Recovery Day: A Day (actually 2!) Often Neglected

Today I had plenty of time this morning to workout if I wanted to.

However, I also know the importance of rest & recovery days, too, after being a trainer and also a coach in various roles since college.

Sometimes if you fall in the habit of exercise and you tend to over-do it, doing too much exercise too often and hard workouts in succession, its not a good recipe in the long run.

I've seen it happen in athletes, clients, and yes, it has even happened to myself from time to time. As I'm getting older, I realize I'm knocking on the door of 40 and I'm no longer 20, which means I also have 20 more years of the rigors of running, lifting, cycling, and more on my body than I did when I was 20, too.

Let's say I did an average of 5 workouts a week. That's 250+ workouts a year, x 20 years = 5000 workouts!... and a lot to recover from, each week, month, and year in succession.

This really hit me during the summer, when an Achilles tendon injury kept me from enjoying a summer of running races here and there. It took me weeks to get back into a pattern of consistent running, even if it meant backing down to 2-3 runs a week just to help my tendon recover better.

It meant saying no to speed workouts for the summer, and focusing just on slow and steady efforts with occasional bursts of speed to change up the pace.

Keep recovery days in mind if you feel your body hurting more and more in places you haven't had any bothersome issues. 

It is perfectly fine to alternate high intensity and lower intensity/volume workouts.  Science has shown us in the fitness and sports performance worlds that alternating these variables is essential for long term success.

I feel its why I had some issues with prior training programs, such as P90X or Insanity, as even the 'recovery' days felt like too much at times and I may have been better off with a long/slow bike ride.

That was a trick I had to learn one summer, where I basically cross-trained hard speed workouts on the track with long rides in-between those days.  It wasn't 3 hard speed workouts a week, but 2 spaced-out ones on the weekly schedule (like a Tues/Fri) mixed with longer rides or easy runs in-between.

Recovery days are great for getting in a solid rest from working out.  What seems like one day off, ends up being 2 in terms of hours.

For example, my last workout was Friday morning around 6am. If I take Saturday off and don't do another routine until Sunday,  I will actually have 48 hours of rest between workout times.

Out of that 48, you'll have 14-16 of those hours at rest in the form of sleep, which is where your body really makes the changes.

So, take that "day off'' now and then and give yourself a possible 2 days of full rest as a result!

Coach Rick
Home Workouts Plus!

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