Recently, I decided to overhaul my gym routine. I had been pushing myself too hard and too fast at the gym for too long and my progress had ground to a halt. While I’m still focusing on the same exercises, I’m backing off quite a bit in the intensity. That, in addition to changing my gym days so that I’d have more time to work out, means that I’ve missed a lot of workouts lately. I went to the gym today just to get back in the habit of going their regularly and to burn off some extra energy to help me sleep better.
I’m doing way less weight for many more reps than I did before, so my gym trips hardly feel like a workout at this point. But I know from experience, both in the gym and elsewhere in life, that sometimes I have to take several steps backward before I can begin to take even a few small steps forward. As I get used to doing more reps with the lighter weight, I’ll steadily increase the intensity in the hopes of bursting through my previous sticking points in the coming months.
Since I first started going to the gym in 2014, I’ve made a ton of mistakes and learned a lot from them. Earlier this year, I learned how to keep myself on a consistent gym schedule even after coming back from trips or on days in which I didn’t feel like working out. Something else that I learned years ago is that whenever I get impatient and try to progress too quickly, I always end up stalling and having to make major resets. I hope I’ve experienced that lesson enough at this point to find a good gym routine and stick with it so that I can gradually get stronger instead of going up and down in strength like I’ve done for years now. I always do better when I patiently stick to a solid routine at my job, at home, and everywhere else in my life, so I’m looking forward to trying this out at the gym and seeing what it does for me.