Exercise—The Activity Where Failure Is Still Success

Anyone who ever developed a semi-regular habit of exercise has experienced a “weak day.” Hopefully you know what I’m referring to. A “weak day” is the kind of day where you start your exercise routine—be it at the gym, at home, in the pool, on the street, or wherever you exercise—and simply can’t do as much as you’ve done before. You can’t lift as much weight, or you can’t run as far, or you can’t do as many push-ups, and you get frustrated. You feel like you’ve failed.

I had a weak day this morning. I sensed it as soon as my 6:00 AM alarm sounded. Normally, a few reps into my workout I can shake it off, but not this morning. I couldn’t lift as much weight as I normally do. I couldn’t push myself as hard during my run. Heck, I even feel like I’m about to fall asleep while writing this post! I just feel low on energy.

Weak days most often occur on “Low Days” (low carb days for those of you following the Chris Powell carb cycling program from Reshape The Nation), but they can also occur on High Days. Their causes can be as obvious as limiting your carb intake or over-exercising (yes… it is possible!), or as nebulous as stress, distractedness, and probably even the alignment of the stars (though I can’t be sure on this last one). Lucky for us, when these weak days occur—when we fail to exercise as successfully as we normally do—we’re actually still succeeding.

Exercise isn’t meant to be easy. If it were, I suppose it wouldn’t be called exercise because we wouldn’t be exerting ourselves… we’d call it “relaxercise,” and that just looks ridiculous! Instead, exercise is hard and hard things often lead to failure (perhaps the only lesson I still remember from my freshman year organic chemistry class). But in the case of exercise, the real goal isn’t numerical—to run a faster mile, to lift more weight, or even to lose pounds. The goal of exercising is to improve the overall health of our bodies. As a result, success isn’t determined by numbers, it’s determined by the act of exercising. When we “fail” to achieve numerical success while exercising, we’re still achieving the more important success of improved and sustained health and happiness.

Comments for "Exercise—The Activity Where Failure Is Still Success"

Leave a Comment