I found myself in the gym this morning with all of the external conditions pointing towards the opportunity to do a workout (which with two little ones is really rare)
Zoe was at nursery
Sky was at my mum’s house
My usual Monday clients were on holiday
I was free and clear …
But what I wasn’t was energised 🤣
We’ve had a week from hell with coughs and colds, lots of wake ups in the night from both of the kids and just a steady consistent draining of our energy and motivation
I felt completely flat
And this is what I wanted to highlight today for anyone who is struggling with sleep deprivation and the lack of energy that you feel day after day after day when you’re not getting the rest that you need
Just because the opportunity presents itself to do something active doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for how you are actually feeling that day, and what your body actually needs that day
Whenever my members come in feeling a bit under the weather or having had a few nights of bad sleep, or a bad day at work, our gym rule is to complete the warmup and then reassess whether carrying on with training is the right idea or not
So I took my own advice. I dragged myself off the floor and started going through my warmup routine, which requires no mental energy because it’s basically the same set of mobility and activation exercise exercises that I do every single time I have a workout
It takes 15 minutes and it’s very gentle, so it doesn’t make things worse if training really isn’t the right thing to do on that day
As it happens, I did start to feel a lot better once I shook the cobwebs off and I did manage to have a workout
It wasn’t as long as I might have hoped
It wasn’t as intense as I might have hoped for
But what it did do was take care of my body and my mind and my energy at the right intensity and volume for what I had to give today
We always encourage our members to tune into how they are feeling and listen to their bodies signals to make the right decision decisions about how to train
It’s all very well following a periodised, progressive training plan to get results and this is definitely backed up by the science (which we always try to honour)
But we are humans who need sleep, fuel, hydration and nurturing and all of these things affect the decision about what type of training and how intense the training should be
Our fundamental motto is ‘be kind to yourself’
I hope that helps someone today
Nicola 💚