Rest Week – The Importance of Recovery – Top 5 tips

You’re training hard four to six days a week, eating well, however you’re feeling a little more tired than usual, your muscles are tight and achy, and your enthusiasm in the gym isn’t quite there. Perhaps it’s time to rest up for a week?

Recovery is so important whether you’re a gym newbie or an advanced athlete.

You simply cannot go all out, day in day out. 365 days a year.

Your body will let you know about it sooner or later.

By incorporating recovery weeks following a tough few months of training, or when you physically and mentally need one this may well help keep you on track to continued progress, longevity and to also sustain a high level of motivation in and out of the gym.

Here’s my top 5 tips….

1. Take a complete week off from the gym

This may be difficult to do for most people, however a complete rest week may allow enough time for any niggles to heal up.

Use those extra hours off from the gym to do something productive, perhaps spend more time with the family, go for a walk, spend more time on other hobbies.

If you can’t possibly bear time away from the gym, then have a ‘Deload’ week whereby you lighten the load on lifts and reduce the amount of sets.

And no you won’t lose your ‘gainz’ if your nutrition is all in check!

2. Extra Zzzzzz

Go to bed a bit earlier than usual, or if this isn’t possible fit in a light 20 to 30 minute power nap during the day.

Turn off all electronic devices half an hour before going to bed to give you enough time to relax and ‘switch off’ the brain.

In my opinion, I personally find that taking ZMA before bed gives me a deeper, better quality of sleep.

3. Nutrition

A common question when taking a rest week is ‘should I reduce my calories as I’ll be less active?’

In my opinion I would say keep up your food intake. If you regularly have a Post Workout Protein Shake and Carbs, then naturally you’ll skip this as you’re not training, however keep everything else the same. Keeping up your calorie intake will allow for maximum recovery and will keep your muscle tissue.

4. Stretch/Mobility Work

Spend some time stretching the whole body.

Don’t overstretch, simply hold the stretch for 20 to 30 seconds, deep breath relax and then repeat a couple of times per stretch.

You can also use a foam roller, massage stick, lacrosse ball.

If your budget allows book in a couple of deep tissue massages to free up any tight areas/knots in the muscles. You’ll feel great afterwards!

5. Change your Training Program (optional)

If you’ve been doing the same old training routine month after month, why not try a different program with a few new exercises?   I’m all for keeping in the basic exercises and progressing on the big lifts, but if your training bores you then it’s time for a change.

There’s many training splits out there and if you put in the work they will all bring results. Full body workouts. Push, Pull, Legs. Upper Body/Lower Body are effective programs that can work each muscle group more frequently. Or you may prefer working a muscle group directly once a week and dedicate a full workout to one or two areas applying more volume and intensity.

Thanks for reading.

http://www.damianleestailoredfitness.co.uk

INSTAGRAM – coachteamlees