What's that you said, Leslie's Body?

I have had several really excellent workouts lately, and because of this, it's difficult to make myself rest. Although it sounds antithetical, rest actually helps performance particularly in weight lifting or periods of intense training.

Weight lifting, or strength training, breaks down muscle and rest is required to rebuild the muscle, which will rebuild stronger. Resting, therefore, is important in a physical sense. I do find, as I get older, that I require a bit more rest than I did in my 20s, but in actuality, I feel I perform better.

Mental rest is important as well. There have been days that I just did not feel up to the challenge of going to the gym or the dojo, or I felt like skipping my run. Most of the time, the lethargy I feel has more to do with the stresses of my job or life in general rather than facing up to my training routine. In those cases, if I can get myself to the gym/dojo, 80% of the time, I can do my workout and the endorphins make me feel better. In the dojo, especially, I feel much better, as the energy of the students or the challenges of my own training can break me out of a funk. The other 20% of the time, the lethargy indicates a serious need to step away from workouts.

Common sense tells me that I need to rest today, as I have had a pretty intense week of activity and have an intense workout planned for tomorrow, but the desire to workout can override my sense on occasion. My much more intelligent cousin opted out of our run this morning and I applaud her for being able to make that decision. I, on the other hand, am concentrating on completing this post so I won't sit and *twitch* over my desire to be active! Listening to my body, which is telling me that if I go out and try to run, my knee will be angry with me later. Thanks, Leslie's Body.

The one best reason to rest and recover is that you do not want to run the risk of overtraining or burn-out. Many experts advise taking your resting pulse rate every morning to obtain an idea of your average. Once an average is obtained, if your pulse is 10 beats a minute higher than normal, it could be a sign of over training and fatigue. For me, a higher resting pulse rate sometimes indicates that I may be getting sick, I have noticed. This makes a great deal of sense, in that fatigue and over training can potentially compromise one's immune system. In fact, there have been times, I admit, that getting sick forced me to rest when I wouldn't have otherwise.

One of the fights I have daily is the struggle for balance. Listening to my body, knowing what my threshold is, and giving myself adequate time to rest will make me a better athlete in the long run.