The Importance Of Rest Days
One big mistake we often see people make is being too dedicated. They do an intense workout every day and never take rest days. Taking time to let your muscles recover is important. Without recovery time, you could be sabotaging your fitness goals. You actually build muscle tissue when you’re letting it rest. When you exercise, you make small microtears in the muscles. Resting allows those tears to heal, which builds muscle. If you don’t have that downtime, those muscles never heal and get stronger. Lack of rest can even decrease the size and strength.
Burnout is another problem caused by a lack of rest time.
If you notice you are dreading your workout or find yourself exhausted after just a few minutes working out, you may be suffering from burnout. It’s both a mental and physical phenomenon. While exercise burns off the hormones of stress, ironically, it also stresses the body, especially if you’re doing an intense workout. That stress also pushes each muscle group to the limit and can cause muscle injury due to exhaustion. It can cause sleep disturbances, a higher heart rate and lower the effectiveness of the immune system.
How can you tell if you need rest days?
If you’re doing a light form of exercise, like walking or leisurely riding a bike, you aren’t raising your heart rate significantly. You also aren’t pushing yourself beyond normal capacity. However, for people that continuously raise their heart rate significantly throughout the workout, resting those muscles is important. For instance, if you’re doing weight training every day and working on the same muscle group, you’ll lose ground, rather than build. One way to avoid it is to work different muscle groups. You can create a workout that focuses on six different areas, doing one every day and having one day of rest. That way every group gets six days of rest between workouts.
A day of rest doesn’t mean staying in bed or on the couch watching TV.
Active recovery, whether from an injury or hard workout, is a real thing. Active recovery is mild exercise, such as walking, bike riding, swimming or tai chi, can be done the day after a strenuous workout. It boosts circulation, aids in eliminating toxins, reduces muscle soreness, keeps muscles flexible and helps maintain consistency when you do it at the same time as you normally workout.
- When you include rest days in your normal workout schedule, you’ll improve your performance, increase agility and improve endurance. Stick with 150 minutes a week for intense workouts and fill in the rest with active recovery.
- When your workout is intense, you burn the stored glycogen in the muscles that is used for energy during the workout. If you workout without an adequate store, it causes fatigue and soreness. Rest days allow replenishment.
- Being too tired to workout, but pushing yourself to do so, also has other negative consequences. It causes you to lose focus and form, both of which can lead to injury.
- When you don’t rest, it causes stress on the body and increases stress hormones like cortisol. Cortisol has been linked to the accumulation of belly fat, chronic fatigue and poor quality sleep.
For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center
There’s a debate going on about whether you should wear a silicon wedding ring in the gym or not. At V.I.P. 1 to 1 Fitness in Fort Lee, NJ, most people don’t. There’s a reason for that, which correlates to the reason many people do wear a silicon wedding band at other gyms. At other gyms, people workout on their own and there are large groups of people at various stations, each working independently. Not all people go to the gym for the same reason. Some use fitness as an excuse.
Losing weight is all about changing habits and making lifestyle changes. Some of them are harder, like changing your entire menu, while others are easier, such as finding ways to increase your activity, even if it’s just taking the stairs. Drinking water can be one of those simple ways. In fact, it’s far simpler than even parking further from the store and walking more. (Although it can really help if you do both!) How can drinking water help you shed pounds?
There are many benefits from eating watermelon. As the name implies, it contains a lot of water, approximately 92%. That can aid in hydrating you and keeping you feeling full longer. Most people who come to VIP 1 to 1 Fitness know we not only emphasize staying hydrated, but also eating healthy, nutritious foods. Watermelon can be a delicious part of the solution. Hydration is important for organ functioning, regulating body temperature and delivering nutrients to cells.
Is cilantro a super-herb or just a wonderful herb to flavor salsa? It’s easy to answer. There are a number of healthy reasons for adding cilantro to your diet. The cilantro plant looks a lot like parsley when it’s growing and if it bolts and forms flowers, eventually those flowers turn to seed, which is another spice called coriander. People describe the taste of cilantro differently, with some saying it has a peppery, citrusy, fresh taste and others comparing it to the smell of linoleum or like eating soap. Fresh cilantro used to be more difficult to find, but now it’s sold fresh in most groceries in Fort Lee, NJ.
While everyone is different and has different experiences and health conditions, in general, it’s not only safe to workout when you’re pregnant, but also beneficial. However, ultimately, you need to discuss this with your health care professional, especially if you have health issues or complications. Even if you’re not a first time mother and have worked out previously, each pregnancy is different, too.
You don’t have to live in Fort Lee, NJ, to know that your lifestyle makes a difference whether you live longer or not. Whether it’s eating healthier, getting adequate sleep and hydration or participating in a program of regular exercise they all increase your potential lifespan by reducing the risk of serious illnesses or conditions. Man was created to move and only the fittest survived. Today, because of poor eating habits and lack of exercise, we see an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and an epidemic of obesity.
Parents in Fort Lee, NJ, like all parents across the US, want to find the healthiest foods for their kids, which includes looking for the best juices. It’s tough to do. There’s a lot to look at when searching the selection. It has to be something the kids will drink, be low in sugar and additives and contain the most nutrients possible. Of course, organic juice is a top priority. Studies show that some mistakes of the 1950s, where cities indiscriminately sprayed DDT for mosquito control, could affect generations of people, so limiting pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilizer is important.
You may be burning tons of calories and eating healthily, but still have layers of fat around your middle. Most people focus on losing weight, when they should be focusing on losing fat. There are a myriad of myths about losing fat that you’ll hear when you’re trying to shed that extra fat around your belly. It’s hard enough to get into shape, but the misinformation makes it even more difficult.
In this crazy world of weight loss and fitness, there are many different types of workouts and diets. One of the more radical types of quick weight loss diets that’s been around since the 70s is the pineapple diet. At VIP Fitness Center in Fort Lee, New Jersey, we don’t focus on a specific diet but a philosophy of eating that doesn’t require counting calories or even strict dieting, even if the pineapple diet were healthy, you wouldn’t follow it here.