The focus is on transforming the way we view and handle bad workouts. The key takeaway is that the purpose of a workout is to fatigue the muscles, not just to lift heavier weights. On days when performance is lacking, adjusting the workout by reducing weight, increasing reps, or concentrating on form can still deliver significant benefits. The real measure of a successful workout is how effectively you engage and exhaust the muscles, rather than the amount of weight lifted.

The video also includes personal anecdotes about working out with family and the advantages of having a home gym. It encourages shifting the mindset from stressing over weight and long-term goals to valuing consistency and daily progress. By reframing challenging workout days as opportunities for growth, viewers are empowered to maintain their commitment and continue improving, even when workouts don’t go as planned.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:17 – The issue with focusing solely on weight

00:35 – Importance of working out with kids and building a home gym

01:19 – Personal story about working out with his son

02:23 – Adjusting the workout when performance is lacking

03:05 – Factors affecting workout performance (e.g., dehydration)

04:42 – Shifting focus from weight to muscle fatigue and proper form

05:13 – Example of shoulder exercises and the significance of form overweight

06:45 – Emphasizing the importance of muscle fatigue rather than just completing reps

07:36 – Reframing bad workout days and focusing on overall progress

08:46 – Daily goals and focusing on the present

09:37 – Learning from bad workouts and improving form

10:51 – Final thoughts on making the most of bad workouts and staying committed

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] So.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:05] Everybody has bad workouts. However, I think a lot of times we look at them wrong. I think a lot of times because it’s worse to weight focus. Like we have a very big issue with weight or being weight focused.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:17] You know.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:18] Our goals are how much weight did you lose? How much weight did you lift by?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:22] And that’s neither one.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:24] Of those are in any way conducive unless you’re a power.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:27] Lifter. So you know.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:29] Or you’re trying to fit into a weight class for a sport, which very few folks.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:33] Are. So.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:35] Quick story. So, I lived with my, my 11 year old every morning, which, by the way, guys.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:41] Dads. It.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:44] If you’re wondering if you should spend the.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:46] Money.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:47] To build a gym in your house, the answer is yes. Because once you start working out and you can start working out with your kids.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:53] It is.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:54] The very best thing in the world. You get to spend one on one time with them. You get to.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:59] You know.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:59] Talk about whatever it is you get to like, that’s it’s spectacular. I cannot recommend it highly enough. So if you’ve been kicking around the idea of what to do with your boys and how to spend your money and what you should do, build a gym inside your house and work out with your boys.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:13] It’s I. Literally.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:16] I can’t say enough good things.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:17] About it anyway, so I’m.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:19] Working out with my son.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:20] Today.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:21] And he’s he’s tired. He’s just not hitting his weight. He’s not he’s not good. He’s out.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:26] You know.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:27] Able to do the same way. And we all have these days. It’s like every lifter will be like, yeah, there’s days where you just feel weak and there’s days you just feel strong. Like he’ll go in. It’ll be like, I’m crushing it.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:38] And you’ll be like, I’m going to go up in weight. And that’s.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:40] Usually not.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:40] A great idea.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:41] But there’s days we get in there.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:42] You’re like, man, I got eight.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:44] I usually get 12. Like, I don’t know what is wrong with me. I just I’m just not there today.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:49] And it’s it’s always.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:52] Always. A mental game is always like taking a sleep. Have I drink enough water? Like, what is going on? Am I all of a sudden weaker? Which is as stupid as that sounds, bro. Like, did I lose a lot of muscle last night? What happened to me? Like, it’s always the crazy things that go through your head. And so he’s obviously not doing well. He’s grumpy with the fact that he can’t do what he thinks he should be able to do. So we reduced the weight, we went up in reps, and we also went slower. And at the end of the workout.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:23] I.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:23] Asked him. I was like, did you fail.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:26] On the.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:26] Last couple reps of every set you did?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:28] He was like, yeah.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:30] And I was like, did you I don’t. Where’s the last set? You did more difficult than the first. He was like, yeah. Are your muscles fatigued and tired?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:38] And he was like, yeah, I know. Then you won.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:40] Like, that’s that’s the point of the workout. The feet, fatigue, the muscles. Some days you’re going to use a little bit more weights and you’re going to use a little less. And yeah it plays with a lot of things. Barometric pressure is going to play a role. How much energy you have, how well you sweat, how much water you have is a big one. Yeah. Know there’s a there’s a whole dynamic of dehydration equaling muscle fatigue and muscle lack of muscle and power until like that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:03] So yeah.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:05] Dehydration is a big thing. So there’s all sorts of things that factor into it. You’re where you are mentally like us. There’s just so many things.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:12] So again.