ACTIVE REST.
If you’re dedicated to exercise, you know that being told to rest can make you crazy. Rest doesn’t mean you have to sit on your butt all day. If you’ve got to have it (exercise, that is), then try active rest. This is a fancy term for cross training, which mixes light days with hard days. It goes something like this:
~Push the weights hard on Monday.
~Ease up on Tuesday with a walk or bike ride.
~Take a yoga or dance class on Wednesday.
~On Thursday hit the weights again.
~Take Friday off or take a gentle walk or jog.
~On Saturday do some upbeat cardio.
~On Sunday sit around so you can be ready for the gym on Monday!
Other forms of active rest include working with lighter weights, not to failure; walking instead of running; and aquatic exercise instead of land-based. You can also stretch, work in the garden, play with the kids, or walk the dog.
Getting stronger, leaner and healthier is a three-part system: one part exercise, one part food and one part rest. How much you need of each is relative to how fit you are, what you’re doing now, and what you’re trying to achieve. What isn’t relative is that everyone needs a balance of all three.
Exercise stimulates a physiological response. You don’t get stronger during workouts, but later, when you rest. If you exercise too much, you interrupt this healing cycle and become prone to injury. If you don’t exercise enough, you don’t stimulate the strength-building response.
REST BETWEEN STREGHTH WORKOUTS.
When you strength train, you crate microscopic tears in muscle fibers, which take at least two days to heal. That’s why you shouldn’t train the same muscles two days in a row.
If you train hard, you need to take four or five days off (if muscles are very sore, gentle limbering moves and stretches can ease your pain). A good rule of thumb is to wait until the soreness goes away before doing another intense workout. IF your workouts aren’t that hard and you don’t’ get sore, you can come back sooner (or you might want to reevaluate your workouts and increase the intensity if appropriate).
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends strength training the whole body every other day, three times a week. They believe that twice-weekly workouts can also be effect but give only 80 percent of the strength gains you get from three.
THE POWER OF REST.
Progress is cyclical, not linear. Nobody can maintain high energy all the time and no one keeps getting stronger indefinitely. Strength curves, like learning curves, follow a natural rhythm. Sometimes we grow in spurts and learn quickly, other times we just have to process the information, rest, and adapt.
Here’s how to tap the power of rest:
~If you’re making gradual strength gains over a long period of time, then you’re getting enough rest. Keep it up.
~If you’re stuck on a strength plateau, try building in an extra day or two of rest and increase the weight, for at least 8 reps.
~If you’re in a growth spurt, making big strength gains, don’t assume it’ll last forever. Pull back before you hit a burnout. Don’t go for more than three weeks of all-out intensity without taking at least a week or two of rest.
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