Is It Okay To Skip A Workout?

Is it okay to skip a workout?

Well, are you sick?

Extremely stressed?

Operating on 3 to 5 nights of minimal sleep or running on 5 hours or less?

Really sore?

Possibly injured?

Been suffering from nagging fatigue for the past 2 weeks or more?

Donated blood earlier?

Hungover as fuck?

Sunburned extra crispy?

Got a new tattoo or cosmetic treatment like a bikini wax, Botox shot, or laser skin peel?

Helped a friend move? Ran a 10K? Performed some other sort of strenuous activity?

Yes to any of those things and you, my friend, should skip your regular workout and take an unplanned rest day.

There are certain times when it’s smart to play gym hooky, such as those listed above.

But if you said no to any of the reasons why you may want to skip a workout out of the blue, then your reason for wanting to do so isn’t legitimate and you shouldn’t lie to yourself that your bullshit excuse is anything but bullshit!

This isn’t to say that you can’t ever skip a workout just for the sake of skipping a workout. You most certainly can decide to forego the gym in favor of doing something else. That decision to miss one workout won’t completely undo your weeks and months of progress. What will ruin your hard work is when multiple workouts are missed.

Nevertheless, when you decide to skip a workout for a reason that isn’t listed above or because of some other extenuating circumstance (e.g. receiving news of a close relative’s death just minutes ahead of your training session), just remember not to fool yourself into thinking that your decision to skip is for any other reason than you simply not wanting to exercise but to instead prioritize something else that’s more than likely not that important to you in the long term.

Glossary: exercise, gym, muscle soreness, rest day, workout

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer in San Diego. He has been lifting weights for +25 years and training clients in the gym and online for about half of that time. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys long walks and leaving buildings crushed and entire city blocks decimated in his wake.

Is It Okay To Skip A Workout?

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