Listen to your body

What is the most important component of fitness? Cardio, weights, nutrition, or professional instruction?

It is recovery. If you do not allow your body time to recover it will not grow. All the best nutrition and training in the world will go to waste if you do not give your body time to adequately recover and adapt.

So many times, we are over zealous and go out of the gate full bore or feel the drive to keep going day after day. This is how we burn out or develop chronic injuries. A basic understanding of what happens in the body during and after workouts will make this perfectly clear.

It is not during the workout that we grow or adapt, it is after, during rest and recovery. During our workouts whether it be weight training or cardiovascular, we impose stress on the muscular and connective systems. This stress causes micro damage within these structures. This damage is what leads to increase strength and growth, if you allow the recovery process to occur. To withstand further stress placed on the body, you have many signals that repair and increase strength within these areas of stress.

Not only are you stressing the physical structures of the body you also stress the nervous, endocrine (hormone), and cardiopulmonary systems. These to will adapt and improve with adequate rest (decreased stimulus).

Without proper rest, and next importantly nutrition, the natural processes in the body do not have time to fully heal wounds or properly develop.

When and how long should you rest? That is completely up to each individual. Each person is unique. Listen to your body. This is foreign to most people but you will become better at knowing when you need a break. Look for lack of energy, decreased drive or motivation, weakness and other common signs of decreased performance.

You will be able to sustain your workout routine much longer and will find greater growth and enjoyment with this principle in mind.

"Get to work!"