You know the line. Something comes along that is fun or interesting and "the gang" is ready to go. Or a party lands right on top of your workout time and the line you get from your girl, wife or friends is "Aw c'mon, missing one workout won't kill you". And strictly speaking "missing one" is not the end of the world. But frankly speaking this sends a signal of importance to others and yourself that your workouts play second position to fun. Allow this one time to occur and watch the repeatability of the situation to occur.

From my perspective, allowing this to happen has its own consequences. In my mind, you are allowing the importance of other stuff to mess with your workouts. You have to ask yourself the question; "Are my workout more important than fun or is it the other way around."

I have seen this happen all too often. A person will miss one workout because of some event. Then they will miss occasionally each week. As they slide down this slope, I see the frequency of workouts and misses flip flop. They have more misses than hits at the gym. Before long working out is a leftover priority. Let's face it, these folks are really working out only if it is convenient. The road to failure is paved with excuses of why they missed

So am I saying never miss a workout? Am I saying, make training your top priority? Absolutely not on both counts! Am I saying rarely miss a workout...yes absolutely. In 32 years of training, I have not missed more than 2 weeks of continuous workouts and in that instance there was a life crisis on my hands.

So how do you handle? Well first, you need to evaluate the priority of the situation. Where is it on the scale of importance? In my mind, God and family get top bids. But often times you can rearrange at your own inconvenience and keep the workout. Here's some typical responses and adjustment that I use for different situations:

-Party or other planned social event: "Thanks for inviting and I look forward to it, but I will be late because of another previous commitment." (Do they really need to know you need to workout first? And really...would they understand?)

-Party or planned social event that you must be one time, like parents anniversary etc. - I will plan my workout in advance to free up time to attend. Most gyms are open long hours. I would rather workout at 3AM than miss a workout all together. People will think you are nuts, but I don't care.

-Spur of the moment event where you get that classic online "Aw c'mon...". "Sorry I can't make it, maybe next time." That will clearly communicate to others that workouts are important and eventually they will get the point.

-Spur of moment must show event that involves family or friend or someone in need. Drop the workout and go. If you can make it up later, great! If not, skip the workout and move on to the next scheduled workout.

Making gains in the gym is serious business and the number one ingredient to success is consistency.