Recently I have been asking myself how important is rest, and am I getting enough of it during my normal training week. Let me take me take you through my normal training week. Monday I train Chest and Triceps, Tuesday Back and Biceps and Wednesday Shoulders and Legs. Thursday and Friday are usual mixed training days of either Chest, Back, Legs, Calves, Forearms. Usually if something has been neglected during the week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I would train them on Thursday and Friday. Not to mention I do a minimum of one HITT session a week.
So I’m training 5 a times a week with cardio and having the weekends resting. Personally I think that is enough for my body to recover and rest up before I start the week over again with intense training. I have recently found my body aching a little bit more than it should do, this could be down to a few factors in my life. One of the main factors is properly stress in my personal life and not taking the correct amount of time to rest, other factors like slight injury’s which I choose to ignore and train through. Being the person I am I like training and working in a gym makes it even harder to rest and recuperate.
The last time I took a extended break from my training was the beginning of March 2012 when I slightly injured my rotor cuff in my shoulder forcing me to stop training for a week. Looking back at the time I took off it wasn’t enough and still to this day I get slight pain in that area when I haven’t warmed up properly and done some stretching. This week though I have the chance to have a rest and let my body recover from months of hard training. My training partner has gone on holiday this week leaving me by my self in the gym. I was going to train but I read about resting while training and I have deiced to take the week off from training so my body can become rested and repair itself from this intense training period.
I asked myself do I need to train every weekday for months on end without proper rest and the answer is NO. Most top athletes take easy periods during there training, letting there body recover. This is because they believe if they take an easy period during there training they will come back stronger and break personal bests and goals. This is my target when I have this week to rest, to break goals and personal targets that I haven’t broke for months with intense training. I know me being the person I am though I will find it hard to not train, I mean its my life and my job which I love. If I do find myself itching to pick up weights I will try and go on a bike ride at a low pace or go for a brisk walk for 10 minutes so I’m not putting any stress on my main muscle groups and not putting them in a state of training.
After this week I will return to training and back to picking up the weights. I will also return to this post after a month of training and see if I have improved my personal bests. So keep an eye out on this post when it gets updated and I will post my previous bests and see if the week of rest has improved my PB.
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