Saturday, January 30, 2010

Importance of Rest from Your Workouts

By Joy Basilio

Relaxation and rest are critical to a successful fitness program. That means that you can chisel yourself into a hard, sexier body just by vegetating. When you are training, you tear at your muscle fibers. When the fibers heal, they develop into stronger and robust muscles. It is between workouts during your resting state that your system heals and transforms.

You definitely need to relax, stretch and heed your body before another workout.

Get enough sleep

Your body reconstructs itself best when you are asleep. Sleep deprivation also disturbs your normal hormone levels thereby depleting you of needed energy to get you ready for a good workout. Not only will you get an ineffective workout but you will also crave for sugar as an alternate energy source.

Test subjects who did not get plenty of sleep every night in a study of 1,000 volunteers at Stanford University had a greater body fat content when equated with the other subjects who kept a minimum of seven hours of sleep.

Take a break between your workouts

Give yourself a minimum of 24 hours between workouts. Take at least one day off every week. You can still get great results from strength training twice a week. Do not strength train more than five times a week because all your hard work would not get you anywhere if your do not let your body recover.

A huge percentage of bodybuilding pros have confessed that their biggest mistake when working out is over training. Your muscles are going to need rest for them to heal. Overworked muscles will not grow. If your workouts are done properly and with high intensity, you are setting yourself up for injury and over exertion. Do not forget that complete muscular failure and any stress in your body could take five to ten days to recover.

You can also over train even though you are working another area of your body the following day. You can discourage muscle growth if you work a major muscle group to failure then try to do some more heavy presses on another major muscle group the very next day. For example, after a hard workout of the legs, the body starts the process of recovery from the blow it has received by the workout only to be subjected to another blow from heavy bench presses.

Unless you take steroids or other drugs to help you treat the catabolic operations working inside your body, it will be immensely difficult for your body to endure another strenuous workout the following day. Therefore, include rest and recuperation as part of your work out program.

Do not neglect spasms and pains

Disregarding muscle irritation or cramping just confers you with bigger issues. If you feel any agony while working out, stop your workout immediately. If you feel tightness, stop to stretch the tight muscle. Stretch after your warm-up and at the end of your workout to maintain your body performing at its premium best.

Refrain from taking painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs

Delayed-onset muscle soreness, or DOMS as it is called by exercise physiologists, is characterized by sometimes muscle tenderness, muscle weakness and a decrease in range of motion. It usually peaks about 24 to 72 hours after an extreme cardiovascular or strength exercise event. Although anti-inflammatory drugs do appear to reduce muscle soreness during DOMS, studies show that they may slow down the ability of the muscles to repair the damage.

Eat appropriately

According to a study in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, subjects who snacked with a 4-to-1 ratio of carbs to protein within 30 minutes of their workout, offset muscle damage the most. That is because after a workout your body is damaged and depleted of energy, thereby requiring immediate attention.

You will also get the most immediate bounce-back if you drink your snack in liquid form because your body absorbs liquid faster than solid foods. You can purchase ready to drink protein shakes at most health food and grocery stores. Keep fat and sugar to less than 2 grams per serving. Have your shake with an apple, small banana or 1 cup of berries.

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