I kept either pushing too hard and crashing, or skipping "just because". I built something that finally gave me a clear answer each morning
For the first year of training I had two modes:
Mode 1: Feel tired → convince myself it's fine → train hard anyway → feel destroyed for 3 days → miss sessions → lose momentum.
Mode 2: Feel tired → skip → feel guilty → motivation takes a hit → skip again.
No middle ground. No real way to know if "tired" meant actually need rest or just don't feel like it.
The thing is, both feelings are real. Sometimes you're genuinely running on empty. Sometimes you're just a bit flat and a session would actually help. The problem is they feel almost identical at 7am.
I tried just "listening to my body" but honestly I'm not good at it yet. And I tried following my program rigidly regardless of how I felt, which worked until it really didn't.
So I started tracking a few things every morning, takes about 30 seconds and cross-referencing it with what my Garmin picked up overnight (sleep, heart rate). Over time I built this into a small app that gives me one number each morning and a simple directive: push, train normal, reduce volume, or recover.
What surprised me is how often the answer isn't just "rest", it's more nuanced. Like, my upper body might still be cooked from Monday but my legs are fine. The app actually tracks which muscle groups you trained and when, so it can tell you that.
It's not magic and it's not always right. But it's removed almost all the daily "should I or shouldn't I" mental overhead, which for me was a huge reason I'd fall off consistency.
Has anyone else struggled with this? Curious if it's a common beginner thing or just me being bad at reading my own body.