If you’re reading this blog because you want to get fitter and healthier (which I would assume you are – as well as the wonderful writing peppered with lolz), it may come as a surprise to find a post telling you to chill out, take it easy and not exercise – but it’s incredibly important that you do every once in a while. In terms of helping your muscles get stronger and grow, it’s been found that letting them rest is just as important as exercising them, as it means tissues can regenerate and nutrients can be delivered.
When you ache after exercise, it’s because muscle fibres have been torn – it sounds pretty dramatic, but it’s a perfectly normal process and is necessary to get stronger and improve your fitness. If you’re trying to put yourself through a tough workout every day, you’re more likely to cause an injury and/or fatigue your muscles so they can’t function properly – making all your hard work pretty useless.
A rest day doesn’t just mean lying on the sofa for 24 hours – though totally do a bit of that, too – you need to get your circulation going a little bit to flush out your muscles, deliver oxygen etc. Take a walk, do some yoga or anything fairly light, just take it easy until any muscle soreness you’ve been feeling has gone.
How often should you do this? Whenever you feel like you need to. If you’re fairly new to exercise it should be every third day or so. If you’re more used to exercise, one day a week might be enough – but it’s important to just notice how your body is feeling and try to understand when it’s telling you to rest. If you get up one morning and your legs feel like they couldn’t physically manage a run – don’t run.
It’s also important to give your mind a rest as well – it takes a lot of grit and determination to get yourself through a challenging workout, and your brain needs a break as much as any other part of you. Do that, and you’ll be raring to go when your rest is done – rather than dreading going back to the workout grind.
While you’re resting, make sure you drink plenty of water, get a lot of sleep and replenish your supplies with enough food – and another good way to give overworked muscles a rest is to take a nice, warm (not hot) bath in Epsom Salts, which contain magnesium sulphate that effectively forces you to relax – I did a whole post on them if you want to find out more.
So, go be “chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool”… the Fresh Prince had a bloody great point.
Take The Lunge 