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:14] If we start focusing on the amount of.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:16] Weight we move.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:18] You’re gonna fail because you’re gonna put yourself in a negative mental place.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:22] Again.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:23] The weights don’t matter that much. It’s. Did you fatigue the muscle? Did you fail? Did your body give everything it could.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:29] And then not.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:30] Be able to do something? Because that’s the key. Convincing your body that it’s not good enough the way it is right now. Today. So it has to grow and get better to do something. Do the same thing you have to do today, but do it tomorrow. That’s the goal. It’s not. Did I move the weight ten times? If you move the same weight ten times all the time, you are failing your workout no matter how you’re looking at it.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:50] Because you’re.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:51] Not going to.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:52] Grow, you’re.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:52] Going to get used to it. You’re going to be like, okay, this is what we do, and that’s fine. That’s especially fine for.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:58] Running you like I’m going.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:59] To run five miles every.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:00] Day. Great.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:01] I’m going to run for 30 minutes every day. Great. Fantastic. I would tell you to push a little bit more, try to go a little bit faster, track a little bit further away.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:09] Maybe a little.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:09] Bit of incline. Always try to make it more difficult.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:12] But at the end of the day.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:13] A lot of people are running for 30 minutes for cardio, they’re running for 30 minutes for whatever they’re trying to do, and that’s the goal they’re achieving. So fantastic. However, when you’re lifting, if you want to maintain size, great, you want to maintain strength, great. You can do the same thing. But I don’t think that’s actually the goals of many people. And so if you’re trying to get trying to make things look a little different, you’re trying to make things bigger, stronger, whatever. You’re going to have to move into that uncomfortable space. And the thing is, is that we we try it again way too much to weight.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:42] You’re like, well.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:43] I can’t lift this much. I can’t do this much.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:47] That doesn’t matter.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:48] In fact, most of the time it’s hilarious, especially with shoulders.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:52] So.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:53] Like, I have big shoulders. People tell me all the time how nice my shoulders are.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:57] My laterals.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:58] I do with 17.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:59] Pounds.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:00] And it’s hard. I’ve worked up to 17 pounds. So a lot of you, 16, 17 year old guys who are doing laterals with 3,030 pound dumbbells. Do you think that you’re doing it right?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:10] Might not be. So you know the.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:13] Weight oftentimes is our the idea that the more.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:17] Weight is the thing.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:18] Is oftentimes the things that are detracting our from our actual workout. You’re not going full range of motion. You’re not exhausting the muscle properly. Your form is trash.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:28] You know.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:28] All of these things.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:29] Happen.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:30] So keep that in mind. So when you have a bad workout. Alter it. Alter your saying I like that I get the way to. I’m tired. I’m just in that great. Fantastic. Because guess what? That’s how you’re going to be in life. Not every single day when you’re trying to, you know, walk up a set of stairs or you’re trying to move boxes or you’re trying to do anything physical.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:53] Are you going.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:53] To be perfectly rested, perfectly hydrated, perfectly flat? So this is one of those things in life. So you’re going to have days where you’re just like, man, I am weaker. Like this is a terrible workout. Did you exhaust the muscle?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:06] Yeah. Okay. You want.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:09] Like, you check that box. You got what you needed to do. If you do it with less reps, less sets, and less weight. That’s where you were today. Maybe you drink some more water. Maybe you get some more rest. Maybe you take some more supplementation, and then the next day is a strong day or two days from there’s a stronger strike again. I don’t care if you got all your sets and all your weight, all your weight, all your sets and all your reps. If on that day, on your strong day, you leave the gym and you weren’t exhausted, your back work that day was actually better for you than your quote unquote good workout day. Just because you’ve got your reps, you got your sets, you got your weights, doesn’t mean you had a good workout at all.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:45] Because again.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:47] That shouldn’t be your goal. If your goal is to grow and get better, you need to be in an uncomfortable failure state. That’s the only place where growth happens.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:56] So if you have a bad workout day and you.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:59] Failed.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:00] On.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:01] You know, at the end of every set, like I always get 12 and I can only get ten, I almost got 11 on a couple of them. This is a terrible day. No it wasn’t. You failed on every set. That was the goal. That’s always the goal. If you do it at nine instead of 11.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:15] All right.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:16] That’s just where you were today. So a lot of times we reframe what’s going on. Because again, your mental function on this is super hyper critical. So if you if you look at this from the way you need to look at it, I think that a lot of these things, you’re going to start realizing your bad workout days were actually a lot better than you thought they were.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:36] In fact, they might have been.