What do you do if your Functional Training session ends in failure?

We have all been here! Failure is only failure if you do not learn from it. When a session does not go the way you had expected take time to honestly reflect. Did you not eat enough? Are you dehydrated? Did you sleep poorly? Are you extremely distracted? There are some many things that can impact your performance. Understanding the reasons why it didn't go well can help you prepare for future sessions. For example if you didn't eat enough, keep some energizing snacks in the car to fuel you up on the way to the gym. If you didn't sleep well, maybe you adjust the workout and decrease the intensity. If you are extremely stressed and distracted try going for a run. Life happens; so when it doesn't go well adjust the best you can!

It might happen that you did not set a goal or the goal wasn't inspirational enough to stay motivated. Although there is no secret formula to set the right goal, anything that makes you feel inspired, could be the right goal! Quite often, people get sore muscles and the pain takes away all the fun, so go easy, let your body get used to the change slowly. Its a good idea to find a group or a partner to start or restart your routine, this works when the chips are down and you need that push on a day you are feeling low!

Assess your performance objectively without being too hard on yourself. Consider factors such as your energy levels, nutrition, sleep, and stress, which could have impacted your workout. Work with a fitness professional to ensure that your form is correct and that you're not pushing beyond your limits too quickly. It's crucial to set realistic and achievable objectives that match your current fitness level while still challenging you and ensure you're giving your body enough time to rest and repair itself. This might mean incorporating more rest days into your routine or focusing on activities like stretching, yoga, or foam rolling to improve flexibility and reduce muscle soreness.

1. Assess the situation: Reflect on what aspects of the session didn't go as planned and why. 2. Identify contributing factors: Determine any factors, such as lack of preparation, unforeseen challenges, or client feedback, that may have led to the failure. 3. Learn from mistakes: Take lessons from the experience to improve future sessions, whether it's adjusting your approach, refining your skills, or better anticipating potential issues. 4. Seek feedback: If applicable, ask for feedback from clients or colleagues to gain insight into what went wrong and how to prevent similar failures in the future. 5. Stay resilient: Understand that failure is a natural part of the learning process and use it as motivation to persist and grow.

One bad session could just be an off day. If you are consistently finding your sessions a struggle to complete it is time to reassess and adjust. A constant path of struggle can cause you to lose motivation and become frustrated. Make sure your goals are realistic and achievable. Take a look at where you are going wrong. There is a good chance you are trying to do too much, too fast. Break goals down into smaller more manageable steps. Doing this can help increase motivation, drive and best of all progress. You can celebrate and enjoy the process instead of dreading it!

Recovery is just as important as the training session itself. Recovery days should be programmed into your routine. If you do not give your body proper rest your body cannot repair and grow. You also put yourself at a high risk of injury, fatigue and burnout. None of those will help your progress, they will just hinder it. Incorporate activities like foam rolling, massage, stretching, walking, etc to help the body recovery. Also be sure to give your body a full day or rest here and there. Proper recovery can keep you motivated and actually increase your progress.

Make sure you're actually enjoying what the activities you are doing. If you absolutely hate the exercises you will not look forward to doing them. You will dread them. Besides dreading your workout you will also most likely go in with a negative attitude. In my experience negative attracts negative. When you do not go into something with the right mindset you are at a high risk of things not going well.