When you make the decision to embark on a weight loss journey and begin your exercise program there is a tendency to over-train because of your excitement and enthusiasm and not enough time is spent mapping out a plan which will get you to your destination. Rest and recovery is an essential and key component of a successful fat loss program. Allow me to explain why…
In order for your muscle to grow or become stronger it needs to be stressed or stimulated more than it is used to. That’s why it’s so important to always progress from workout to workout. When you are working out or exercising you are breaking down your muscle tissue. Working out alone is only part of the puzzle when it comes to developing your dream body.
Once the muscle tissue is broken down it needs to be repaired. To repair the muscle tissue requires the intake of healthy natural foods that contain adequate amounts of macro and micro nutrients.
Just as important for your muscle to grow and repair itself is sleep and rest. What I mean by rest is taking days off and not working your muscles. Let me share a recent example with you.
1 week ago I did a heavy and exhausting leg workout. Since then I have been riding my bike for 30 minutes every day. Today it was time for another leg training session. I had my workout journal with me and it was time to progress, but rather than increasing the weight I was going to progress by decreasing the rest period between sets.
After my warm up I loaded up the weight that I had done the previous week for 10 reps. This time I could only get it up 6 times. I just didn’t have the strength. My legs felt exhausted. They had not fully recovered from the previous weeks training and all the biking that I had been doing.
With all that biking you would think that I was doing a great thing. But I wasn’t. All I was doing was continually breaking down my muscle. I was doing more damage than good.
I’ve been talking a lot about muscle in this article. Women, don’t let that word scare you. Muscle is your friend when you want to burn fat. More important is that muscle will shape your body and provide you with the sexy curves and definition that you love to see staring back at you in the mirror.
The message that I want you to take from this is that no matter how excited and motivated you are about your fat loss goal, you’ve got to take a step back and realize that you are doing yourself a world of good when you take a day off from exercising.
Use those days off to work on your nutrition, write out your goals, visualize how great you look in your lean and sexy body, plan your up coming week of workouts, get a massage, and get others involved in your healthy lifestyle.
Scott Tousignant, BHK, CFC is the creator of Unstoppable Fat Loss… “Empower Your Mind… And Your Body Will Follow”. Scott has also authored 2 books that are transforming the bodies of people around the world. The Fit Chic and The Fit Bastard not only contain a FULL YEAR of workouts, they provide intense motivation to drive you to fat loss success.
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