training, wants to be working out for a specific goal, following a plan to reach that goal, or even if you are working out or doing workouts for overall general wellness you still need to practice. Your heart health gets better the more you practice cardio activities. Okay, so we need to be practicing if we want to achieve these things for ourselves.

So on those days when you don't feel like doing your workout or your training session, checking in with yourself and asking yourself a few questions to check in can be really useful to determining if, you know, you're going to skip that day, you're going to take a rest day, you're just going to take a break that day, or if you're going to just like go and do it and check the box. Because sometimes just going and checking the box is exactly what needs to happen. So the first thing is assessing, are you sick? Okay. A lot of times, a lot of folks are nervous workout session and I think it's also important to acknowledge the times when you should go ahead and miss that workout session. If you're sick, if you have a fever, you should definitely be resting your body. Your body is working to fight whatever is going on in your body. Rest, hydrate, take care of that fever. Okay. If you are sneezing and coughing all over the place, especially in this age of COVID, you should probably not work out in public or at least in a gym, okay? Be respectful of other people. If you have diarrhea, if you are vomiting, you should not be working out. You should be resting and recovering and letting your body take care of itself. So then some other things you could be looking at is what is your stress level this week?

Have you just had a whole bunch of really stressful meetings at work? If are you taking care of your friend's dog and your kids are home from school sick and every, like your whole, your work from home, your whole schedule is all blown up this week. Maybe you need to take this week off and just pick up where you left off on your workouts the next week.

Big secret here that I want you to know is not a secret. You are not going to lose all of your gains by skipping or missing or choosing to rest for a week or even two weeks the amount of muscle loss and progress that you make in those areas after a week or two, you're going to recoup by jumping back into it. And this is going to depend on the reasoning behind missing a week or two. Were you on vacation or were you sick? If you just had COVID or some sort of stomach bug, it might

Especially with COVID, it might take you a while to get back to where you were, but that's because of your body recovering from COVID. That's not because you took a week or two off. If you took two weeks off to go enjoy a European or South American vacation, and you did not work out while you were away, just jump back in where you left off. Okay? This isn't that, this isn't the scenario that we're talking about here. I also don't want to scare you into not taking a rest day because rest days are very important and you'll hear me talking about that. This is how we're determining, should you rest or should you go and work out? Okay, is it motivation or is it something else? So if you're sick, probably take a rest day or two until you're better, right? Or once you're feeling better, definitely no working out if you have a fever, if you are throwing up or if you have diarrhea.

Okay, let your body rest. Let your body do what it needs to do. If you have a cold, there's some nuance here. Again, most people do not wanna be around other people who are hacking up a lung, sneezing all over the place, spreading your germs all over the place, but you might be able to go for a walk or do a lighter home workout, depending on what your endurance and like how you're feeling, right?

So kind of triage that for yourself. Other things to look at. So we're looking at, are you sick? Probably take a rest day. Okay. What is your stress level like? Again, stress can help alleviate, I mean, workouts and training can help alleviate stress, but it also is a stress. So depending on what's going on in your life, if you are super, super stressed out and it's then stressing you out to try to like figure out where to stick this workout in today or over the course of the week, maybe you need to carry your workout down a bit. Maybe you just hit your big lifts. Maybe you just hit the accessory work a little bit harder. Maybe you do less sets, right, and make a shorter workout or maybe you skip the workout depending on what that stress looks like. But you are assessing this for yourself as an autonomous adult human being, okay? Other things to look at. So we're looking at, are we sick? What's our stress level like? We're looking at our sleep. What has our sleep looked like this week?

If we've been sleeping like shit, then that might be why you don't want to work out because your body is like, I need some rest. I don't want to go try to lift 200 pounds off the floor in a deadlift or go for my long run on Sunday. I'm tired. Right? So adjusting yourself to that, looking at what is your sleep and then look like, looking at what your fuel, what your nutrition has looked like. And not just that day.

But over the course of the week, looking at this, have you eaten out more this week than you typically do? Have you actually had less carbohydrates for whatever reason this week and you're feeling depleted of energy? These are all things that can then quote on, like impact your quote unquote motivation. All right. If you were feeling like you don't have a lot of energy, you're feeling tired, you're feeling bleh, sleep, nutrition stress, sickness, all of these things are going to come into play when you are thinking about going to do your training or your training session or your workout. Okay. So you're looking at that.

You're also looking at, especially if you are training for an event that has a deadline, you're looking at the event that has a deadline, Have you already missed some sessions?

