Are you feeling burnt out?
It’s admirable to workout every single day.
Consistency is a huge factor in reaching any goal.
However, when it comes to fitness, balance matters… A lot.
If you want to be your best in the gym, being a workout warrior every day of the week, with no breaks, is not going to cut it.
When you work out, you beat up your body. This causes muscular, skeletal, hormonal stress that builds up over time. This, along with other stress outside of the gym (family, work, etc.) can take a HUGE toll on your body.
All of this stress needs to be balanced out somehow.
This is where recovery comes in.
There are 4 factors that, if abided by, can set you up for optimal recovery.
Rest Days
This means avoiding any kind of excessive stress to the body. This could be light activity like walking the dog, or it could be absolutely no activity like bumming out and watching Netflix all day.
Sleep
Getting that 6-8 hours can be the difference between being ready to dominate the next day, or feeling even crappier than you already do.
Nutrition
You are what you eat. If you eat great you will feel great. If you eat like poop then you feel like…
Hydration
Water keeps the body hydrated and performing at its best. If you are not good at drinking water but work your butt off in the gym, that would be like putting a drop of oil in a NASCAR stock car before a race. It just won’t end well.
When you take advantage of all 4 of these recovery strategies there is this phenomenon called Supercompensation.
Without sounding like a nerd, it’s basically what happens when you work out and then have adequate rest. Your body will adapt and come back stronger and better able to perform the workout that you just did previously.
With all this being said… It is very possible to not take any rest days and make progress.
Unfortunately, that approach doesn’t last long.
What happens when we train too frequently is called overtraining.
Some signs and symptoms of overtraining include
Constant fatigue
Frequently being sick
Nagging Injuries
Irritability
Decreased Performance
Workouts feeling harder than normal
Insomnia or restless sleeping
Loss of appetite
Menstrual disturbances
Depression
It’s easy to get caught up trying to give it your all in the gym.
But we need to keep the goal in mind.
The goal should be to keep improving, whether that be losing fat or gaining strength.
So if you truly want to give your best and get the most out of your training the focus might need to shift. Focus on killing it outside of the gym when it comes to taking rest days, sleeping, eating right, and drinking plenty of water.
And at the end of the day just listen to your body and try to hear it when it tells you it needs rest.
It’s not always about how hard you work in the gym. It’s about how hard you work AND how well you recover that gets you to achieve your goals.
At Gabriele Fitness, we don’t only pay close attention to our members’ fitness progress, we also help with recovery recommendations.
Contact us if you have any questions about how to balance exercise and downtime. We’re here to help