Is it No Pain. No Gain. or Listen To Your Body: The Importance of REST as a part of your training.

No.
REST is not an acronym. It doesn't stand for your insanely intense and acutely painful training session, nor some trendy IM jargon for 'moxy.'  It's capitalized to stress it's importance. Rest needs to be on the calendar, built into your training plan. Rest is as important as that LSD run.  It's as important as that brutal MVO2 session too. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the benefits from all of your suffering and all of your training comes during your rest. Miss your rest and you may as well have phoned in your training session. For many of us, however, rest may be harder than any session we see during a given month.

The importance of rest has been stressed to me, repeatedly, by some incredibly fit, mind-numbingly fast and successful triathletes. That said, as with most lessons strewn randomly on and off the beaten path of endurance sports, I have repeatedly and grossly missed the mark.  OK wait.  Is it, "No Pain. No Gain." or "Listen to you body."?  I ALWAYS screw that up!  Well, let me go on record...I'm here to advocate for the latter.

Q: So why is it so very, very important to listen closely to the messages your body is sending you?  A: Our bodies are intelligent; far more intelligent than we are.  There's nothing more apt at self preservation than...your self.

# 142 Our motto: "Always Ride Over Your Head".

I always fell into that macho crap-trap of being a 'tough guy'.  This is not boasting, but more so admitting the epic level of idiocy that I embraced as I ended my involvement in one sport and started another. 

 I once went to a late afternoon lunch with my former motorcycle racing team mates.  Typically, this was the highlight, the decompression after an always stressful day at the track. Half way through my go-to post race meal of Jack Daniels and a veggie burger my appetite was interrupted by nausea and dizziness. I though.  "F@#$!  90 minutes earlier I had a 'bit of a tip-over'. I'd better let the doc have a look."   4 days later I signed myself out of the hospital, AMA: Against Medical Advice.  I had compression fractures in my neck and back, (C3&5, T 3, 4, &5), a spiral fracture of my left femur, broken right clavicle, acromioclavicular separation, the long head bicep was detached, 8 fractures in my left hand and wrist, 5 rib fractures, (two were displaced) and an STBI with a Glasgow Coma Scale grading of 12. (a fancy name for a knock on the head). All this...but I wasn't gonna let anyone know how much I hurt.  Why?  Cuz I was an idiot!  Macho. 

Where did all of this macho, touch-guy crap leave me?  Injured.  No, not hurt.  Injured.  Trying to climb back to fitness, I ran. I did hill repeats. I rode. I did hill repeats on the bike. I swam.  I swam more.  Now...I'm covered in scars from surgeries. I walk like an old man.  "That's OK dude!  Chicks dig scars!"  Yeah, right! See how deep that load of crap goes? Even in failure, there's always room for 'macho'...right? Finally, I've learned. Better late than never. 

Had I rested when I really needed to, I'd be miles ahead of where I am now.  Years ahead, in fact.  I thought I was being tough, pushing through the pain.  I was!  I was truly "Embracing The Suck!". But I was being stupid at the same time.  The pain I was feeling during training often wasn't the "right" pain.  It wasn't DOMS, Delayed onset muscle soreness. It was 'warning signs' pain.  It was my body breaking down as the result of repeated overuse and often...improper use.  When you feel pain, think about it from a physiology point of view!  Why is your body giving you pain signals?  It's telling you that needs to heal!  It needs to repair itself. It needs rest.

Lengthened calf muscle to accommodate Achilles replacement.

Q: What happens when you don't listen?  A: Your "-itis" will turn into "-osis". In my case, doing my best to climb off out of the proverbial pain-cave, I started training with passion and a purpose. Each session was purposeful.  Unfortunately, each session was a little too intense, and more than my body could handle.  I...could handle it, but my body couldn't. I thought I ended up with a touch of Achilles tendonitis.  I was wrong, again. Icing my worn out parts eventually turned into replacing my worn out parts.  A couple of years ago I finally had my left Achilles tendon replaced.  The work done on my calf in order to accommodate the upgrade was not pretty.  With a touch of vanity, I have to say that the scars and stitches, and the lumps from a graft-jacket has banged up perhaps the only attractive parts left on my body; my legs.  In the end, however, I'm well.  The lesson, though, was lengthy, uncomfortable, and mentally taxing.

Tendinopathy:
Tendinitis is the inflammation of the tendon and results from micro-tears that happen when the musculotendinous unit is acutely overloaded with a tensile force that is too heavy and/or too sudden. Tendinitis is still a very common diagnosis, though research increasingly documents that what is thought to be tendonitis is usually tendonosis^.

Tendinosis is a degeneration of the tendon’s collagen in response to chronic overuse; when overuse is continued without giving the tendon time to heal and rest, tendinosis results.

So, did you have too hard of a run?  Then keep your sessions in the pool for a couple of days. Rest those leg muscles and joints. Are your quads burning?  GOOD!  Well done!  Are your knees tender, with chronic, acute pain?  BAD!  Can't lift your arms above your waist after a huge swim session?  Good job!  Can't sleep three days later because of inflammation in the tendons of your shoulders?  Bad. Give it a rest! 

Give it a rest.

1. Sleep is the best rest.  If you can't sleep, limit your physical activity as best you can.
2. Include one complete rest day every 6, 7, or 8 days.
3. Your foam roller may not improve your performance but will greatly reduce the likelihood of injury, reduce pain, and reduce perceived exertion in your next session.
4. Vary your session: 
1. Purpose
2. Speed
3. Intensity
4. Duration
5. NEVER overlook mental recovery
6. Optimize your rest with specific nutrition.
7. Push yourself physically, but don't crush your body.
8. Push yourself mentally, but don't crush your passion or will.
9. Your resting recovery and active recovery ought to be correlated to the level of work put out during your sessions and races.  

Enjoy yourself.  If you're not making a living doing this...enjoy yourself.  Preserve that body for as long as you can.  You don't get another one.

Hugs

 

Andy Blasquez