Is there an opportunity a different day in the week to adjust some sessions? Right? Maybe you don't do the session today, but you're able to do it tomorrow, and then it still like keeps the flow of your week okay. Right? So these are other things that you're looking at when you're trying to determine should you push through and check the box or take the rest day

So for example, the other day last week, I just didn't feel like, you might laugh at me, I'm laughing at myself, but hopefully you can relate to this. I just didn't wanna like get changed and like I only have to come out to my garage, but I know some people and this is why I'm so grateful that I have the space in my garage to work out and that I don't have to go to a gym because that used to be a huge barrier for me and you'll know why in a second. I came home from work.

It was a pretty busy day, but I wasn't like any more stress than typical. Um, I have been sleeping well, I've been eating well, I've been feeling good. Um, I'm making really great progress with my current training program. I'm feeling pretty good. And typically I'm really excited to come out and work out. Um, but this particular day, I just like, I didn't want to change my clothes and then walk out to the gym and then like do my warmup. Like, it was like all of these like, like I had like broken down all of these other tasks I needed to do in order to then access. It was, I think it was deadlift day and I before I could actually deadlift and like I got into my own head about like all of these steps I was going to need to take before I could just like actually get and do the thing.

I also get like this with grocery shopping. I think I've told you that before. And sometimes I just get like overwhelmed with all of the different pieces that it's then gonna take to like actually get to the like best part of the thing, which can be unmotivating. It's not super motivating. So what I did for myself on this day is I was like, you know what, like you're not super stressed. You've been sleeping really well your nutrition has felt really good, you're feeling energized, you're recovering from these pretty intense workouts really well, your body feels really good. Go change your clothes, go out to the garage and see what happens. And I like kind of made a deal with myself to get myself to each step of the process. Because deep down, I know that if I change my clothes and come out to the garage, I'm going to start moving because I'm here. So I put some music on, I did a warmup, and then I did my workout. And it was actually a really great session. But I also gave myself the grace and compassion and space that if I came out here and started to work out and it didn't feel great, I would just try again the next day because I also knew that I only, I, oh, the other factor was, is this current week is my deload week. So I'm like, next week, you're gonna have lighter sessions. You're gonna be able to, like, you're gonna be moving less weight, less intensity, less reps. So just go out, do this last session of this cycle, and push yourself. You can do this. And like, I had to give myself a pep talk.

Sometimes you have to give yourself a pep talk to just go and do the thing. If you don't do the thing, you're not going to reach your goals. That being said, it can be and, and both. So you can't reach your goals if you don't do the thing, but there's also space and nuance to in any well-designed training program and workout to be able to make adjustments to fit your life. And that includes being able to take rest and recovery days when you need them and move things around in your training overview.

Okay. And this is why it's important to have programs that are sustainable and are not promising you these super quick results in 30 days, 60 days, even 90 days with, you know, no excuses, never miss a Monday. Like that shit is toxic. And it's different than doing the thing to reach your goal because you can do the thing to reach your goal while also not burning yourself out and having space and compassion for yourself as a human being who has a life. If you listen to this podcast, you likely have a full-time job or two. You very likely have children or parents that you care give for and you're busy and you have a life and there's lots of things going on.

Like your life is not working out or training. So being able to meet yourself in the middle with a well structured plan, structured, but flexible. So it gives you the guide. But if you do less sets, so when I create programs for my clients, I generally write it as two to four sets of eight to 10 reps.

And then I add on, depending on what the setup of the workout is, there might be like a finisher or a bonus core block at the end of the workout. So folks have extra time that day, they can do that. It's like a bonus. So there's no, it's not bad if you don't do it and you're not a better human being if you do it. But it's things that are more accessory type work that can help support you reaching to your goal. But there's some flexibility in that if you miss those parts of the workout, it's not going to be the end all be all of your progress. And that's going to look different for different people, especially for folks who are my one-on-one clients and my highly customized clients, like remote clients who get a very customized program because I'm taking into account for you or with you what your goal is what your current level of fitness performance is, what equipment you have access to, what time you have access to, and that's going to ebb and flow from week to week. So that's what you get when you get super cut, like remote, like customized remote programming or one-on-one training sessions. You're getting that structure but flexibility for you, right? But you can also create that kind of flexibility within a program that you're following, if it's a small group program or a do it yourself type of program, a DIY program like Straight Up Strong, I still, when I do programming for Straight Up Strong, folks get a structured program, but I'm still putting in two to four sets or three to four sets. Like there's still some range for folks to be able to work in.

