The Rests are Part of the Music
A lot of people struggle with starting/maintaining an exercise habit, so it’s not surprising that folks with the opposite problem – exercise addicts (EAs) – get a lot of positive attention. They’re soooo disciplined, after all. Everyone should be just like them…right?
Not really. Always striving to feel the “burn” for 2 – 3 hours/day, 6 – 7 days/week, can actually be counterproductive for achieving an optimal body composition and strength performance. Ironically, while most of the EAs who end up on my radar screen are in decent shape, they typically find their results stop short of the effort they put in: the six pack remains elusive or the last 5 – 10 pounds refuses to budge. True to form, they join the forums I mod, hoping to discover what MORE they could be doing to get past the plateau they’re stuck on.
Problem is, you can only push yourself so hard, for so long before you reach a point of diminishing returns. Thus, one of the first things I advise them to do is take a training break.
Needless to state, this is NOT what they want to hear, and it never fails to freak them out. Why?
Because – for your typical EA – working out is an expression of control…the results are only important as an external sign of self-mastery. They have an emotional investment in the process, so feel completely lost without it, even though it’s only temporary – about a week or so.
What they have a hard time grasping, however, is that R & R is vital to a workout program: your muscles, joints and CNS all take a beating during a hard workout, and need to recover. If you want to make progress – you can’t rush this. This doesn’t mean being a couch potato, of course, but it does mean making sure that you spend a certain amount of “quality time” OUT of the gym, as well as in it.
It’s just like taking vacations, holidays and weekends off from work – no matter how satisfying your job may be, it’s not healthy to be a “workaholic” – not only do you pay a physical and emotional price for it, the quality of your work suffers too.
As I put it to one forum member (who was pulling at the leash to get back into the gym):
“I have a book on my shelf (the Don Juan Papers) that contains an interview with anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff. In that interview, she made a point that I’ve always found interesting, which pertains to your situation.
“At that time, I was playing with a chamber music group, and the fellow who played the oboe kept saying to me: ‘You’re not listening to the rests. You’re treating them as if they were absent instead of being part of the music.'”
This is precisely what you’re doing.
I suspect part of the reason is that working out means more to you than a means to an end…it signifies personal control. It means you have command over yourself and your body – it shows by pushing yourself to the limits. Thus, its absence signifies a loss of control.
But true control means being able to shift back and forth. The rests are part of the “music,” not simply gaps to be filled with impatient waiting. Working out should be something you do because you WANT to, not because you’ll hate yourself if you don’t.”
With all the emphasis on exercise – especially for getting “toned” and losing weight – the need for rest and recovery often gets overlooked. And when you’ve caught the habit – at long last – it can be hard to let go. But the “rests” are an important part of any long-term fitness program, so it’s important to treat them – and your body – with the respect they deserve.
