The best supplement for your fitness routine: REST

All right. Article done. No arguments here! Just kidding!! This one definitely needs to be explained and understood, for the purpose of sharing a hard-learned lesson and hopefully impacting you to change your thoughts for the better on how crucial resting is. 

Let’s take two subjects, a man and a woman. Both are active, energetic, and adventurous, with a tendency to push through hurdles. Unfortunately sometimes the act of pushing through was done blindly…and forcefully. 

The man is methodical and meticulously focused on improving his health through self-structured fitness routines. He’s had the benefit of years of experience and confidently strives to adapt and change his routines for the best outcome. Suddenly, in the middle of a strength training exercise, he feels a sharp pain in his bicep and shoulder. The test results show that there is mild to moderate inflammation in his tendons and ligaments. In simple terms, he’d overworked his muscles and they needed time to recover. What was missing? The proper balance of rest and recovery. 

The woman is enthusiastic and constantly trying different types of exercise. Her history started with a militaristic type of training that involved dance aerobics, swimming, and calisthenics. She evolved under the guidance of her husband who supported her individual needs and targeted exercises and routines that would support her body. She perseveres through various health complications, at times overcompensating for lost time by overexerting, ending up in a vicious cycle of drawn-out periods of rest with sporadic exercise. What was missing? The proper balance and UNDERSTANDING of rest and recovery. 

Are you finding the point here yet? No matter what your story is or why you’re working out if you don’t implement some form of rest and recovery you risk not only injury but time and aggravation. Aggravation is our own personal experience, being shuttled from one specialist to another, physical therapy appointments, chiropractors, and acupuncturists all while going to get imaging (X-rays, CT Scans, MRI). Through the aggravation came a realization, we really didn’t want to be doing this anymore, so we had to take control. Working with the professionals, we started questioning their methods and asking questions to be better informed. We didn’t just want to learn how to heal that injury, we wanted to learn what we could be doing to actively prevent it. 

We stripped away those ingrained mottos, those that didn’t serve the purpose, “No pain, no gain” doesn’t do anyone any good, think about it, maybe we need to provide more information with that. How do you differentiate normal lactic acid build-up burning from delayed onset muscle fatigue? Those are two completely different types of pain. We learned to differentiate the pain we were feeling, and the fatigue our body was showing us, and instead of ignoring it we actually paid attention to it. 

Learning to accommodate your body and break away from the invisible pressure we put on ourselves is the path to longevity. Think of it like black and white, or salt and pepper, and make the connection that fitness goes hand in hand with rest and recovery. 

Start with making your recovery accessible to you, what can you learn from the professionals to take home with you? Sign up here to stay posted for our easy-to-follow guides! 

Follow our pre and post-workout routine here. We emphasize making sure that our muscles and joints are warmed up properly, and take the care to stretch and rest afterward. We’re both proud to say that we’ve successfully been able to maintain endurance and level up along the way!