Rest!

I wanted to go over something we may not spend enough time on – rest! Yup, that’s right. Even in the world of destroy oneself CrossFit, you need to rest. There are all kinds of rest, and all kinds of times you need to think about it. Let’s go over some…

Strength Days

There is probably a fairly strong contingent of you who love waking up and seeing that the WOD for the day is just a Strength. You think about the numbers you’re going to put up, what you did last time, and how you won’t be finished lying in a pool of sweat, blood, chalk, puke, etc. For some of you, you don’t love these days for the very same reasons – what, no intensity today???

So that’s the part I want to talk about. A strength day should be crazy intense. It’s definitely a different kind of intensity, but it’s intense for sure. In order to hit that intensity, there are a few things that need to happen. The first is something I can’t stress enough – proper technique. Don’t get caught up chasing a 3 rep max back squat when your air squat still needs work. Don’t jump the gun on adding load when you’re not ready. It’s a solid recipe for injury and something nobody wants.

The second thing is ample recovery time. You have to make sure to give your body a fair amount of time between sets so that you can give each set your best effort. That’s the rest I’m talking about. Depending on the movement, you might be able to get away with shorter rests if you’re developing a skill as much as you are a strength. But for the most part, you want to rest a solid minute or two at a minimum. This allows your body to get the most out of those strength days.

Sandbaggin’

Before I move on to other kinds of rest, let’s talk about those days where a Strength is coupled with a Met-Con. I know those can be tricky. A lot of times you’re asked to do a fair amount of heavy work in a short amount of time. Throw in your warm-up set or two and now you’re really on a time crunch. It’s understandable to rest a little less on those days, but do yourself a favor and don’t lower the intensity on the strength portion.

Those secondary met-cons are programmed to be after that strength, and will most likely not take quite as much out of you as a full blown met-con. Keep that in mind, and make sure you’re not shorting yourself valuable strength and skill development by going light and flying through the strength portion.

Might be time for a rest day.

Rest Days

People often ask me how often I workout, and what I would recommend for them. The truth is, I don’t think there is an answer which applies for everyone. I like to workout as often as I can, and generally listen to my body on when I need to rest. In some cases, I’ll rest after a hard couple of days. In others, I may workout every day for over a week straight. I’ve become familiar with what my body can do, and how it’s feeling, so for me it’s fairly easy to tell.

Main site recommends 3 days on, 1 day off. That’s a great general rule, and if most people followed that, they would probably find that it works really well for them.

Depending on your schedule and when you like to come in to the box, you may find that you can modify that slightly. 3 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 1 day off is one example and works for people looking to work on a 7 day schedule. And the variations from that are pretty endless.

What is a Rest Day?

When I talk about rest days, I may not be thinking of it exactly the way you are. I like to make almost all my rest days what I would call active rest days. That doesn’t mean you can’t veg out for a day after doing a couple of heroes and Fran in a 3 day period. I just personally prefer to use most of my rest days to do something fun. Most of those days, I’ll surf, snowboard, play volleyball, basketball, tennis, or any other sport I generally like. I love to move, and the more I move, the better I feel!

I briefly tried the Uberman sleep schedule, where you only sleep 15 minutes at a time every couple of hours - FAIL!

Sleep

Ah, the ultimate rest. There is such a thing as too much sleep, but I’m pretty sure there are few people in our world that have that problem. So get as much as you can. It will help you in so many ways. It improves your performance in the box, your energy levels, your focus and mental acuity. You name it and there is some sleep study out there that connects how it can help. And now it’s time for me to get some…

Speaking of Strength days…

Workout of the Day 1/31/2012

Strength.
Clean 3-3-3-3-3