Kickboxing Chic’s BodyBlog

It felt like a high school BF/GF relationship all over again. You may be familiar with the ‘break-up-on-Monday-get-back-together-on-F
riday-at-the-football-game’ scenario that often occurs in teen relationships. It kind of felt like that last week when I temporarily broke-up with training. I’ve known for a while now that many of my fatigue/exhaustion issue, sleeping challenges, and other aches and pains are due to being over-trained. It was so bad the other week that I decided that I needed to take off more than one or two days. So I took off 4 days IN A ROW! I hadn’t done that since giving birth to my son. At which point I started easing myself back into the gym after 2 weeks. On Monday, I told training I needed to temporarily “break-up” with you. Then on Friday we got “back together”. So what did I learn during this 4 day break-up:

1.       I could actually commit to the time off without going crazy or giving in. Early in the week I did try to negotiate with myself that if I took off Monday and Tuesday, I could do something light on Wednesday. But I did not give in to my 4 day commitment.

2.       Sleeping problems are indeed a sign of over-training. I did actually sleep better by day 2. That is, I slept more soundly and did not wake up several times during the night.

3.       Exercise is a HUGE stress reliever for me. I felt tense and anxious all week because I didn’t have my normal outlet.

4.       The body needs rest in between training sessions in order for the next one to be productive. When I headed back to the gym by Friday my training was strong and I felt good. I didn’t lose any strength or endurance gains in 4 days. In fact, I felt great the entire day.

This was a good experiment for me. I probably don’t need to take off that many days in a row going forward, but I now know that building in shorter, more frequent rest/recovery periods is critical. I’ve always known these things, but have had a hard time actually doing it. After all, we all have an addiction to exercise to some degree which can have its mental challenges like any other addiction.

The other big convincing factor for me was I used my time from training to prepare for the ACE PT Exam I’m taking on May 30^th. Changing my career towards my true passion is VERY important to me, so it was an easy trade-off. But I’m glad that training and I have made up and we are back together now.