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:37] Like I said, sometimes better than your quote unquote good workout that. Because again, I think a lot of people’s goals are.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:44] Not where they need to be.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:46] Because they this long term.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:47] Goal of trying.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:48] To like, I want to look like.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:49] This. Great.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:50] Do you have a short term goal?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:52] Do you have a daily goal? You have the look.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:54] Just eat like this today. Look, just sleep like this today. Just lift like this today. But we’ll worry about how much we can reproduce today, tomorrow, tomorrow. But today we’re going to focus on getting our workout in and to exhaustion. We’re going to make sure we’re eating right today. We’re to make sure we’re sleeping right today.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:13] Because all you can.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:15] Worry about us today, like anxiety is worry for the future. So don’t do that. Do something today like, well, this is unsustainable. Okay. That’s fine. This is unsustainable. For three days.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:25] Ten.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:26] Days, 25 days.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:28] Who knows?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:29] Is it sustainable today? Right. Then do it today. And then the next day figure out how do you do it tomorrow? But that’s that’s kind of where it is. So a lot like I said, a lot of times designers are kind of grumpy about it. And so I kind of explained to him, did you hit.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:46] Failure? Yes. Like all right. Great.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:49] Are you tired?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:51] Yeah.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:51] Your arms feel like they’re not working very well anymore.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:54] Yeah. You win. That’s it. That’s all it was. And so.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:00] We started changing his attitude.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:01] About it.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:02] And all of a sudden he starts coming in. He’s like, oh, I. Because we dropped his weight. And he was like, this is all he’s doing for a lot. And he was like, oh, he’s like, now I see what you’re talking about was squeezing the chest like that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:13] He goes, oh, cool.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:15] How can you reproduce that later? He was like, well, now that I told you it. Yeah. So again, this horrible workout day, he picked up a piece of where he could feel the forming right versus wrong. So this might have been the most beneficial workout he’s had in weeks. Because again, he was able to pick up something that he’s going to able to carry forward with him on his form, which is more important than weight by everything.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:37] So again.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:39] When we start thinking about our bad workout days, when we’re tired, when we’re men, well, I don’t want to go to the gym.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:44] You need to go because one, you don’t.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:48] Have commitment. You don’t have dedication. You build those things. You build those things by doing the things you don’t necessarily want to do. And so when you don’t want to go workout, you need to.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:00] Go. When you don’t want.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:01] To lift, you need to go when you’re like, I’m going to get a terrible workout fair, go get your terrible workout. They had a terrible workout today. And he picked up a piece of information that just hypercritical.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:12] So if.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:13] You’re once you’re.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:14] There.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:15] If the problem is if you’ve decided you’re going to have a bad workout, you’re going to have a bad workout. If when you get there, you’re like, I’m a little tired. I’m going to hit failure faster. Let’s go. I’m going to focus on my form. I’m going to do less of them. Great. And there’s all sorts of variables you can play with to make your bad workout better. Hey, I’m going to reduce my weight. All right. Reduce your time. Increase the time under tension. Like there’s so many variables that are outside of weight, that weight really and truly becomes irrelevant to what you’re doing because it’s pressure on the muscle the entire time. So keep that in mind next time you guys wake up tired, wake up grumpy. You don’t think you’re going to get your workout.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:51] Remember.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:52] Those are sometimes the best workouts you can actually get. Because again, if we reframe what we’re actually trying to do, our actual goals where they’re supposed to be.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:02] You’re going to get where you want to go a lot faster.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:04] So always go in, especially if you’re tired. So on that, if one of my one of my guys actually, he was like, here’s like my throat hurts. I still go work out.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:12] And like, what day is.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:13] It? He’s like, it’s chest. And it’s like your chest hurt. And he’s like, no.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:15] And I was like, bingo.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:17] If you start feeling worse while you’re there, leave.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:20] But you’ve got.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:21] Allergies, man. Like it’s fine.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:23] Like.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:24] Drink some water. Your throat soon be sore. Suck it.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:27] Up. You’ll be fine.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:28] So keep that in mind. Hope you guys can start, reframing your mind so your workouts or your bad workouts end up being great workouts. But keep keep that peace. Keep that peace of idea in mind that it’s not always the weight. It’s always how you lift it. So thanks for your time.

As always if you have any questions, please send them to [email protected]

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only. Before taking any action based on this information you should first consult with your physician or health care provider. This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions regarding a medical condition, your health, or wellness