How to Tell If You’ve Had a Good Workout
What’s your idea of a really good workout? If you feel like you have to be in pain after a gym session, that’s not great. If you’re using sweatiness levels as a gauge, that’s…
ISLIP, NEW YORK – JUNE 26: Gold’s Gym members participate in a Zumba class conducted by Fitness Instructor Felicia Brunner in the parking lot of Gold’s Gym Islip on June 26, 2020 in Islip, New York. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that gyms along with malls and movie theaters, will not be permitted to reopen during phase 4 until New York’s Health Department determines if air filtering systems are circulating the coronavirus.
(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)What’s your idea of a really good workout? If you feel like you have to be in pain after a gym session, that’s not great. If you’re using sweatiness levels as a gauge, that’s also not great. Here are some healthier measures to use instead.
- Can you do more than last month? You shouldn’t be thinking of your progress on a short-term scale. Don’t compare this workout to your last one. Instead compare it to the one you had last month or even last year. There are a lot of factors that can throw off your strength day-to-day so it’s really not fair to yourself to judge progress from week-to-week. Stick to those long-term goals.
- Are you putting in the time and being consistent? You shouldn’t be upset you aren’t hitting the numbers you want and just celebrate you’re putting up numbers at all. You worked out, you keep your routine going, and you’re staying consistent. And as you’ll come to find the more you work out, consistency is king.
- Do you feel great? One of the many problems with the “no pain, no gain” mentality is that if you leave a workout feeling great, it makes you shame yourself like you didn’t do enough. But people leave workouts feeling like that have more energy than when they started all the time. It’s also ok with feeling good while you’re working out. It doesn't feel like a low-rent world’s strongest man competition every time you lift. The sooner you can accept that exercise can feel good, and you don’t have to chase suffering, the better off you’ll be.
Source: Life Hacker
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