Protein and strength · call recap
Keeping the two sessions through a bad fortnight
6 October 202516 attendedHeld by Ren
A call about the weeks when it all lapses, which is the actual failure point and not the one people plan for. Sixteen in the room, several of them coming back after a break of a month or more, and a lot of quiet guilt about it that I wanted out of the way early.
Where the room started
Apologetic, again. Two people opened by explaining why they had not trained since August before anybody asked. Fenella had stopped for six weeks after a bad step-up and had then found starting again more frightening than the fortnight itself, because she had convinced herself she would have to begin from nothing.
You do not begin from nothing. That is the single most useful thing I know and I say it every time somebody comes back.
What came up
The version that survives a bad fortnight is much smaller than people want to hear. Martha's programme is eight minutes and a chair, done Tuesday and Friday, and it has been going for two years through several rough patches. Ambrose has bands at home for the weeks he cannot get out. Cormac, who coaches, keeps two sessions and lets the third go without ceremony, and has stopped calling the third one missed.
Quin, reformed gym enthusiast, made the point that mattered: his old identity required a perfect week, so any imperfect week became a reason to stop entirely. Rebuilding around a floor rather than a target was the only thing that worked.
Where we left it
With a floor each, written down. Nobody set a programme. Everybody set the smallest thing they would still do in the worst week they can imagine, and three people set it lower than they wanted to on my suggestion. A floor you will actually stand on is worth more than one you admire.