So on those weeks when maybe you have less time or you have less energy, you can still go and do the thing, but maybe you do two sets of each exercise today. And then maybe in two weeks you end up doing four sets of those exercises in that workout because you have more time. You have less meetings that week and you have more time to hit the gym, right? Or maybe you need shorter workouts spread out across the week or maybe you need longer workouts two to three times a week. You can, it can be helpful, especially when you're just getting started, or if you just wanna have somebody essentially like guide you through things. But even when you have a trainer who is creating a program with you, or is training you in person or on Zoom during a live session, you still have the autonomy to choose what is feeling good for you and your body.

There is a difference between accountability and like of a coach and somebody who is essentially trying to be the know it all about your body. You do know your body best. And for a long time, you very well could have been taught and learned and internalized that you don't know your body best. By diet culture, by fitness culture, by infomercials, maybe even by doctors, maybe by well-meaning adults in your life when you were a child. Could be anything, right?

We lose trust in our bodies. We lose trust in ourselves to recognize what is best to do for ourselves. And we feel like we need somebody else to tell us what to do all the time. While it can be helpful to have that map and that guideline of a fitness professional, a nutrition professional, a medical doctor, right? It's your body. And when we can learn to re-tap into those signals that our body is giving us, and this takes practice and this takes work, okay? This doesn't happen overnight. But when we can like re-tap into that and re-trust ourselves, and re-trust our body, to then know like, oh, you know what? I need a rest day today. I'm gonna rest today.

Or you know what, like, I don't really know why I don't want to work out today. I'm just feeling like, I'm just going to like put my clothes on and I'm going to go see what feels good today and kind of feel it out because then that workout that you just go and feel out might feel amazing. It might be your best training session of a cycle. It could also, you could start your warmup and be like, you know what? I just don't feel this today.

But the more you're having that kind of conversation with yourself, you're kind of able to triage through and it's not a perfect science. It's not a perfect science and there are going to be days when you choose to rest and then feel guilty about it.

There are going to be days that you choose to rest and some of that shame comes up like, oh, I'm lazy. I'm so, I can't believe I skipped that session. Blah, blah, blah. That's when you just kind of check in with yourself and you say, you know what? I really enjoyed sitting on the couch and watching, catching up on Vanderpump rules, or I really enjoyed going out to happy hour after work with my friends this Friday instead of running home to go to the gym. Okay. A social life is also a healthy life.

Rest and recovery is also part of a healthy life. So finding that place where you're able to meet yourself with some compassion and when those feelings of guilt and shame and like negative self talk come up, being able to just like kind of check yourself and having a moment, maybe you have to, maybe you do a journal about how you're feeling in that moment and like then coming back to why you feel like that in the moment or looking at the progress that you've made with your training and sometimes being able to look at that data can help us, you know, see how far we've come and how like, if we're telling ourselves we're lazy for taking a sick day, realizing that like, you know what, I've actually worked out an average of twice a week for the past three months or I've worked out, I've done a workout an average of once a week.

That's still good, y'all. Everything counts. So anyways, I hope this was helpful for you. It was a little bit of a little freestyle here. Just, I had this moment last week for myself coming to workout and I thought it might be helpful for you to kind of see how there is this nuance just like everything else that is so often not portrayed on the social medias, on the internets, that there is space for doing the thing to reach your goal. That doesn't have to be toxic because we're also putting some wiggle room and flexibility into that structure. Okay. And this is going to look a little different for everybody.

So if you have any questions or you are interested in working with me, either in a small group or one-on-one in a, in a remote capacity or, um, live sessions. And I could probably, um, chat with you a little bit more about what that looks like. Happy to, you know, reach out Michelle@michellefarrellcoaching.com at or you can reach out to me on Instagram. Happy to have a conversation with you. I do have just one or two spots open right now for one-on-one customized coaching. And that depends on if you are somebody who's looking for live sessions or if you're looking for programming and like remote coaching. And we can talk about that when you reach out. But that depends, depending on what you're looking for is going to depend on how many spots I have open right now. If you are local to Lynn, Massachusetts, I do have some small groups forming. If you already have a couple of friends or family members that have like similar goals, would love to come lift in a small group here with me. Also have some space for that. Email me. And yeah. So I hope everybody has a great day and I hope that this episode was helpful and I will talk to you soon.