Too exhausted to take my own photo. Courtesy of Wikimedia.
Yesterday morning I slept in. The night before I forgot to swap out my dress watch for my casual watch, which meant that I didn’t have a wake-up alarm on my wrist. I also forgot to set up the coffee pot that night. I just staggered off to bed without my usual prep.
So, instead of getting up at 4:30 and starting my workout by 5:15, I didn’t roll out of bed until 5:30. I awoke with a headache and a stiff neck. My arms and legs felt heavy and my head was foggy. I made coffee and performed a self-check.
I asked myself,
Over the last 7 days, how many of these have you experienced?
- Headaches
- PR failures †
- Concentration lapses (daydreaming, dropped tasks, missed to-dos)
- Diet transgressions
I counted 3 headaches, 2 failures to PR, 4 concentration lapses and 2 diet plan transgressions for a total of 11. In a typical week that total is somewhere pretty near zero. The message was clear — I’m over-training and I need a break. So I didn’t work out this morning and I’m going to take off a few days to rest.
Everybody’s different, so your self-check questions may differ. Feel free to share them in the comments below if you have other ideas. Bottom line: you need to be sufficiently in touch with your body-mind-spirit that you can tell when it’s time to rest. Or, as the the great American sage Kenneth Ray Rogers famously expressed it in what I like to call The Rogers Axiom,
“You gotta know when to fold ’em, know when to hold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”
And now for the Cabal Fang Workout of the Week.
Cabal Fang Workout of the Week #45
Perform the above self-check. Are you over-training? If not, go get one of the constitutionals off of the Cabal Fang website and get it done in less than 20 minutes. If you are over-training, take a flipping break. Cabal Fang is full-context martial arts. You don’t have a title on the line and there’s no Olympic medal in play. You’re not in a self-defense situation and you’re not fighting for your life. In fact, if you’re walking around exhausted you’re not in optimal condition to protect yourself or your loved ones. Rest up.
† “PR” stands for “personal record.” In a progressive workout plan, such as weights, running, etc., you should be striving to PR every workout. Either in weight or reps, time or distance, etc.
In Cabal Fang the hourglass symbolizes our foundations in Hermetic concepts. What’s 
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Heavy bag ziggurat for form and fitness. Set timer to beep every 30 seconds. Punch and/or kick heavy bag with perfect form for :30. Complete as many Burpees as you can for :30. Then strike the bag for 1:00 and do Burpees for :30, followed by 1:30/:30, 2:00/:30, and the back down again — 1:30/:30, 1:00/:30, :30/:30. Total = 10.5 minutes. Take as few 12-second breaks as you need to finish standing up. How good is your form when you’re exhausted?
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