Hello Scott!

I'm 14 years old and I've been working out for a little over 16 weeks and it is going great.

Today I woke up feeling very tired and i had a cold (a sore throat etc.)

But I didn't want to skip the gym cause next week I'm going on a vacation for 2 weeks (PS: ill be doing a lot of your and Mike Rosas bodyweight workouts)

So i get to the gym and my first exercise is Benchpress 5x6 with 43 kgs. This is usually no problem for me and on my first set I can usually do 8 reps but this time I could only do 4 reps.

So i had to lower the weight to 40 kgs to even come close to hit 5x6.

And it wasn't only the bench press, all my exercises I had to lower the weight.

Just want to know if it was okay for me to lower the weight and will it throw me off track on my progress? cause next week according to my program im supposed to increase the weight to 45 kgs on my bench.

Thanks!

3 things to remember:

1) Strength is not linear and there will be times you need to lower the weight. Unless you are training for strength, the amount of weight you lift is not as important as the stress and time under tension the muscle goes thru to stimulate growth.

2) When sick, you really shouldn't train. Your body is expending energy to fight the infection and adding training on top of that further taxes your endurance and strength.

3) Strength is a product of both muscle contraction and central nervous system activation. The nervous system needs rest as well and trying to continually push the same weight or more every workout eventually burns the nervous system out. The result is loss of strength and energy. You need times where you "deload" and lift lower weight until you feel stronger again.

These only impact growth when you don't listen to your body and continue to push too hard all the time.

John

Hi!

It will happen more often, not only when you have a cold.
Maybe you skipped a meal or did not eat a good, quality food? Stuffed yourself with donuts? :D

Not being able to lift as much as in the previous workout will happen more and more and you should actually consider it as a good thing. If you don't have the strength to lift the usual weights - you exhausted your muscles. That also means you are pushing yourself with your workouts.

Deload weeks are VERY important. Did you do a deload week during those 16 weeks of training? Scott recommends doing a deload week after 6-8 weeks of training.
It gives your CNS (Central Nervous System) time to recover after constant lifting.

Deload week is just your regular workout with lower weights. You basically go through the movements but don't try to beat new PR :) You might also surprise yourself after a deload week. Your body will fully recover and you might lift even harder than before.

Listen to your body!

Fenistotels

There are days where you wont beat or match your previous work out. Its always something to strive for but you cant always expect that. Especially if you was training with any type of sickness. Always look at your training as a marathon and not a sprint.

Great responses here!!

As everyone has said, you won't ALWAYS be able to make progress every single week. You will have 'off' weeks where things just don't go right.. and that's OK. Besides, if you were feeling a bit sick, that makes sense that you weren't lifting at 100% anyway.

Glad you still went to the gym if it was just a little cold, that is dedication! Just make sure to not over-do it. It was probably a good idea to take that day a bit lighter like you did. Definitely won't be a bad thing in the long run! Hope you are feeling better this week!