Getting Rest

I think as someone who thinks about physical exertion on a regular basis, I have been giving a lot of thought into rest. Many of my chiropractic patients in Cedar Park and Leander ask me about this. It is pretty simple knowledge that athletes know our muscles grow, not during exercise, but during rest. We know that getting the rest we need is necessary (we say we know anyway), but do we really rest? We should, we need to, but sometimes don't want to.

Here are some ideas to help us rest:

1)Getting a full nights sleep - This means getting 8 hours of uninterrupted rest.

2)Alternating our workouts so that we get recovery days - This means we must challenge the body with heavy days, but must allow the body to rest after these hard days.

3)Listening to our body - Sometimes we may begin to exercise but just feel like we can't. I am not talking about not into it, but our body just isn't feeling it. This is a great time to back off and ditch a workout.

Taking the time to rest and listen to our bodies is a great way to actually improve our athletic performance as well as preventing injuries.