REST & RELAXATION! Blog

Not much relaxation going on here at the moment but finally I've realised the importance of rest!

I'm always one to try and get my eight hours sleep as I do realise that I function so much better after a good nights sleep although I have been known to overtrain in the past! Wow how things have changed.

I've finally realised that my body does work better and get better results when I ensure it gets adequate rest. Now that my focus is on running I'm obviously doing a lot of running. Am I running every day? No way! I'm running 4 times a week and I make sure I get adequate rest in between each session. I know that I can't back up a long run with a speed session as I simply won't get good results and it's highly likely I will get injured.

I'm loving giving it my all when I do train and then resting when I'm not.

Yesterday i went for a lovely walk down the Cairns Esplanade with a girlfriend (Hi Liss!) it was nice, I was getting active but I wasn't pushing myself as hard as I could, I was just enjoying going for a walk. In the past every time I exercised I would have to do something "hard". I wouldn't have many rest days and looking back I could have got far better results by doing less!

Never underestimate the importance of rest. It's when we are resting that our bodies recover and build muscle! Some people want to weight train every day, remember more does not necesarily mean better results. Even when you split muscle groups when weight training most exercises incorporate a range of muscles so you still need FULL rest days!

Having rest days also enables you to really focus on your nutrition. You can still get great results simply by paying closer attention to your portions, including more vegies and eating as much unprocessed food as possible.

So as it's the time of year when everyone seems to have a cold, don't panic when you need to take some days of training as it will most probably do your body the world of good!

Happy resting!

Hilds