Hello My Darling One!
What IS your opinion about rest in general?
Do you view it as an absolute necessity? A luxury? Do you see it as something that is an aid in your fitness goals? Or something that could possibly make you slow down, not be as strong, or dull your peak performance?
WELL.
Gather round if you are someone that thinks hitting it hard day after day is the best course of action for tip top strength or ability.
When we PUSH IT in a workout there’s a breaking down (& immune suppression) that the body undergoes.
Ideally what happens after that is a period of rest & recovery which enables the body to come back stronger, so the next time you PUSH IT w/ weights or intensity – the body IS stronger/faster/more resilient, enabling you to do more .
AWESOME!!
What that would look like on a graph is a line that curves down (immune suppression), that then comes back up (rest & recovery) & ends at a higher point = athletic improvement!! YAY!
Visually curvy stairs that lead up. Amazing.
The opposite is also true.
When we don’t give ourselves adequate rest between intense training sessions our little graph ends up going in a different direction.
It starts off the same with a curved line that dips down (immune suppression), but as the line starts to come back up (body is trying to recover) – we hit it hard at the gym again which causes that line to go back down (immune suppression again with inadequate rest & recovery) = a weakened state. Boo!
Visually this looks like curvy stairs that lead DOWN. Wah.
Additionally if there’s any questions as to IF you might need a bit more down time between harder sessions, symptoms that your are over trained include:
– feeling tired
– a body that feels HEAVY
– being run down
– & even starting to feel a cold coming on
These are indications that you’re doing MORE than your body wishes for & that you could stand for some rest.
BUT SO MANY OF US DO THIS!!
The biggest question I have when people indicate they either wish to start working out OR they’re mapping out a structure that looks more like this – is WHY are you working out?
Strength? For a sport/event? Stress reduction? A healthy body? Weight loss?
Based on the desired result the approach might not always be the same.
If you wish to know more about a tactic that might be more suitable based on what you’re looking for please be in touch.
And if you’d like to understand more about effective exercise in regards to fat loss & you’ve yet to have your eye’s opened to the 5 Parts to a Fat Burning Equation – please click here.
To getting you clearer on how the body works, & how to make it work for you.
xoxo, M