REST? How much do I need?

If you heard anything I’ve talked about since being coached by me you will know that I’m a firm believer that without rest you will not get the results you’ve been looking for! Your breakdown the body with stimulus you want to meet the goals you have. Then what? Well your body goes through a process of healing to help you return to your next training a little bit stronger or in better shape than the last time you did it so you can do it again. That’s the most simple explanation I can give and it’s all you really need to know. Your body is constantly trying to make sure you don’t die so it will adapt to the stress you put on it as long as you can recover from that stress.

So what happens if you don’t get enough rest? Then you run the risk of over training and having some type of injury happen, you also run the risk of burning out mentally. When you don’t rest enough your body will do other things like change your hormonal composition, store more fat and possibly change how you adrenals are functioning. Over the long run this could be very detrimental to your health. Now listen we’re talking on a more extreme level here, but not resting enough can largely effect whether or not your training program actually works, whether you hit the goals you set yourself or even just how Big of a PR you could’ve hit.

So whats enough? whats too much? whats not enough? Let’s start off first of all by saying that is completely individually based. The first thing you need to ask yourself is how old am I? Your age has a big role in how quickly you recover, then how stressful is my work and family life? All stress is perceived the same way in the body and too much of it won’t allow you to recover fast enough. How physical am I outside of the gym? Are you a landscaper burning calories all day long or do I sit at a desk for 8 hours a day? Do I sleep 8+ hours a night? Don’t under estimate sleep! DO I eat ENOUGH food on a daily basis for my output? Being in a large calorie deficit will NOT help you recover. The older you are and the more of those boxes you tick off the more likely it is you need more time to recover between sessions.

The benefits are HUGE! When your recovering between sessions your a lot less likely to have crappy training sessions! Your way more likely to lift heavier more often and less likely to be injured in the process! I’ve recently took myself down from 5 sessions a week to 4 and my 4 sessions have gotten WAY better with the rest days. It’s hard to admit your getting older, that your stress overall is on all time high! But training smart is the ONLY way.

Do a self check, ask yourself all those questions and be honest with yourself 1 less training might not only not make you worse, it actually might make you better!

Coach Dan