Gravity Is A Constant
Gravity is a constant. If you don’t believe me, Google the words “gravitational constant” and admire the plethora of results. So why is the bar so much heavier today than it was last week?
It’s not. Something about you has changed. If you’re a good garage gym rat, you kept notes of how you felt so go back and look at how you felt during that session. This is not a waste of time.
You Are Not A Constant
- Were you more well rested?
- More motivated or more aggressive when you addressed the bar?
- Is your technique off today?
- Have you lost weight? It doesn’t take much to change your leverages in certain lifts.
- Do you have some soreness that you didn’t address before training?
- Did you fuel yourself properly (food and water)
- Did you use pre-workout stimulants then but not today? Have you been using preworkout stimulants for so long that the effect is wearing off?
- Did you train to a certain song but today all is quiet in the house except you and the mouse?
- If you train off of percentages of your 1 rep max, did you set that max in a belt and sleeves/wraps but today you’re training no – no – no style (no belt, no wraps, no spotters like Ivan Chakarov.)
Gravity Is A Constant, Everything Else is Negotiable
Don’t dismiss how you feel, just understand why you feel differently today than yesterday and adjust as necessary. Today might just be a day to train the mental aspect of fitness and suck it up, attacking the programmed weight like a savage. Or it might be time to change another variable and either go down or up slightly. Either would make you feel better and make for a better session. Maybe you can’t handle 7×3 at the same weight but you could handle a wave load of six sets where you do roughly the same amount of work but because the load on the bar fluctuates, your body is tricked into thinking it’s an easy.
Or maybe you should just do singles up to a heavy set and call it.
Your house, your rules. Just remember, gravity is a constant but the rest of the world changes all of the time. Adapt or perish.