We all experience off days where we just can’t seem to focus or zone into what we want to do, its part of life and something which needs to be acknowledged and taken into account in order to keep our progression going. We are only human and cannot expect our bodies or minds to always perform at 100% throughout everything we put them through.

Its all about balance, you cannot have the good without the bad, the rainbow without a little rain. You will experience great days and not so great days.

The problem comes in when your mind starts to doubt yourself and wants you to be lazy. What this means is that some days you will get to the gym (or whatever training you enjoy or even work, solving problems, dealing with people etc) and your mind will just not be in it as usual, or not be in it like yesterday when you rocked up and had more energy than ever and accomplished everything that you wanted to.

You will feel a bit sluggish and may not be able to do what you normally do or push the same heavy weight that you normally can. You will feel like not even venturing to the gym and may decide to skip it altogether.

Usually this is because of one of two things:

• Firstly if you are really downright tired and exhausted or sore, it could be that you just need a break to give your body, muscles and mind a breather.
• Secondly, and what we are focusing on here, is that you are just “not in the mood,” and have that lazy feel where you just want to take it easy and not really gym too hard or do anything at all.

Yes, it is not a bad thing to take a break for a day once in a while, but in such a situation it is always better to do something than nothing.

There’s no way that every training session will be perfect. Many guys always want to go into every gym session, every day and push heavy weights and the same heavy weights every single day. Or perform an exercise or technique perfectly every single training session. Of course it can be done for some time, but inevitably there will come a time where you find yourself lacking in motivation or lacking in a bit of strength and focus.

It is a tough realisation to accept, but it is the truth and the sooner your accept this, the sooner you can learn to adapt and change up your training style to cater for such days.

There are so many contributing factors which can play a role in allowing such to happen. For instance a stressful day at work, a poor night’s sleep, not taking in enough food on the day, your gym partner couldn’t make it. These all can take a strain on your mind and cause you to lose a bit of focus, which translates into motivation and strength in training.

Understand that it happens and that you probably won’t have the same strength or stamina as yesterday, but go in there and give it all you have. Even if you cut the time in half, or drop a few sets, but as long as you get it done, and get something done.

Remember that all such training sessions add up. So even if you just focus on one technique or exercise or the first few exercises of your programme on days like that, it will all add up as opposed to skipping it entirely and not doing anything at all.