Accommodating Unavoidable Downtime

I have been trying to stick to a set schedule where Mondays I do one thing, Tuesdays another, etc.  The last few days have gotten screwed up by weather (snow shoveling, etc) so that I'm too sore to do the scheduled workout.  My thought has been to just skip it - I've got my whole life to workout, but I could really do some damage if I try to workout while in pain.  The question is, would I be better off to reorder workouts so that, for example, if my knees are killing me today, I do upper body, if my arms and shoulders hurt tomorrow I do middle splits, etc?  Or should I keep the schedule and if I can't do it, I can't do it.  Today, for example, I did something to my right wrist while shoveling.  No idea what, but it hurt like hell.  So there's no way I'm doing Handstand today.  Tomorrow would be TB day, but I may find my back is aching from shoveling, so I might skip rather than make things worse.  Should I skip, or substitute?

I think you're absolutely right to NOT workout the area that hurts. If your knees are bugging you and you feel like you want to exercise then upper body should be fine. I wouldn't be concerned about which day you do which workout on.  It's sort of like cleaning the house.  Bathrooms, kitchen, laundry, etc ... it's all gotta get done and doesn't really matter what days it happens on so long as it isn't neglected for too long, right?

I like the idea of "maintain the chain".  Once you start working out just keep doing something every day even if the rest day is a day or light stretching (or shovelling snow, LOL).  

Chris

Most programs that I'm familiar with say that if you miss a single session of a given type, don't worry about it, and just do that session the next time it rolls around in your schedule.  But if you start missing multiple, when you resume training, start up again by repeating the last sessions you completed.  If it was a really long layoff, roll-back further.

Hey Jessica,

Like Chris said, certainly do not train through pain. Your biggest priority right now is seeing if you can have a doctor take a look at your wrist. Substitution of workouts is better USUALLY. It depends on what workouts you have already done for the week, how you are doing on recovery. Sometimes it makes more sense to take the extra rest day. Prioritize treating your wrist injury first (try to get a diagnosis), general recovery second (how fatigued do you feel), and then consider workout substitution (replacing TB with Lower Body, Core, FS, MS).