How To Deal with Setbacks and Stress

Like a lot of people my day to day includes stress and I've had to deal with setbacks this year.  Due to a piriformis injury I have suffered this year, my squats haven't been the same.  I haven't been able to use as much volume or weight that I want.  This means that I haven't been doing as much either.  The point is that when you're dealing with stress and setbacks, you just need to keep showing up.  Keep doing what it takes and keep eating clean.

It's natural for us to run from our responsibilities when we are stressed or dealing with setbacks, but if we don't push forward, we'll never grow or improve.

This is why you need to learn to embrace failure and mistakes.  This is an issue that most people have.  When you start out on your fitness journey, whether that be bodybuilding, power lifting, you will make mistakes and fall flat on your face.  You need to think about what it is that you want to accomplish and do what's necessary to get there.

It will be harder than you expect it to be.  If you can have realistic expectations, you could be more prepared to deal with setbacks and stress.  When you're stressed out, your body begins to produce a stress hormone called cortisol.  This hormone is terrible for building size and making gains.  This means you have to find a way to make your body relax.

How To Relax

• Make sure you're breathing properly:  When you're breathing shallow and through your chest, you are not getting as much oxygen as you need, this will make it hard to relax.  The key here is to breathe through your diaphram.  
• Let go:  I know so many people that worry about useless unnecessary crap.  Cut it out, let go.  If someone cuts you off in traffic let it go.  If someone is gossiping abut u let it go.  This is hard for people.  But when you let things go, you develop control over your emotions.
• Don't overdo caffeine.  This one is as simple as it sounds.

Once you're able to relax, this will lower your cortisol, which in turn will help you make gains.

This way if you have some setbacks in your training you'll be able to understand why the setbacks are happening.  If you get injured, do your best to train around the injury, don't just not train if you can train around it.  Obviously if the injury is too debilitating don't go to the gym.

Thank you for reading.

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