You had a fight with your wife or your husband last night, the kids are stressing you out due to kid stuff, your boss is riding you and your dog pooped on the floor. It’s been a stressful 48 hours and you have a hard workout waiting for you when you wake up tomorrow.

 Today’s workout calls for you to attempt a new 1-rep max on the deadlift. You have been working exceptionally hard and today you will finally break that 500lbs barrier, despite the fact that your stress levels are through the roof, you haven’t slept well in days and your body feels like a smashed pumpkin a month after Halloween. Should you just slam your head into a wall a few times and go for it or should you hold back a bit.

 Autoregulating is a term used to describe the ability to show some goddamned common sense and listen to your body, despite what your workout has planned for you. The people, in all walks of life, who accomplish the most are smart enough to understand that you have to listen to what your body is telling you. Some days, simply not taking a step back is a victory.

 It can be tough to tell the difference between feeling a little sluggish vs needing to keep it lighter due to overwhelming life annoyances. A simple way to tell the difference is to perform some warmup sets of your big lifts and see how much focus you have. Are you locked in on each rep? Is your body feeling better with each set? If the answer to these questions is yes, than you can probably push yourself the rest of the way. If the answer is anything less than yes, such as “kinda” or “I guess” then the answer is NO and you should go a little bit lighter or cut the volume down.

 Progress in the gym will never be linear. If every workout was a home run, I would have high school kids deadlifting 800 and jumping onto 80 inch boxes. The most accomplished powerlifters and the top athletes understand when to push themselves and when to hold back. Autoregulate your training each day and your results will improve!