12/1 Rest Day

"Patience and passage of time do more than strength and fury." Jean de la Fontaine

There tends to be two approaches to workout frequency. There are the people who have to force themselves to work out, and if given the opportunity, they would rather skip a day than hit the gym. And then there are people who want to work out every day and have a hard time skipping a workout or taking a rest day. This post is for the second group.

I definitely fall into the group that has a hard time taking days off. I enjoy training, and even on days where I have a planned day off, I still have the itch to do something. To make things worse, I tend to train at a pretty high intensity level, which makes rest and recovery even more important. Not focusing on rest led to me becoming overtrained and burned out a couple of months ago.

Since then, I have tried to be better about mixing in more light workouts and rest days. I used to push myself so hard that I eventually was forced to rest. Now I try to take a rest day one day before I need it. Today is a great example. I could have easily trained one more day, thrashed my body and then taken tomorrow off. But instead I rested a day early, and I am already fired up both mentally and physically to hit the gym tomorrow.

Another good trick is to really focus on your diet on your rest days. On your rest day, use the time that you would have spent training to prepare meals for the rest of the week, shop for good food etc. In addition, make sure your eat very clean on your rest days. That way you will be doing something productive for your health and fitness and won't feel bad that you didn't train that day.

So try to mix in a rest day or a light day one day prior to when you think you will actually need it. And on that rest day, focus on eating clean. Your training motivation will go up a ton.

Here is a good article by Dan John about rest and recovery - Dan John A Novel Approach to Rest Periods

Some excerpts:

My teacher went to the board and put up four words where North, South, East, and West would be on a compass. They were "play," "pray," "rest," and "work." She made a simple point: In life, these four things must be balanced.

...
There's also a lot to be said for "active rest." It's a term that's been around for decades, but is still overlooked. It's this idea: For a few weeks, instead of doing your basic training, get involved in some other activity. Famously, the Soviet athletes got into volleyball, so much so that several weightlifters achieved Masters of Sport in the game. The German discus throwers used to enjoy downhill skiing, and it's hard to imagine American athletes who don't enjoy pickup basketball games. Enjoy active rest long enough to realize that your gifts are probably not good enough for the NBA.

...
So, when I get asked about rest, I get lost in this continuum. From literally death to the details of a small part of a workout, rest means a lot to me. It shouldn't be considered something to do when you're done, but one should actively think about resting.

To summarize:

1. I'm not against giving advice about rest periods between sets; it's just that I think there are many other keys to discuss before I tell you that you need 118 seconds between sets of reverse sumo curls in the Smith machine.

2. Since most of the information concerning rest is free (no one charges you for sleep), there's no market, and therefore, you don't hear much about it.

3. Truly, any balance you bring to your training is going to help. Taking the time and effort to intelligently add rest is going to pay off better than buying a new curl machine.

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