Sit A While
Rest days are important, aren’t they? What about a rest week? CrossFitters are a committed bunch of folks. It’s hard enough to convince people to have regularly scheduled rest days, let alone the value that a rest week can provide. Check out the post below from Rainier CrossFit and think about how you could make this work…
[separator /]
Ever feel like getting to sit is the best part of the workout?
There will come a time when you’re a little burnt out, uncharacteristically achy, and drained. It’s just a way for your body to tell you it needs a break. We can’t expect progress without rest, and we can’t get adequate rest unless it’s an intentional part of our training.
Enter the de-load week.
Machines are amazing. They can perform at maximum output for months upon months upon years without skipping a beat. And when they do slip up, they can just get the parts replaced or their programming retooled. Humans are not machines. We can’t perform at maximum output for months and even years, only stopping to get a quick tune-up or a replacement part. However, humans are better than machines, with our ability to organically heal our own bodies and recover from injuries and wounds and illnesses, but we require time to do so. It doesn’t happen overnight, though, and in the absence of pharmacological assistance, there are no easy ways around this simple fact of our existence.
People get that, I think. They know that when you slice your finger open cutting a tomato, it’s going to be a few days or a week before it heals and closes up. They know that continuing to use that particular finger without modifying their behavior will probably prolong the healing time. But when it comes to training – to lifting weights, running sprints, doing endurance work – people seem more likely to throw this basic physiological concept out the window, even though exercise-induced muscle damage needs healing time, too. Otherwise, you don’t get the muscle adaptation, the progress, the strength, the fitness. You only get the damage.
That’s why, if you’re training on a consistent basis, you may need a deload week.
Wait – what’s a deload week?
(Source: Rainier CrossFit)