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rest period
- Thread starter sexanoe
- Start date
I always hear how professional athletes get exhausted from a long sports season where they rest up afterwards. So I'm wondering is it good to have a period of no running (or lifting) and if so how long and how often.
Thanks
I can think of three reasons why an athlete would want to take a break or reduce their training load.
1. To physically heal.
2. To mentally heal.
3. Endurance reset.
The first two are obvious. I can tell you personally that I have things that ache and if I pushed year after year, I imagine a real injury would appear. I'm also a little mentally fried and am looking forward to December (break time).
The endurance reset:
If you start running and build up to 5 days a week, eventually you will be able to do it effortlessly. At that point, you will just be maintaining... ie... you will not improve. In order to improve, something will have to change... speed, distance, or time. You increase time, distance, and speed. But eventually you run out of time... there are so many hours in a day.
By taking a break, you lose fitness but you now reset back to a previous point. Think of it as taking three steps forward and one step back. Your training volume may not increase year after year but your level of fitness does. Otherwise, you would have to increase your volume year after year in order to see no gains.
This break period does necessarily mean an off period. It could be just light and unstructured training or cross training.
See periodization.
You should be constantly asking yourself what the appropriate level of fatigue to induce over a particular season or program to accommodate optimal levels of fitness improvement.
Do too much and you'll regress.
Do too little and you won't improve enough and possibly regress.
Invariably though, you do have to allow for fatigue to deminish (by way of rest or reduced volume) in order to fully realize your fitness improvements.
And nothing is set in stone. We each have different capabilities and recoverabilities so it's a matter of 'feeling' your way through. Or hiring a good as coach/trainer who can do it for you.
You should be constantly asking yourself what the appropriate level of fatigue to induce over a particular season or program to accommodate optimal levels of fitness improvement.
Do too much and you'll regress.
Do too little and you won't improve enough and possibly regress.
Invariably though, you do have to allow for fatigue to deminish (by way of rest or reduced volume) in order to fully realize your fitness improvements.
And nothing is set in stone. We each have different capabilities and recoverabilities so it's a matter of 'feeling' your way through. Or hiring a good as coach/trainer who can do it for you.