Not letting workouts get derailed

I think anyone that's ever worked out has been there before - you're all set to go with your workout and something goes wrong.  Maybe you were planning to go for a run but you wake up and your foot hurts, or your treadmill is broken.  Or you were going to do some free weights but the weight floor at your gym is suddenly packed. 

Last Friday morning I woke up and my toe hurt.  It wasn't really bad, but it hurt to put into a sneaker.  So instead of going to the gym, I decided to just do a quick workout at home, where I wouldn't have to wear shoes.  

This is one of the times when it's good to have all sorts of random workout equipment on hand.  I grabbed my Val Slides and my tube with ankle straps (I have no idea what the actual name for this is), and made up a quick workout.  I just did variations on planks, pushups, squats, and lunges, but with the addition of the slides and the tube for resistance, it was actually a decent workout. 

On Sunday, I was going to do an incline walk on my sister's treadmill, but it was giving me an error message when I tried to turn it on.  Apparently, I needed to just hit end to clear it, but I didn't know that and didn't really try all that hard to get it working.  So, instead of an incline walk, I decided to just push the treadmill belt, without it being on.  And then I threw in some squats and lunges for good measure.  And then added on a P90X abs video on the end.  It was actually a hard workout, especially pushing the belt. 

I used to be really bad about adapting my workouts.  If I couldn't do what I wanted to do, I got flummoxed and half assed it for a little while and then just gave up. But I've learned that sometimes, you need to adapt.  

I find that usually the easiest way to adapt is to try to sub out something that's still pretty close to what you were originally planning to do.  So, when I couldn't get the treadmill working, I just used the treadmill in the way that I could get it to work.  If I were at the gym and couldn't get the pull up bar, I might sub that out with inverted rows on the smith machine. 

The other thing that's useful when you're changing things up on the fly is to listen to your body.  If you were planning on doing a treadmill workout but your knee starts hurting, then hit up a bike for a while.  Or do an abs and arm workout. 

By no means are all of my workouts awesome - I still have days when I don't feel like doing what I was planning to do but I can't come up with something else that I want to do.  Or just when I'm not feeling like working out at all.  But I have gotten a lot better about not letting one little setback derail me.  Which is progress.