Friday, October 21, 2011

Rest and Muscles

Hi Everyone!

Yesterday was my rest day. It's very important to take rest time and allow your body to heal after hard workouts. If you don't give your muscles time to heal they don't rebuild properly. Having muscles is the key to having a great metabolism, and aging well.

We tend to lose 2% of our muscle every year after the age of 40. This loss of muscle is what slows down our metabolism (and you thought it was just part of getting older!) So here's an idea, keep working out, maintain your muscle mass, and maintain your metabolism! Also, working out strengthens your bones, helping to prevent other problems associated with aging, such as osteoperosis.

My field (occupational therapy) is focused on helping people to continue doing whatever is important to them in their lives, often after some type of injury or illness. There are things in life that sometimes happen that we can do nothing to prevent (accidents, natural disaster, etc). One thing that I can tell you for sure is that the more physically fit you are the higher your chance of recovery is. Plus the healthier you stay the more you decrease your chances of illness and injury in the future!

So start your personal fitness journey now. If you have any personal experiences or thoughts you would like to share post them in the comments below. I love to hear from you. I thought the quote below was relevant to today's talk.

There will be a new workout up today so be sure to look for it a little bit later!

Thanks for reading!
Melissa

What fits your busy schedule better, exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?
Randy Glasbergen, Cartoonist

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for the inspiration and motivation. I am all or nothing, I skipped a few days so it is always a challenge getting back in, but once I do I am addicted.Today is a new day.

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  2. I was reading this and thought: Muscles respond to time ;)

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  3. Rose-All you need to do is decide to do it today. :) I am sure your muscles needed a few days to recover from the high intensity of last week. Now you're ready to roll again!

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  4. Hi Melissa,
    Thank you so much for your inspirational workouts and a great attitude. I love training with you and have been following your workouts for almost a year now. I am currently training 3-4 times a week doing either full-body workouts like yours or having lower and upper body splits (2+2 days per week), training additionally abs and running about 20 minutes 2-3 times a week. Before, I used to train 5-6 times per week doing mainly your workouts and I felt that my body was overtraining and not building muscles. What is your training schema now? How often do you train/run? Is it every day and do you give yourself sometimes a rest? I noticed that 4-5 days rest after a training cycle of approximately every 6 weeks really helps to recover. I found this approach at Tatiana's blog. You can read more about it here if you're interested- http://www.lovingfit.com/fitness/how-to-train-for-best-results/
    http://www.lovingfit.com/fitness/recovery-week-and-active-rest/

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    Replies
    1. I take off 1-2 days per week. If I feel tired, or that I need more rest, I take more time. :) Thank you for sharing those articles. I will definitely read up on that. Rest is imperative for muscle growth to occur.

      I always think that the most important thing you can do is listen to your body.

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  5. Totally agree with you! Have a wonderful honeymoon, Melissa and Jesse :)

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