Light Days

You've all heard the commercials about light days. Although being a man I can't relate, but I can relate to you what it means to have a light training day or no training at all scheduled. These days are often full of confusing thoughts such as "I should head to the gym, I should hit the water, or I should take a short ride."

Any age-grouper training for an event will have these thoughts. However, the ones that act on them to "sneak" in another training session are actually hurting their bodies. Too often age-groupers (or average people like you and me that aren't in the 1% athletic gene pool) want to push ourselves too hard and ultimately OVER TRAIN. By doing so, we don't let our bodies fully recover to improve fitness levels. In fact, we actually end up hurting our bodies and ruining our conditioning.

The body is like a machine. It needs to be treated with respect and it needs to build upon each weekly training day to improve. Every time we exercise we actually break down our muscles. When we stop exercising our bodies are continually fighting a war to repair the damaged muscles. When our bodies repair itself we see fitness level improvements. Off days are necessary to improve fitness.

Therefore, your next light day take time to catch up on other things in your life. Spend time with others in your life such as kids or spouse. They will appreciate the time and will be reenergized to support you during your long training days that are yet to come.

You keep reading and I'll keep training. If you have a specific topic you want me to cover, just let me know!