You Know You’ve Had A Good Workout When

Every once in a while you have that great workout.  As we get ready for the 60% surge in gym memberships that occur with 1/1, I started thinking about what criteria I use to know this.

1. An inability to walk up stairs without pain.  I even had one workout years ago (kickboxing plus spinning) where I had to crawl up my stairs at home for day.
2. You have to take Advil before you workout again since you’re still sore.
3. You have to use IcyHot before you workout again to try to relax your muscles.
4. An inability to lift light objects (such as kids) since your arms are too sore.
5. An ability to wring the sweat from your clothes as if you had just jumped in a pool.
6. Throwing up from a workout.  (I have to trust this.  I’ve come close, but my body seems to stop before I get there.)
7. Totally physical collapse.  (I also have to trust this.  You often see this with marathoners or people doing the IronMan, but my body seems to stop before I get to this point.)

Of course, you can’t do this everyday or you can’t recover (and you probably aren’t very comfortable).  But, I often find that the best way to get this is to try a new routine or new workout.  I’ve done this new core workout a few times at the Lifetime Fitness in Chesterfield, MO which seems pretty easy but is really hard.  I have trouble with certain movements the next day for sure.