Hurry up and quit

Sometimes it’s hard to know when to quit. I have been participating in crossfit for about 2 years now and one thing I am finding to be a constant is that I’m always tweaking my body here and there. Sometimes it’s just muscle soreness from doing more work than I have ever done before, sometimes it’s a legitimate injury that is could to take a few days to recover from.  Sometimes it’s a legitimate injury that could takes weeks to recover from.  Muscle soreness is all part of the game, and usually just needs to be worked through. Injury requires time off to heal.

The hard part is knowing the difference.

Life outside the gym is very similar. Sometimes we find ourselves “sore” from the daily grind and what we really need is to push through and get the work done. Other times we are suffering from an “injury” of overwork and what we really need is to take time off to rest and heal.

The hard part is knowing the difference.

As in the gym though, usually the best indicator is our results. If we are grinding day in and day out and don’t have anything to show for it, we might need time off to heal, or at least time to think about how we are tackling the problems in front of us. If we are making slow but steady progress, it may be that we simply need to readjust our expectations of what it means to make progress.