Rest is Your Secret Weapon
It sounds a little paradoxical, but rest and recovery is the most important part of exercise. Yes–you have to do the exercise part–but during exercise, muscles are broken down. It is a wondrous adaptation of the human body that, given the chance, muscles repair themselves and end up stronger than before. If muscles are not given the chance to do this repair work fully, for instance if you keep hammering away daily on the same muscles, you are not only undermining your own progress–you are increasing your chance of injury.
This doesn’t mean you want to exercise on Monday and lie around in bed until Thursday. The body uses aerobic processes to help you recover. This means low-intensity aerobic activities like walking and swimming can be used on “active rest” days to speed up recovery from more intense workouts. During this active recovery, the broken down muscles enjoy increased blood flow that delivers oxygen and nutrients to broken down muscles. This increased blood flow also helps remove metabolic waste products like lactic acid that accumulate in muscles during intense exercise and contribute to muscle soreness.
So how do you maximize recovery and get the best results from training?
Not getting injured is always your first priority. If you get injured, much of your training goes out the window.
Listen to your body. If your muscles are sore, give yourself an active recovery day. This is light cardio of any kind: walking, swimming, cycling, rowing–but low intensity.
Get enough sleep. Seven to nine hours per night. Try to keep on a consistent sleep schedule, as well. Same bedtime, same waking time–no matter the day.
Respect when you have had a particularly high mental stress period. Mental stress will also slow your recovery. If you’ve had a super stressful day, give yourself an active recovery day. Light cardio will also reduce your stress symptoms.
Optimize your nutrition and supplementation. This could be another whole blog (or series of blogs). To simplify: eat protein at every meal, avoid sugars and processed foods, and take creatine as a supplement.
Even if you are just interested in big muscles, remember that you are robbing yourself of gains if you are not doing cardio. The higher the level of your aerobic fitness, the faster you recover from intense workouts.
So, remember–rest is your secret weapon–no matter what your goals are. Help this amazing machine called the body to do one of the things it does best–adapt and strengthen through active recovery.
Until next time
Scott and Lennart