Although this topic should be a no-brainer, I just need to take a minute to tell everyone who calls teamRIPPED nation home ….. DON’T SKIP YOUR WORKOUTS!!!!!!
If you’re doing the Beachbody program, or any fitness program for that matter, the workouts are pretty crucial piece. Why would you skip them?
Let me be clear, there is a difference between skipping your workouts and truly having to miss a workout. Be careful though when someone says they “had to miss a workout.” Most people’s definition of what they “have to do” is pretty broad and more times than not they are just creating an excuse for why they chose to miss a workout.
Placing Priority on Your Workouts
If you’re skipping workouts or allowing things to come up that make you “miss a workout,” you probably haven’t put a very high priority on your workouts. When I started P90X, there was no way I was going to miss a workout. I fully committed to the challenge and did everything in my power to make sure those workouts happened. What worked best for me (and still works best for me) was to give my workouts high priority in my day by doing them at the very start of my day. I still get up early to spend time in the Word and then head out to the garage to work out. That way if anything extra comes up in my day that I’ve not planned for my workouts won’t suffer.
Skipping Workouts: Mental Setbacks
What skipping a workout does to you mentally can be pretty extreme. As soon as you rationalize one of those “reasons” (COUGH EXCUSES COUGH) for skipping your workout you will always have that rationalization in the back of your head. Often skipping one workout turns into skipping two. Two becomes three and so on and so on. Pretty soon you have only worked out a handful of times in a few weeks and you’ve created a new mental hurdle to jump over every time you actually try to work out.
I think there’s also a mental setback in many people’s nutrition that comes from skipping workouts. When you put in the time and effort to work out it makes you more driven and focused when it comes to what you eat. You have a purpose for your nutrition. That purpose is to fuel your workouts. When you skip workouts it can become easy to let your nutrition slide as well — a double whammy!!
Skipping Workouts: Physical Setbacks
So if you skip a workout you’ve essentially added 600 calories to your day. You would’ve been burning them during your workout, but now that you skipped it your caloric need for the day is less while you’ve continued to eat the same amount calories.
You’ve also missed any opportunity to improve your physical state (let alone probably messed up the order of workouts you need to do to give each body part enough time to rest). Through lifting and working out you are able to strengthen and increase your muscle mass. By missing workouts, you lose that opportunity and the chance to increase your lean muscle mass which requires more calories to maintain (greater metabolic rate and capacity).
Don’t Skip Workouts
At the end of day, it really comes down to your personal integrity. If you say you’re going to do P90X, that means you’re going to work out six days a week for 13 weeks. There is no “I’m going to work out six days a week if it’s easy and convenient in my schedule.” No, if you say you’re going to do it… DO IT! There’s a verse from Matthew 5 that comes to mind when I think about commitment and being a man or woman of your word, and it’s really this simple, “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’” If you say yes you’re going to do something, you’ve given your word so make it happen. If you say no you’re not going to do something (like eat a certain way), there’s no room to budge. Your ‘no’ means ‘no.’ You are really the only person that can hold yourself accountable. It’s your about your character and integrity. So does your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes?’ And does your ‘no’ mean ‘no?’
Talk is cheap if you don’t prove it with action!
Need a coach?
My email: coachwayne@teamripped.com
IG: @wayne_wyatt
