To rest or not to rest: that is the question.

As a trainer, I often talk to people about the importance of consistency in their workouts. Little progress can be made if workouts are few and far between as the body has to get used to exercise all over again. Gains made are lost, and it can be quite discouraging to constantly feel as if you are starting again from square one. In order to stay motivated, it is important to feel as if progress is being made.

On the other side of the coin, equal importance must be placed on avoiding overtraining and the unavoidable occurrence of plateaus. Overtraining leads to the same kind of soreness, chance of injury and loss of motivation you get from lack of consistency. The old adage "no pain, no gain" should be relegated to the back of your storage locker along with those neon tops you wore in the 80's! In order to stay consistent and continue to improve, it is crucial to listen to your body and give it a break when it asks for one.

In fact, it has been proven that backing off from your normal training routine every 4 to 6 weeks translates to bigger gains and is a surefire way to bust through plateaus. Have you ever wondered why some people reach a certain personal best and then never move on? The answer is more than likely that they do not give their muscles and central nervous system the rest it needs to regenerate and then form new and improved patterns. Olympic and Powerlifters often employ a training style known as cycling, where they work up to a personal best then drop down to just above where they started and again work up to a new PB. The lowering of intensity lets them again concentrate on proper form and technique and thus form new and improved CNS patterns, allowing them to avoid plateaus, overtraining and the resultant loss of training time. As regular exercisers, we should take a page from their book and do the same. As you can see from the above example, backing off does not mean doing nothing. It means lowering the intensity for a week or two and then working up to a new level of strength and health!

Try it. It has worked for me every time!