I finally got to the gym after an 8-day uncalled, unplanned and totally unnecessary (but had to live with it nonetheless) break. And as my logic would permit, I would go back three weeks into my training cycle (same weights and lower intensity).
A huge mistake. Four hours later my legs and back are so sore I can barely walk.
In retrospect, I should have lowered the weight as well. Just lowering the reps and sets wasn’t enough. And while I was having those thoughts during training my ego screamed at me “come on, man! You can do this! You’ve done this a hundred times in the past 10 weeks… you can handle it!” So, I listened to my ego and went ahead.
I don’t wish to describe how excruciating the pain is. But then, for people like me… that’s great fodder for a blog post! 😉
I can relate this experience to our daily lives. At times we get so excited about new projects simply because we’ve handled similar projects in the past. We tend to forget about the stresses and pains of initiating, planning, managing and delivering a project until we’re right in the middle of one. And by then, it’s probably too late to back out of it.
My experience tells me that we need constant reminders to ensure we don’t foul up our projects or missions based on previous performances. Particularly when it’s been a while since we’ve been through a similar experience. An 8-day break from a training perspective isn’t a great deal but it literally pays to reduce overall intensity and volume and start from a lower place. It’s better to grow to a higher place and than to be brought down to a lower place.
Start slow, low and work your way up. If you’ve experienced something similar in the past you will catch up. You’ve got nothing to lose but a little bit of time and perhaps a lot more of your life.