Rest

Rest, the Needed but Overused Section of Working Out

            Rest is a very valuable and necessary part of weightlifting, if you do too much of it though you are losing precious time you could use with lifting more and you are giving your muscles a chance to relax.  Although, if you don’t relax enough you can damage your muscles and risk overtraining.  Rest is something not a lot of people understand other than they’re tired and sore.  There is also the whole day rest that takes place in between workout days.  You don’t want too much or too little rest or both outcomes are horrible. 

            I understand that rest is the number one thing we all look forward to while we’re lifting because it feels so good.  But NO STOP IT!  Rest is valuable but it shouldn’t be the one thing you love the most about weightlifting because if it is then that’s what you are going to do for most of the time in the gym.  Rest is meant to give your muscles a chance to recuperate, THAT’S ALL.  Rest is not so you can get your breath back and feel the same as if you never worked out at all.  The main point is that your muscles work and work while you are exercising and rest is just for you to get a little energy back but if you rest too long then your muscles cool off and the next set or lift you do your muscles are acting as if you never even did the first lift.  It might be a bit confusing, but it makes sense if you think about it.  To get the best results and work out of your time in the gym I would recommend only resting for about thirty seconds to a minute between sets and lifts so that you get some energy back but you are not completely rested. 

            ON THE OTHER HAND, people also rest too much in the span of days.  Many people feel like sense they lifted yesterday that they don’t have to lift again for another three days or so.  This is even worse than resting too much between sets because your muscles are at constant rest and are losing mass from it.  Whatever the reason may be whether you worked out hard yesterday or your sore from a previous workout you still need to be lifting four to five days a week, SIX days a week at best.  Even if you are sore from working out them the next day you should work a different muscle group giving the previous muscle group some rest. 

            THEN there’s the guys who don’t rest enough.  They workout everyday all day and hardly ever rest.  These are the guys who show off that they work out all the time but wonder why they don’t see very good results.  The main reason is most likely from over training.  Overtraining is that special little jerk in the gym that teaches the try-hards the try not so hard.  The reasoning for this is that your muscles tend to rest a lot and get bigger and stronger but they need that little rest so that the newly broken down proteins can rebuild, if you don’t let them rest then you are just breaking them down more and more to the point that you are actually weaker than when you started.  Kind of a kick in the face huh?

            So you learned that you need to rest, but not too much and that overtraining is a serious issue but kind of hilarious if you think about it.  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.