Rest and Recovery

After taking the muscle up course, for a mere two weeks, I was feeling run down. I decided against doing a class on handstand push ups because of that feeling. But even without doing an extra workout class in the evening, I found myself dragging in the mornings and struggling to stay awake in the afternoon. Combine that with a touch of a cold, and I ended up making a choice to take a break from working out.

Not just a one day rest day, or a two day rest weekend. No, I did nothing more strenuous than walking from Wednesday all the way through Monday. Six full days of rest and recovery. I even slept until I woke up naturally on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (yay, holiday).

It was weird not working out. My days didn't have the same structure. But I was falling asleep pretty well at night, even going to bed early most of those nights. I did stay up a bit on Sunday night, because I had Monday off work and I was actually feeling pretty good - like the rest and recovery was working!

I did consider going to work out on Monday, since I seemed to be doing so much better on Sunday. But I decided that one more day of rest would be best. After all, I wouldn't often be taking so many days off in a row, so better to have that one extra day in the chunk than have another single day off midweek.

So, I guess I'm learning to listen when my body tells me it's too tired - a task that takes its own particular brand of discipline.