Nicole
You have your workout gear in your car. But that meeting at work ran late and you have other critical obligations. The workout that was going to happen didn’t.
We all have that scenario – we miss a workout for some reason. And because a lot of us like to get the work done that we’re supposed to do, we don’t want to miss anything, so we try to make it up. This, however, is not always a good idea. If you are working with a coach, ask them! If you aren’t, here are some simple guidelines on when to make up a missed workout.
- You missed a workout because you were sick.
- Skip it. If you just missed a day or two, and weren’t terribly ill, just pick up where you left off. If it’s a more severe illness, then you’ll want to ease back into your plan, but don’t plan on making up what you missed. If you were sick, you need rest to get healthy, not additional training load.
- You missed the workout because you were tired.
- Skip it. Your body was telling you that you needed more rest, so just get a good night’s sleep and pick up the plan where you left off. If your body was tired, you don’t need to add additional load to it.
- You miss the workout because of a life obligation (work, family, etc).
- Make-up possible. In this case you might shuffle the schedule a bit if this workout was a quality workout (ie intervals). But don’t double up quality days just to get it in.
- You miss a workout because you didn’t want to do it.
- Make-up possible. But this would also be a good time to review your training goals and your motivation for your training.
When is it OK to double up?
- If the workout you missed was a shorter or easy or technique focused session, it can sometimes be just fine to add to another day to get more than one workout in if you have time for it. If you don’t, just let it go. It’s OK. Really. I promise.
- If the workout you missed was a quality session and you are rescheduling it, don’t put it on the same day as another quality session. Your body will thank you, as will you, as that second quality session probably won’t be as quality as it should be.
- Unless you are used to multiple workouts in a day, don’t plan for more that two sessions, and one of those two should be easy.
When in doubt, leave it out, and just pick up tomorrow. The occasional missed workout won’t have any significant impact on your training plan, and it might actually help if you need a day of rest. If it becomes a habit of missed workouts for illness, work or other reasons, you will want to reassess your goals and/or your training plan to make sure everything is in alignment. What you want, your abilities, and what you realistically have time for.
Have you missed any workouts lately?
Nicole
