It happens to everyone. Coaches and athletes. Life comes at you. Your job status changes. You move. You get an injury. You experience an unexpected life event. Any of these things can and will sideline you – emotionally, physically, or both.

It is a tough battle to fight and it gets harder to come back to your training the longer you are gone. The key is not to let the intermittent stumble become a catastrophic fall. You worked hard on yourself and your fitness, so understandably it is a tough pill to swallow when you have to start over, but you can. Just remember: you’ve done it before.

Who cares if you have to scale the load or the movement? Who cares if your mile time is slower than it was a year ago? Ruminating on the past instead of pushing forward with the future is often the hardest fought battle. The important part is you are back and you are putting in the work. So come in to the gym, even if it is to spend time laughing and cheering on your fellow athletes. Lift a little weight, row a little bit…then add some more tomorrow. Stop comparing yourself to where you were three years ago when life was all roses. Stop beating yourself up on the backslide. Instead, set new goals for yourself that will help you improve from where you are NOW.  If you do that, you’ll be paving the way to new PRs and positive impacts in your life.

The bottom line is no matter what, don’t let yourself get out of the habit. Do what you CAN do. Don’t focus on what you can’t. If you’ve been out of the game for a while, come see us. We’ll help develop a plan to get you off the proverbial bench!