For the majority of the general public, you need to do more exercise and consume less calories. FACT. But YOU are not the general public, you are members of Primal Fitness Hub. An elite group of amateur athletes that work your butts off every time you step into the gym.
You have now begun to realise how awesome training feels and want to do it as often as possible. But hold your horses. Believe it or not sometimes less is actually more.
Our bodies are controlled by our central nervous systems. When we are tired, achy, ill and injured our central nervous system (CNS) is working hard to deal with that problem, if we then go and train on top of this that can be way too much stimulation.
When your central nervous system is preoccupied with healing it has less energy to put towards smashing a workout. So what happens is if we train hard multiple times in a row we actually end up performing poorly and are at risk of developing sickness and injury.
So the solution…. The best way is to listen to your body. Some of you are fit enough now that you could put in two days in a row and perform optimally on both those days, others would need a day off. If you have any wearable bio-metric feedback technology like heart rate monitor a great way of checking for over training is an elevated resting heart rate.
Nutrition plays a huge part in recovery. If we are eating inflammatory foods such as items that are highly processed or high in sugar our bodies will focus on dealing with this poison as opposed to recovering from training. It's important we eat whole foods and balanced meals.
Things to avoid…. The worst kind of rest days are the days that you do nothing. We need to always ensure we are moving plenty, going for walks and doing some mobility.
If you have any questions about this please get in touch. I am currently developing a programme for online personal training. Through this I will be able to add in classes, workout routines, mobility routines and nutrition. This will be launching in March with a 50% discount for Hub members.