Winding Down: Time To Give Your Body A Break

Strength Columnist Jeb Stewart says it's time to get some rest!

The season is done for many and winding down for the rest of us. Some may be burned out and some may be still want more. Either way, it's a good time to give yourself a chance to relax, rest and recover.

With racing available from March all the way through October, if you can get through the season alive and vital, I commend you. Whether you've arrived at the end of your season burned out or in peak form, now is the perfect time to take some time to do nothing. That's right, you heard me correctly, nothing. Well, sort of!

The term “nothing” is relative I guess, but the point is that you need some time where you don’t “have” to do anything. Instead, it is not only nice, but extremely good for your body, mind and spirit to take two to four weeks where you don’t look at a training schedule, don’t follow a plan and don’t even think about structure. Instead you should get some extra rest, enjoy doing other activities that you don’t “allow” yourself to do during the racing and training season and have some good old fashioned fun.

After a long season where the body has taken an extreme amount of abuse, otherwise referred to as training and racing, it needs an extended break from going hard to truly recover from all the cumulative stress. Not only are the muscles, joints and connective tissue worn out, but the nervous system is overworked and in need of some rest as well.

The mind is an often forgotten part of the process. It amazes me at that people are surprised people are at how run down and even depressed they can get at times during the season. Was the body really meant to train 600+ hours a year? Continually pushing ourselves beyond the limits takes its toll on our nervous, endocrine and just about every other system in the body. This can lead to an excessive level of mental fatigue and the only way to rejuvenate our minds is to take a break.

It is equally amazing to me how difficult this time of the season can be for many athletes. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it might be challenging for people who are willing to get up at 4 AM to get in a two hour workout before the sun comes up to just chill out. I am always surprised by athletes who don’t want a break. Maybe they haven’t pushed themselves hard enough during the year. Maybe they are just really tough. Or maybe they don’t know how to relax? My guess it is a combination of all of these, but regardless, you need to take some time off if you want to continue in your fitness progression and enjoyment of the sports you love. Not doing so can be fatal and come back to haunt you sooner than later.

So enjoy this time! How often do you get license to be lazy, to slack off and to do what you want? Not often enough, in my opinion. Not unlike most of the things we do in the course of our training, even this has a purpose and just like those rest days and rest weeks, without it we will not get as strong as we could be and instead might get burned out by the very activities we love most.

Take this time to get some extra rest. Sleep in, take naps and allow yourself to enjoy it. This is also a good time to do some of the other things you enjoy doing like gardening, spending time with friends and family, or anything that you never get around to during the course of your racing season. Get some work done around the house; get that creative project done that has been on the back burner all year. You can enjoy some cross-training, just remember not to jump into anything too crazy like basketball or long distance running until you have had some time to work back to avoid getting injured. After all, that’s what the next phase of the season is all about.

It’s only a couple of few weeks! Enjoy it while it lasts because soon it will be a distant memory that you’ll be day dreaming about when it comes time to go out in the chilly winter weather to do your base miles. You earned every last second of it with all of the hard work you put in this year. You deserve it, so enjoy it, coach’s orders!

Jeb has a Master's degree in Exercise Science and Health Promotion and is certified by the ACSM, NSCA, USAT and USA Cycling as an Elite Level Coach. He is a performance consultant to the AEG/Toshiba Professional and Travel Girl Elite cycling teams and a Category 2 cyclist. He is the co-creator of The Next Level, Strength Training for Endurance Athletes DVD, contributes to Bicycling magazine, Runner's World, Tri-Newbies.com, Ironman.com and the Daily Peloton. He owns and operates Endurofit, LLC, a coaching and consulting company dedicated to performance enhancement for athletes, coaches and organizations. For more information, visit www.endurofit.com or contact Jeb at jstewart@endurofit.com.