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Back in the gym after a break

My wife and I are the owners of MouseTrap Fitness, home of CrossFit Mousetrap.  We are the CrossFit gym closest to Disney, the Orlando Shopping Outlets, and the Orange County Convention Center.  Other CrossFit boxes may claim this on their website, but we think their GPS must be broken.

I have a quick story to tell you that I’m sure you’ve heard countless times before, but maybe never from a gym owner.  Here goes: I quit working out because … 

  • I got busy.
  • I didn’t feel like it.
  • I’m tired.

Food prepping and eating good meals were even more of the usual excuses.  Here were a few:

  • We might as well just get takeout because it’s so late.
  • Katie isn’t home to cook.
  • We deserve something really good tonight.

In addition to owning CrossFit MouseTrap, my wife and I have day jobs.  And those day jobs occasionally require us to work 10 to 12 hour days, travel around the country, or provides some other pressing need that disrupts the normal scheduled programming that is our regular day-to-day routine.  August and September this year was just that.  Katie, the head of sales at the company we work for when she isn’t coaching classes, had out-of-state meetings for several weeks in a row. I had to get our operations teams together so that we could ship all that stuff Katie and her team sold. While we had a record setting month (which is great), I had to be in the warehouse and in contact with the logistics team…A LOT …  in order to support processing and shipping the biggest August in the company’s history.  All of this leads to long hours, missed workouts, and grumpy dispositions.  

Katie and I watch YouTube quite a bit. Rich Froning. Annie Thorisdottir. Tia-Claire Toomey. We are CrossFit junkies and we like to stay up on what they are doing. The other day, as I was being super hard on myself for not getting to the gym as much as I wanted, I realized that none of these athletes have another job that would pull them away from working out regularly.  Working out IS their job. (I realize that some of them coach/run their own gyms or have sponsorship deals, but I hope you get my point. They don’t have a regular 9 to 5 waiting for them.)

But Katie and I do.  And most people do.  Eventually, the demand on my time went down.  Katie’s busy schedule lessened, and now we can spend more time back in the gym, which we are doing.  We’ll be back to our usual 5-6 classes a week schedule and I can’t wait!  

Normal coaches or fitness professionals would give this typical advice:

  • Put yourself first (in this case that means working out above all else).  Always.
  • Don’t make excuses about going to the gym.  Go!
  • Eat clean.  It’s a lifestyle.

I guess my advice to anyone who has had to take a break from working out and is ready to come back to the gym is a little different:

  • Give yourself some grace.  We live busy lives that call on us to do extraordinary things.  It’s okay if you have to take a step back in the gym to spend energy somewhere else.
  • Get back in the gym as soon as you can.  You’ll feel better.  You’ll eat better.  And you’ll sleep better.  
  • Celebrate the athlete you are when you get back into working out.  The athlete you used to be is buried somewhere under all the french fries and cheap Chinese food.  Don’t worry.  You’ll see them again.  Just not that first day you get back to it.  You should welcome the athlete that got out of bed, drove to the box, walked in the door and had a great, safe workout.  

If you’ve taken a break from working out and are ready to get back after it, you should try MouseTrap Fitness, home of CrossFit MouseTrap.  We can modify workouts to fit whatever athlete walks in the door.  We are all pursuing the best, healthiest versions of ourselves. We can help you do that at MouseTrap.  If nutrition is a struggle for you as well, we have a coach on staff and the tools to help you reach your goals.

Thank you for reading.

We’ll see you in the gym.

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