The other night I was awakened at 3 am…

My three-year-old was standing at my bedroom door in tears.

She had woken up from a bad dream and was scared, so I took the next thirty minutes or so to help her get back to sleep.

By the time I got back into bed, I was wide awake. I tried all my normal tricks for getting back to sleep…

Relax every part of your body, meditate, roll over, go to the couch, etc., but once the clock hit 4:30 I gave up and started my day.

Now, I was planning on doing a pretty intense, heavy weight lifting session. However, I was aware of my lack of sleep and I felt significantly more sluggish than a normal day.

I’ve done enough workouts at this point to have learned my lesson that super intense workouts, combined with subpar recovery, are a potential recipe for disaster.

So instead of doing heavy squats and heavy pulls, I decided to do some light cardio and light mobility work.

My body (and my headspace) felt better knowing I actually moved a little bit. I walked away from the workout feeling energized rather than completely depleted, or even worse, injured.

My point? Life throws us curveballs. When it comes to your exercise routine, listen to your body. Oftentimes, if we take a second to evaluate and tune into how we are feeling and examine our sleeping/eating patterns, it can help equip us to make more appropriate decisions around our day-to-day training.