It’s easy to feel discouraged when your workout performance is sub-par. But those workouts can be incredibly valuable in the long-run.

I remind myself that my purpose is merely to stimulate an improvement–not to set records every day.

I’m investing in exercise for the long-term. And while it’s most fun to make these investments when I feel my best, many of the best investments will be when I’m not.

There’s daily/weekly variation in our strength and energy for lots of reasons. Such as when we’re coming back from a vacation, from being sick, or just having an “off” day.

Now, if you’re sick rest and don’t exercise. That’s really important. When you’re sick, REST.

But when it’s time to exercise *after* being sick, you might have a feeble workout. We *are* going to be weaker…exercise will help bring us back up to speed.

The same is true if you’ve just taken a long break from exercise for any reason, injury, vacation, or just not prioritizing it.

It isn’t a great performance that brings us exercise value; it’s the degree of challenge to our current capabilities. When our capabilities are less, we can create a high degree of challenge more easily. That’s the good news.

I find it’s helpful to think of such workouts as “set-up” workouts…

If I’m having a weak and poor workout one day, it seems to set me up for a much better next workout. So, I remind myself that: 1. This is a “set-up” workout, and I’m not comparing to days where I’m at my very best, and 2. whatever extent I can endure today will make the next one much better. It really seems to.

Remind yourself of this the next time you don’t feel like working out, and see if it helps with your long-term investment in exercise.