What to do when having a bad session

We have all had training sessions where you can’t do something you did the week or even month prior with ease; where you are missing lifts that should be warm ups or where something is hurting that hasn’t hurt before. What should you do if things aren’t going to plan? I have two different strategies and variations on those depending on where you are in a training cycle.

Inspired by The Sinclair Debate’s recent podcast where Ramsey talked about avoiding having a bad session by being a bit less dogmatic and Gareth agreed that weightlifting shouldn’t be ruining your day or week. (For anyone who hasn't heard it; it’s a no holds barred chat between two British weightlifters who love the sport. Very entertaining as well as interesting for those interested in the UK weightlifting scene*)

Strategy 1: What I chose to do.

Note that I said ‘chose’. It’s a personal choice. I’m not a professional weightlifter, as is the case with many if not all of you. So everything we do, we are choosing to do as a hobby or recreational sport. This means that even if you compete, you’re doing it for pride, fun and a sense of achievement not to put food on the table. Bear that in mind when picking a training programme and strategy…

My time is limited and my training opportunities more so. At the moment I have 3 days in which I can comfortably fit in around 90-120mins of training. That means that missing a session or having a bad session costs me 30% of a weeks training. Quite a lot in my mind. Therefore I’m a little more rigid and stubborn in my determination to train even if its not going great.

My approach therefore when I can’t achieve the planned numbers is to have a bandwidth. If the programme wants me to hit 3 x 2 snatches at 85% but I can’t, I’ll look for the closest, easiest, next best option. I may attempt 6 x 1 snatches at 85% instead. Equal volume but easier to achieve. Or, 3 x 2 snatches at 80-83%. In my head I keep an eye on quality as well as having a baseline. I know for example that snatching 3 x 2 @ 70% can still be useful for technical improvements but its far less similar to the planned stimulus so is it really worth it?

Somedays we haven’t slept well, eaten well, drunk enough water - whatever the reason is - we can’t hit 75%. It’s an anomaly and a sign of fatigue or a big error, so are we going to bang our heads against the wall and add more fatigue or are we going to move on and do better next time?

Ramsey made the point that sometimes it is best to call the session what it is and just go home. This is strategy 2 for me but less than ideal as I can’t usually fit the session in another day - it’s lost training time for me. Instead (and his second point) it could still be beneficial to do your pulls, squats or accessory work but leave the high skill and high speed dependent comp lifts.

Snatches are reliant on being fast and fresh, especially at high percentages. Cleans can be ‘muscled’ through a little more and jerks (for me at least) are only good when feeling great. Often if I have to skip snatches or modify the programmed %, I can still hit the cleans as prescribed. This will differ depending on where your strengths and weaknesses lie. You can discuss with your coach and even have a chat about a potential back up strategy for when things aren’t going well.

However, I don’t love the idea of giving people an easy way out. If you are the kind of lifter who will aim for the lower rep range, lower percentage bracket or longest rest periods possible, you have to be sure you’re not just wimping out of a tough session. Experience is usually the best way to know this but there are a few methods you can use when starting out. Remember it’s been shown that your 1 rep maximum can fluctuate by as much as 15% on any given day. So it stands to reason that some days 85% is literally the best you can do.

Go down and come back up:

Best used when you are missing because of a technical error not just because it feels heavier than normal. I like to drop back to the last weight that felt correct and then come back up in slightly different increments than before.

Hit one set as prescribed then back off:

If everything is feeling harder than you think it should, you could just be tired. Better to do one really good set at the prescribed weight and then back off 10-15% to get some practise reps in than write it off altogether. This way you’ve still had an exposure to the hard set but it won’t fatigue you as much as doing all the volume there, allowing for the extra recovery required for next time.

Break the sets (use clusters or EMOMs)

More like what I described above - changing 3x2 into 6x1. Or some other permutation of the volume. Can be really useful for the confidence and make the next session more successful as you know you can do that number of reps at that weight. This is my go to strategy usually because it takes just as long if you cut the rests into equal parts and it lends itself well to when you just didn’t sleep much the night before.

Use RPE & RM instead of %RM

It sounds a bit more complicated but for the more experienced lifter it can be useful. I you know that 3 squats at 80% is on a good day a 7 RPE. On a day that you’ve been asked to do 3x3 @ 80% you could just do whatever weight feels like an RPE 7 that day. It could be a lot less load but you may still get the same stimulus from it due to the daily fluctuations in absolute 1RM/100%. I think this works better in younger lifters who can handle more volume on the whole, and for female lifters who handle volume well.

Go home

Sometimes however you really just don’t have it in you to get anything useful out of training. Better to be honest about it and not have it ruin the rest of your training-week. Maybe just stretch or do abs and lower back; some easy accessories that will be positive long term. Ultimately don’t miss lifts or run yourself into the ground and get injured.

Ultimately you are there training by choice because you enjoy it or the result. If that’s not the case, just go home and rest anyway! I hope instead, you can try one or all of the above strategies at some point although that does mean having a bad day in the gym - inevitable for us all I’m afraid!

References:

Hornsby, W. G., Gentles, J. A., MacDonald, C. J., Mizuguchi, S., Ramsey, M. W., & Stone, M. H. (2017). Maximum strength, rate of force development, jump height, and peak power alterations in weightlifters across five months of training. Sports, 5(4), 78.

Thompson, S. W., Rogerson, D., Ruddock, A., & Barnes, A. (2020). The effectiveness of two methods of prescribing load on maximal strength development: a systematic review. Sports Medicine, 50(5), 919-938.