Rest days are for winners!
Rest days. We tend to either love them or dread them, spending the waking hours getting twitchy and irritable. But whatever you're working towards, why are they such a crucial part of every training plan?
The building blocks of progress
When you exercise, whether that's running, cycling, weight training or anything else, you're causing teeny-tiny micro-tears in your muscles. These micro-tears are what cause the various aches and pains that you feel after a long or fast run (or particularly vicious session in the gym), and continuing to exacerbate those tears will eventually cause them to become a bit more than micro. But, give your muscles a recovery day - and a good amount of protein - and they will not only repair themselves, but adapt to be just a little bit stronger than before.
A note on protein - As a minimum, we should be looking to take in around 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight a day - and that's if we're totally sedentary. There's a website you can use to help you calculate how much protein you should be eating here - just put in your stats and it'll work it out for you. I'll cover portion sizes in a later blog, but just for reference, there's about 31g in a chicken breast.
Tenderness towards tendons
It's not just our muscles that take the brunt of our hardcore exercise - our tendons are also pretty crucial. These connective bits of tissue join our muscles to our bones, and the blood supply to them isn't fantastic; if you've ever taken damage to a tendon, you'll know just how long it hurts for! By never taking a rest day, you're cutting down on that blood supply even more, leaving yourself susceptible to sprains and chronic damage like tendinitis.
Be kind to yourself
Constantly training might seem like a good idea if you're in Beast Mode or you think you're running out of time to meet your SMART goal, but in terms of sustainability, well, it isn't. By exercising, we actually increase the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in our systems, because our bodies simply don't know that we aren't running to save our lives. Too much cortisol can cause us problems with our sleep patterns, mood swings, depression and lots of other things that we could really do without, so make sure you're taking time to de-stress by taking a day off a few times a week.
Overtraining
Injury aside, this is the big one when it comes to doing too much. Overtraining is quite common in the weight-lifting niche but it's also seen frequently in other disciplines - including running - and actually causes us to regress. It's quite normal to feel tired after a long or intense run and I know many - myself included - are starting to feel the pressure of marathon training taking its toll on our energy levels, but if you're tired all the time regardless of how much sleep you're getting (if you can sleep at all), you don't feel motivated, have lost your appetite, seem to be ill all of the time, feel constantly low and have a quicker resting heart rate than usual but are still sticking to a rigid training regime, please consider cutting back on how much you're doing.
What can we do about it?
You won't be surprised to hear that rest is the most effective way of combating overtraining! Consider taking a week out to recharge, refocus, refuel and come back fighting - or at the very least, cutting back on pace, distance, frequency or all three!
Another factor to address is nutrition; are you taking in enough calories, and is your diet balanced? I'll cover this in more detail in a later blog, but unless you're on a weight loss programme, your calorie intake should meet your expenditure to ensure you're storing enough energy to keep up with the demands you're placing on your body.
Finally, if your overtraining is the result of a single discipline, consider mixing it up a bit. Running all the time? Give your legs a break with some gentle swimming, rowing, core work, stretching... It will all contribute towards keeping you in top shape.
And relax...
The building blocks of progress
When you exercise, whether that's running, cycling, weight training or anything else, you're causing teeny-tiny micro-tears in your muscles. These micro-tears are what cause the various aches and pains that you feel after a long or fast run (or particularly vicious session in the gym), and continuing to exacerbate those tears will eventually cause them to become a bit more than micro. But, give your muscles a recovery day - and a good amount of protein - and they will not only repair themselves, but adapt to be just a little bit stronger than before.
A note on protein - As a minimum, we should be looking to take in around 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight a day - and that's if we're totally sedentary. There's a website you can use to help you calculate how much protein you should be eating here - just put in your stats and it'll work it out for you. I'll cover portion sizes in a later blog, but just for reference, there's about 31g in a chicken breast.
Tenderness towards tendons
It's not just our muscles that take the brunt of our hardcore exercise - our tendons are also pretty crucial. These connective bits of tissue join our muscles to our bones, and the blood supply to them isn't fantastic; if you've ever taken damage to a tendon, you'll know just how long it hurts for! By never taking a rest day, you're cutting down on that blood supply even more, leaving yourself susceptible to sprains and chronic damage like tendinitis.
Be kind to yourself
Constantly training might seem like a good idea if you're in Beast Mode or you think you're running out of time to meet your SMART goal, but in terms of sustainability, well, it isn't. By exercising, we actually increase the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in our systems, because our bodies simply don't know that we aren't running to save our lives. Too much cortisol can cause us problems with our sleep patterns, mood swings, depression and lots of other things that we could really do without, so make sure you're taking time to de-stress by taking a day off a few times a week.
Overtraining
Injury aside, this is the big one when it comes to doing too much. Overtraining is quite common in the weight-lifting niche but it's also seen frequently in other disciplines - including running - and actually causes us to regress. It's quite normal to feel tired after a long or intense run and I know many - myself included - are starting to feel the pressure of marathon training taking its toll on our energy levels, but if you're tired all the time regardless of how much sleep you're getting (if you can sleep at all), you don't feel motivated, have lost your appetite, seem to be ill all of the time, feel constantly low and have a quicker resting heart rate than usual but are still sticking to a rigid training regime, please consider cutting back on how much you're doing.
What can we do about it?
You won't be surprised to hear that rest is the most effective way of combating overtraining! Consider taking a week out to recharge, refocus, refuel and come back fighting - or at the very least, cutting back on pace, distance, frequency or all three!
Another factor to address is nutrition; are you taking in enough calories, and is your diet balanced? I'll cover this in more detail in a later blog, but unless you're on a weight loss programme, your calorie intake should meet your expenditure to ensure you're storing enough energy to keep up with the demands you're placing on your body.
Finally, if your overtraining is the result of a single discipline, consider mixing it up a bit. Running all the time? Give your legs a break with some gentle swimming, rowing, core work, stretching... It will all contribute towards keeping you in top shape.
And relax...
Comments
Post a Comment