Easy Weeks: Rest for Higher Exercise Performance

Rest is one of the unsung keys to exercise performance. There are three types of rest: days off, sleep, and easy weeks.

• Days Off-We need time off between workouts to rebuild our muscles. Normally, we need 48 hours between sessions. Steroids shorten the time needed to rebuild, so using them allows a person to get more workouts in a shorter period of time (I don't advocate using steroids. I'm just explaining how necessary rest is.). We especially need rest between heavy lifting sessions because of the breakdown in our muscles. If we're doing multiple kinds of workouts--strength, sprint, interval, etc. then we can string them together on consecutive days, but we still need to take a few days off each week.
• Sleep-Our bodies use sleep to rebuild and recharge between workouts. When we don't get enough sleep, our bodies don't have the time available to rebuild very well. We generally need between 7.5 and 9 hours of sleep a night. Some people need more, and some people need less. If you're not getting enough rest and you're not seeing the results you want, work to get more sleep. (Full Disclosure: I only get about 6 hours of sleep a night. I work several jobs, so even though I want more sleep, it's not possible right now.)
• Easy Weeks-Sometimes we need to back off the workouts and take it easy for between 1 and 7 days to refresh our muscles and minds so we can hit the workouts hard again. We usually need an off weekend or week every 3-4 weeks. I found this out the hard way, when I didn't take it easy for months on end and burned myself out. That's called overtraining. To combat this, I advocate 7 days at a lower level of exertion than normal-it's an easy week not an off week. For me that means I pick several exercises and do a total of 100 reps (all of them together) and then I'm finished. This allows me to hit my workouts hard for 3 weeks and then take it easy for 1.

So are you getting enough rest? Do you have a story of overtraining?